It was all too easy to take Jordan's stability for granted under the long reign of King Hussein. His experience and sheer political nous were fundamental. Although a small state, Jordan has a pivotal position in the Middle East's politics, straddling many of its fault lines. King Hussein was trusted and admired by most of its key figures, as by their Western interlocutors. They will miss him deeply. Even when they disagreed with him they could rely on his judgment and legitimacy as a guide for their actions.
Those fault lines will continue to determine the region's destiny. They include the divisions between Israel, the Arabs and the Palestinians, and between traditional and modern elements within the Arab world. King Hussein was able to mediate between them by virtue of his monarchical role and his ability to communicate in a contemporary and often streetwise fashion. He was certainly not a democrat, but he presided over a vibrant kingdom in which many of those opposed to him had much greater freedom than in neighbouring Arab states. Throughout his career he maintained the ability to control Jordan's political and administrative systems, and - crucially - its armed forces.
The care he took to ensure a satisfactory dynastic succession by transferring it from his brother Prince Hassan to his son Prince Abdullah illustrated these concerns well. He was reported to be dissatisfied by his brother's interference with the armed forces and worried that his likely ruling style might be inappropriate. His decision brings a political neophyte to power, which could be a source of instability in the months and years to come. But from the point of view of dynastic succession it may be more important to keep the armed forces on side.
King Hussein had a complex and sensitive, and occasionally a ruthless and turbulent, relationship with the Palestinians in his kingdom. Their number grew dramatically from 85,000 in 1948, when Israel achieved its independence, to 410,000 in 1967, when he lost Jerusalem and the West Bank to Israel, to an estimated 950,000 in 1991 after the Gulf War. The continuous assertion by Israeli politicians over those years that "Jordan is Palestine" was unsettling; the attempted Palestinian insurrection to prove it true in 1970 was put down with exemplary brutality as a mortal threat to the kingdom's very existence. Thereafter King Hussein managed relations with his Palestinian subjects in a skilful fashion, allowing them to settle and develop Jordan's urban and commercial life.
He thereby gained credibility and legitimacy as a regional leader in the successive efforts to bring peace between Israel and the Palestinians. This culminated in the Madrid and Oslo peace processes, which he wholeheartedly supported, despite their so far minimal achievements, compared with earlier expectations. His departure leaves much uncertainty in Israel, in Syria and in Lebanon, where his role in guaranteeing a stable Jordan can no longer be taken for granted.