Jordan: Living in the Crossfire

Jordan has played a bigger role in Middle Eastern affairs than its size and economy might warrant, due to its huge Palestinian population, its strategic location between Israel, the West Bank, Syria and Iraq, and its uniquely close relationship with successive British and US administrations. Drawing on numerous visits to the country and interviews with a diversity of people from King Abdullah down, Alan George describes how its reasonably stable monarchical system, unlike that in most Arab count…