Yes, the Brits set up a few mideast monarchies, and as near as I can tell, the Jordanian one is the only one that survives. Maybe Morocco too, but that's pretty far afield to count as mideast. Oops, according to this link, they set up the House of Saud too. guardian.co.uk
It was the British who gave a country to the obscure House of Saud, and established equally illegitimate monarchies in Jordan and Iraq - ironically with the justification that the new Hashemite kings were direct descendents of the Prophet Mohammed.
The policy of fostering friendly rulers was continued by the US after 1945, when it took over Britain's repressive role. The CIA helped to overthrow a populist and anti-western Iraqi government led by General Abden Karim Kassem in 1968. The agency even prepared lists for the coup leaders of people it thought should be butchered. One of the most enthusiastic killers, of course, was a young man called Saddam Hussein. Several thousand are thought to have died in the massacre.
As near as I can tell, the original Hashemite dynasty fell out of favor circa 1200 AD, at least according to this ( apparently Jordanian oriented) link: chn-net.com
The power of the army officers had already weakened through internal rivalries when the Iranian Buyids entered Baghdad in 945, demanding of al-Mustakfi (944-946) that they be recognized as the sole rulers of the territory they controlled. This event initiated a century-long period in which much of the empire was ruled by local secular dynasties. In 1055 the 'Abbasids were overpowered by the Seljuqs, who took what temporal power may have been left to the caliph but respected his position as religious leader, restoring the authority of the caliphate, especially during the reigns of al-Mustarshid (1118-35), al-Muqtafi, and an-Nasir. Soon after, in 1258, the dynasty fell during a Mongol siege of Baghdad.
Later in that page, we get this interesting bit of history, which may or may not be consistent with the one true Israeli line on the history of the region:
During World War I the Arabs joined the British against the Ottomans. In a revolt of 1916, in which they were assisted by Colonel T.E. Lawrence, the Arabs cut the Hejaz railway. In July 1917 the army of Prince Faysal ibn Husayn (of the Hashemite dynasty) captured al-'Aqabah, and by October 1918 Amman and Damascus were in Allied hands. In 1920 the Conference of San Remo (Italy) created two mandates, allotting the one over Palestine to Great Britain and the one over Syria to France. This act effectively separated the area now covered by Israel and Jordan from that of Syria. In November 1920 Abdullah, Faysal's brother, arrived in Ma'an, then part of the Hejaz, with 2,000 armed supporters intent on raising the tribes to attack the French, who had forced Faysal to relinquish his newly founded kingdom in Syria. By April 1921, however, the British had prevailed upon Abdullah to take over as ruler of what then became known as Transjordan.
Effectively, Turkish rule in Transjordan was simply replaced by British rule. The mandate, confirmed by the League of Nations in July 1922, gave the British virtually a free hand in administering the territory, although in September 1922 it was explicitly excluded from the clauses regarding the establishment of "a Jewish national home" and was closed to Jewish immigration. The British recognized Transjordan's independence under the rule of Emir Abdullah on May 25, 1923, codified in a treaty in 1928 (excluding matters of finance and military and foreign affairs, which remained in the hands of a British "resident"). In April 1928 a constitution was promulgated. Full independence was achieved after World War II by a treaty concluded in London on March 22, 1946, and on May 25 Abdullah proclaimed himself king. A new constitution was promulgated, and in 1949 the name of the state was changed to the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.
Throughout the interwar years Abdullah had been dependent on British financial support. He also was assisted by them in the formation of an elite force, the Arab Legion, which was commanded and trained by British officers but staffed with Bedouin troops, to maintain order and secure the allegiance of his Bedouin subjects. On May 15, 1948, the day after the Jewish Agency proclaimed the independent state of Israel and immediately after the British withdrew from their Palestine mandate, Transjordan joined its Arab neighbors in the first Arab-Israeli war. The Arab Legion, commanded by Glubb Pasha (John [later Sir John] Bagot Glubb), as well as Egyptian, Syrian, Lebanese, and Iraqi troops entered Palestine. Abdullah's primary purpose, which he had spelled out in secret discussions with Jewish envoys, was to extend his rule to include the area allotted to the Palestinian Arabs under the United Nations partition resolution of November 1947. Accordingly, he engaged his forces in the area of Palestine popularly known as the West Bank and expelled Jewish forces from East Jerusalem (the Old City). When the Jordan-Israel armistice was signed on April 3, 1949, the West Bank and East Jerusalem--an area of about 2,100 square miles--came under Jordanian rule, and the half-million Transjordanians were joined by almost half a million more Palestinian Arabs. This territory was formally annexed by the kingdom in April 1950. Israel and Britain had tacitly agreed to Abdullah keeping the area, but the Arab countries and most of the world opposed the king's action, and only Britain and Pakistan recognized the annexation. The incorporation of the West Bank, with 400,000 Palestinians, into Jordan, as well as a large refugee population that, on the whole, was hostile to the Hashemite regime, brought with them severe economic and political consequences. On the other hand, Abdullah did gain the Muslim shrines such as the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem's Old City, which compensated for his father's loss of Mecca and Medina at the hands of Ibn Sa'ud a generation earlier.
The current King Hussein traces his lineage back to the original Hashemite, Hashem, apparently great-grandfather of the Prophet Muhammed, and 8 generations before that. kinghussein.gov.jo . There seem to be rather long periods where nobody particularly ruled anything in that lineage, though.
This link gives all manner of Middle Eastern Royalty; the Hashemites have their little corner but don't seem that big in the overall scheme of things. homepages.tesco.net
As far as the locally popular Hashemite restoration goes, Wolfowitz just doesn't quite seem to be the guy to play the T.E. Lawrence role. Maybe his mentor Perle, the Dark Prince, would do better, or maybe Peter O'Toole could do a reprise. |
