It doesn’t happen here: Why ‘coup plot’ in Jordan sent shock waves

Jordan has long been the calm oasis at the center of regional storms, never the center of attention.

But its image of stability and calm was punctured Saturday when, under King Abdullah’s directives, the army placed the monarch’s half brother, former Crown Prince Hamzah, under house arrest and detained dozens of his associates across the country for an alleged coup plot.

Alarm quickly spread from here across the region and to Europe and Washington as the moderate oasis that foreign governments had long relied on – and perhaps many had taken for granted – was suddenly rocked with the waves of what was at the very least a royal family feud.

Messages of solidarity, along with expressions of concern and renewed appreciation for Jordan’s outsize geopolitical importance, poured into the kingdom.

In a press conference

Strength in stabilityTough timesWho is Hamzah?Foreign plot?