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I would very much like to discuss King Abdullah from a variety of angles. Is he doing a good job ruling Jordan? How solid is his monarchy? Is he too pro-western? Are there any other Arab leaders like him? What are his best qualities as king? Is he capable of leading the Middle East into a better future?
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1)alrightish
2)not very, mainly backed by a handful of rich and powerful families and the army
3)not too pro-western but he focuses too much on the superficial ways in which we could emulate the west rather than actually solving jordan's problems which would lead to sustainable development. Then we could be as western as we wanted.
4)not as far as i know
5)he looks bouncy?! No,really, the fact that the country is more open than before, and there is less mystery and protocol surrounding the royal court. He does not attempt to be the paternalistic leader that his father was, nor does he assume to have the same charisma (from a not-very-jordanian-of-me viewpoint his father had a tendancy to make the wrong decisions and was a nasty little philanderous man, who we all loved greatly (from the jordanian-patriot side of me)) I think he does essentialy want to make Jordan a better Hashemite Kingdom for the Jordanians, but he just can't quite seem to figure out how to without the threat of losing power to the islamists.
6)Maybe not the ME but Jordan, definitely yes if he stops messing about wasting money putting new computers and internet in schools and instead directs the money towards areas that need it like the health sector, public works etc...