Ebook: Our last best chance: a story of war and peace

A newsbreaking memoir that tackles head-on the toughest challenge in the world today.

When a dying King Hussein shocked the world by picking his son rather than his brother, the longtime crown prince, to be the next king of Jordan, no one was more surprised than the young head of Special Operations, who discovered his life was in for a major upheaval.

This is the inspirational story of a young prince who went to boarding school in America and military academy in Britain and grew up believing he would be a soldier. Back home, he hunted down terrorists and modernized Jordan's Special Forces. Then, suddenly, he found himself king. Together with his wife, Queen Rania, he transformed what it meant to be a monarch, going undercover to escape the bubble of the court while she became the Muslim world's most passionate advocate of women's rights.

In this exceptionally candid memoir, King Abdullah tackles the single toughest issue he faces head-on- how to solve the Israeli-Palestinian standoff- and reveals himself to be an invaluable intermediary between America and the Arab world. He writes about the impact of the Iraq war on his neighborhood and how best to tackle Iran's nuclear ambitions.

Why would a sitting head of state choose to write about the most explosive issues he faces? King Abdullah does so now because he believes we face a moment of truth: a last chance for peace in the Middle East. The prize is enormous, the cost of failure far greater than we dare imagine.

Review

Jordan has not escaped dissent but Abdullah has also shown a quicker understanding of what has been required in the short term... But the long term problems remain: a small state with a $20bn debt and a population where six decades of Palestinian refugee immigration has made the ruling Bedouin families who control the military almost a minority. The king, again, does not shrink from these problems and the need to tackle them... This first effort is well and colourfully written... I look forward to more books, hopefully outlining how he and his nation found a peaceful middle way out of this year of Arab unrest -- Alasdair Buchan Diplomat

About the Author

King Abdullah II spent his formative years in the United States, where he went to Eaglebrook and Deerfield, and in England, where he trained to be an officer at Sandhurst. A cavalry officer in the Jordanian army, he eventually became commander of the Jordanian Special Forces, a position that allowed him to forge invaluable relationships with intelligence and military offices around the world. The head of the Hashemite family, he is a forty-third generation direct descendant of the Prophet Mohammad. His family ruled the holy city of Mecca for more than eight hundred years and his great-grandfather led the Arab revolt for independence from Ottoman rule.