Jordan’s troubled king and his bothersome brother

AFTER 23 YEARS on the throne, King Abdullah looks tired, aloof and despairing of his kingdom. While his counterparts in the Gulf unveil grand visions, he sounds short of ideas: his favourite way to tackle a problem is to create a committee. As more Arab states normalise ties with Israel, Jordan’s strategic importance as a front-line state has dwindled. So has aid from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf, which used to be a primary source of revenue given Jordan’s lack of natural resources. Meanwhile prices for ordinary folk have soared; nearly half the young are jobless, and the economy—in the words of a disgruntled former prime minister—is bankrupt. In sum, Jordan and its king are unhappy.Mockery of the monarch has become more frequent. Leaks about his plethora of properties in America and Britain have forced Abdullah and his family to deny that they have squirrelled national wealth abroad. His recent sojourn in Frankfurt for back surgery has been prompting catty comments about the state of Jordan’s health service. The decision to level a poor neighbourhood near the palace, supposedly for aesthetic reasons, has enraged some of the Bedouin who were living there.