Patrick Cockburn, Avi Shlaim, and Nigel Ashton are all part of a love fest for King Husayn (or Khuuuuusaaain, as Peres used to call him). And please spare me the oft-repeated story of the poisoned cats. It was first one cat--when it was told over and over again by the King, and now it has become "suspiciously large number of dead cats". In the next authorized biographies of Husayn--and those two books are BOTH authorized--very disappointing in the case of Shlaim--the number of cats will grow to thousands of cats. And then Cockburn says that dismissing Glubb: "It gave the lie to Arab nationalist critics who denounced him as a stooge for the British and the Americans or a treacherous collaborator with Israel, though he cultivated close relations with all three." Oh, no it did not gave the lie. It was seen as a desperate act to save his throne and enhance his sagging fortunes in the kingdom at at time of Arab nationalist ferver (read Joseph Massad's Colonial Effects, pp. 178-185) and there were technial and perosnal resasons involved too. And comrade Joseph adds: "The king's decision to dismiss Glubb from his job did not signal a change in British-Jordanian reltions. The King (and Glubb) took pains to stress that dismissing Glubb was an internal Jordanian affair..."(p. 185). Husayn (or Khuuuuuusaain) needed to bolster his own position. (I like when I settle on an Angry Arab's official picture of a political leader. This will be the official one for Husayn because it showed him to be the buffoon that he was).