Royal feud has some Jordanians asking: Is this monarchy we want?

AMMAN, Jordan — A century ago this month, the British created Jordan.

In possibly the world's first instance of nation-building as consolation prize, they carved out a piece of desert with little water and even less oil from the ruins of the Ottoman Empire and gifted it to their Hashemite ally, Emir Abdullah bin Hussein, whose brother had been granted control of Iraq.

A hundred years later, the emir's great-grandson, King Abdullah II, celebrated the centennial of a country few believed then would still exist. Dressed in a gold-braided military uniform, the king marched to bagpipe music April 11 along an avenue lined with soldiers. Later, officials unfurled an almost 7,000-foot-long Jordanian flag they hope will enter the Guinness World Book of Records.

But the stately pomp was belied by a surprising circumstance: namely, that Jordan's monarchy is now