Abdullah II of Jordan Quotes
I think this is really a defining moment for the Arab world. The problem is, it is all going to be about blood, sweat and tears. In certain countries it may be just sweat, and in some countries sweat and tears, and in some countries, as you can see, a lot of blood. I think initial instability is something that we are all extremely nervous of.
Abdullah II of Jordan. Interview by Charlie Rose. Charlie Rose, PBS, 21 Sept. 2011.
The ambassador's hyperbole caused or was the excuse for President Lyndon Johnson to send the marines into the Dominican Republic. There were only two American civilian casualties—both were reporters accidently shot by U.S. Marines.
The Turkish revolution was by historical standards relatively bloodless as compared especially with other republican revolutions like the United State and France. However, the revolution that brought Ataturk to power was a relatively mild one in terms of the immediate changes that unlike many revolutions which produced instant radical change. In Turkey, the radical change took place in the years after the revolution when Ataturk with hardly any bloodshed produced compulsory public secular education, scientific elevation in society, separation of mosque and state, gender equality including universal voting, change to western dress, elimination of the caliphate, speech and press freedom, and many others including changing the entire language to use the Latin alphabet instead of Arabic. No nation in history has gone thought more social and cultural change and modernized so fast as Turkey after its revolution. The result is the most modern and successful Islamic country in the world.
See Thomas Jefferson: {605051} for a somewhat similar notion.
Abdullah II bin Al-Hussein is King of Jordan, reigning since 7 February 1999. As a member of the Hashemite dynasty, the royal family of Jordan since 1921, he is a 41st-generation direct descendant of Muhammad.
