Yesterday's funeral of King Hussein marked the end of an era of unprecedented regional and global influence for Jordan, a small, poor kingdom of 4.5 million people and few wealth-giving natural resources.
With the death of its world-class leader, Jordan takes its place as a minor player in a turbulent area and its new monarch's influence and freedom of action have been dramatically diminished.
Nevertheless, rulers and presidents who rushed to Amman to attend the late king's last rites also sought to make their mark with his successor, King Abdullah II, the eldest son who never expected to be monarch.
Although very much the son of his father, the new king is an innocent on the cut-throat Middle Eastern political stage. This creates uncertainty because King Hussein is no longer available to intervene in crises both at home and on the Arab and Arab-Israeli levels. King Abdullah does not have his father's personal clout or polished management style.
On the other hand, King Abdullah is much more approachable than his father because he lacks the political baggage accumulated during 47 years on the throne of Jordan. It was for this reason that President Hafez al-Assad of Syria and the Saudi heir apparent, Crown Prince Abdullah, and several other Arab leaders who had testy relations with King Hussein travelled to Amman.
These leaders are looking for a fresh start with the new king. The Syrian President, who rarely leaves Damascus and did not initially plan to go to Amman, was probably persuaded by the Saudi crown prince, a close ally, to do so, with the object of drawing Jordan back into the general Arab consensus.
Aware that the funeral was the magic moment to promote Arab reconciliation, Baghdad, Khartoum and Tripoli, which have been excluded from the Arab mainstream for a decade, sent high-ranking delegations to Amman in an effort to counterbalance the large representations sent by the US, Britain, France and Russia. Thus, King Abdullah finds himself in a push-me-pullyou situation, with the Arabs on one side and the US and Israel on the other.
Before being sworn in, King Abdullah indicated that he would follow his father's policy on the peace process and told US journalists that he might be prepared to assist the US campaign to topple President Saddam Hussein of Iraq. This would please Washington but displease Damascus, Riyadh and the Gulf states. They favour freezing relations with Israel until it implements its agreements with the Palestinians and argue that change in Baghdad must come from the Iraqi people.
King Abdullah is already being courted with offers of financial assistance for Jordan's stagnating economy: Washington has pledged to speed up $300 million in assistance while the Gulf states have poured at least $250 million into the Jordanian Central Bank to stabilise the faltering currency.
In this situation the Arabs have an all-important ally, the majority of the Jordanian people who deeply resent King Hussein's "warm peace" with Israel and seek a modus vivendi with Baghdad, their major trading partner during the prosperous 1980s.
As King Abdullah has neither his father's political experience nor his charisma, the new king will find it difficult to ignore both the wishes of his people and the advice of Arab rulers of the older generation; particularly because the US has not delivered Israeli implementation of the Wye River accords negotiated by President Clinton and King Hussein last October and has failed to shake the regime of President Saddam.
King Abdullah's freedom of action on the Arab scene will depend on how he performs on the domestic scene. He has the support of the army, which will ensure stability; he rules through well-established institutions, which will provide continuity. But in the longer run, he must make radical changes.
Jordan's most urgent problem is shortage of water; next in terms of priority is boosting the growth rate of 2 per cent which does not match the population increase, so that more than one-third of Jordanians subsist below the poverty line and the middle class has been shattered by recession. The bureaucracy requires major reform; corruption and nepotism need to be assailed; the infrastructure is crumbling without investment. Tensions are palpable between East Jordanians and Palestinians.
Secular and Islamist opposition parties demand reinstatement of the democratisation process put in place in 1989 but frozen by King Hussein. The media clamour for a return to press freedom.
The Jordanian family have outgrown both the house King Hussein built and his paternalistic style of rule. His son now has the task of reconstructing the house and creating a new relationship between the crown and the people.