Sleek and modern, her office could be that of any successful executive. Its dark mahogany furniture and beige draperies look expensive but impersonal in their standard-issue corporate blandness. The desk is adorned with the obligatory photos of smiling children and spouse, but there is no hint of a particularly exotic locale: no jeweled Arabian daggers or Bedouin weavings, no spectacular pictures of crumbling Roman ruins at Jerash to indicate that this isn't an ordinary urban command post of 21st-century business.

Except for the royal portraits on the wall, that is. Gazing down with benevolent smiles, King Abdullah II and Queen Rania of Jordan look grand indeed in their official photographs: he resplendently decked out in full military regalia, she ravishing as usual in a black velvet dress, with a diamond tiara perched atop her glossy dark hair. In her daily life, Queen Rania may seem every inch the efficient manager, but how many bureaucrats can boast an actual crown—even if this queen did borrow the tiara she wore at her coronation from a relative. "It would have been foolish to buy one when there was already one in the family," she said with characteristic pragmatism. Today the 32-year-old queen is simply dressed in white pants and a black Yves Saint Laurent pullover, her slender fingers adorned only by a plain gold wedding band, her perfectly groomed tresses bare; although she is a Muslim, Queen Rania covers her head only to enter a mosque. Friendly and warm but brisk, she seems indistinguishable from any American working woman who keeps one eye on the clock, ever mindful of the hour when she has to dash out of the office to pick up her kids at school, as Queen Rania often does. She also allots two hours a night for supervising her son's homework. "I'm going over all my grammar, and you'd be surprised at how much I'm relearning," she says. "I have to study and prepare the lesson before I sit with him, because it takes much longer if I don't."

But Her Majesty—who much to her own surprise became the youngest queen in the world four years ago—has a great deal more on her schedule than your average soccer mom. It has been only a few days since King Abdullah hosted a Middle East peace conference for President Bush, Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon, and Palestinian prime minister Mahmoud Abbas at the seaside resort of Aqaba, where Jordanian royals spend their weekends. But it was tall, elegant Queen Rania rather than short, stocky King Abdullah who provided the centerpiece of the most arresting picture in The New York Times. Pencil-slim in an impeccable white pantsuit, the queen—flanked by Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice—looked more like Elizabeth Hurley than some dowager queen in sensible pumps and a garden-party hat.

Even in her off-hours Queen Rania could easily pass for a supermodel. Since the birth of her third child three years ago, she has lost so much weight that Amman is gossiping about her rail-thin figure. "She's too thin!" scolds a stylish matron.

But she looks fabulous in pictures—and Queen Rania is always ready for her close-up. Her exquisite face, with its chiseled features, wide, luscious mouth, and smoldering dark eyes, seems custom-made for the doting eye of the camera. Endlessly photographed in a dazzling succession of designer outfits, the willowy, swan-necked queen has become an international fashion icon, her glamour rendered even more potent by her incisive intellect.

Quick-witted and unfailingly articulate, Queen Rania can discuss virtually any topic with extraordinary poise and seeming effortlessness-qualities that have catapulted her to the top of the global A-list and made her the darling of Western media. Even the most celebrity-jaded Americans are wowed by the gorgeous young Jordanian queen. "Rania rocks!" exclaimed U.S. congressman Mark Kirk.

With a sizable boost from the queen's megawatt star power, Jordan and its ultra-modern monarchs are playing an increasingly important role on the international scene. In June alone, both the king and queen gave speeches at the U.N.'s European headquarters, in Geneva; the king hosted the midyear conference of the World Economic Forum at the Dead Sea; and the couple marked their 10th wedding anniversary by flying in scores of friends and luminaries on a chartered jet from London for champagne under the stars at their palace on the beach at Aqaba, followed by another gala among the famed 2,000-year-old ruins at Petra—although Queen Rania had to leave early to fly off to an official appearance in Spain.

Rania—flanked by Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice—looked more like Elizabeth Hurley than some dowager queen in sensible pumps.

Dining on lobster shish kebab and hummus at the anniversary festivities was an international array of guests who ranged from Barbara Walters and former Texas governor Ann Richards to the Crown Prince of Bahrain. (Katie Couric and Larry King sent their regrets.) For although Jordan is the site of ancient civilizations stretching back for millennia, its current king and queen have their eyes firmly fixed on 21st-century goals as well as roles.

"I didn't grow up thinking I was going to be queen, and I think that changes my whole perspective on it," says Her Majesty, whose Palestinian-refugee family came from the West Bank, lived in Kuwait until the Iraqi invasion precipitated the first Gulf War, and then fled to Jordan. "For me, 'queen' is not something that I am. It's something that I do."

Neither she nor her husband was groomed for the monarchy. During the 47-year reign of Abdullah's father, King Hussein, the heir apparent was the king's brother Hassan, the crown prince. Although Abdullah was King Hussein's oldest son, he never expected to ascend the throne; when he and Rania married a decade ago, both anticipated that he would continue his privileged but relatively low-key life as an army officer.

But the cancer-stricken King Hussein altered the line of succession on his deathbed, anointing the 37-year-old Abdullah, instead of his stunned uncle, as the next king. And although King Hussein's widow, the American-born Queen Noor, was permitted to retain her royal title, Abdullah's 28-year-old wife was designated Jordan's reigning queen. It soon became clear that her view of the role was as streamlined as her sense of style.

"I know that the title is much more glamorous than any other job, and I know that people are intrigued by it—but for me it's a job," Queen Rania says.

Her potential for such a role was apparent long before she joined Jordan's royal family, according to Representative Kirk, an Illinois Republican who has known her since she was an Arab yuppie working for Citibank. "When I met her, I thought, She is going to be a total leader in the Arab world; she is quickly going to become a star," he reports. "She was all business at first, like a Kuwaiti version of a Wall Street up-and-comer, but she is more sophisticated now. And then she marries well, but she still expects to be an army officer's wife. And then King Hussein does the switcheroo change and Abdullah ends up being king, and Rania becomes queen. Since that time she has become a stateswoman, and she is looking beyond her own country to the wider world. She's a very adept diplomat, and she can schmooze a group of Kosovars as well as Americans or Jordanians. Her good looks help, but she has education and poise behind the looks, which is why she's been so successful."

Becoming queen was intimidating, to be sure. "When the change happened, it wasn't so much about 'Oh! I'm going to be a queen!' It was 'Oh—look at the responsibilities that I'm going to have!"' says Queen Rania. "It was daunting, and I needed to figure out how I was going to deal with all those responsibilities—how am I going to do a good job representing the country, and at the same time taking care of my very own family? I've found that planning ahead really takes a lot of stress out of life. Every night before I go to bed, I think about what my day's going to be like tomorrow and make sure all the things that are important to me are actually slotted in. My children and my family are my number-one priority. You take it day by day, and I guess it's a natural progression. At the very beginning I was an unknown entity even in Jordan; people didn't know what I was capable of. It was very much about trying to prove myself."

Determined and earnest, her approach has struck a responsive chord, particularly among female subjects, who often cite her as a role model. "Our queen is a hardworking professional woman," says Dr. Hala Hammad, director of Jordan's Child Safety Program, with great pride. "She's sincere, she's a no-nonsense woman, and she takes her job seriously."

The queen admits she's a perfectionist. "I've set very high standards for myself; in everything I do I either do it 100 percent or I don't want to do it," she says. "I'm that kind of all-or-nothing person. I never do something halfway; it stresses me out if I do."

Even as a parent, she tends to be the driven one. "Abdullah is definitely the fun parent," she admits with a grin. "I'm the one who says, 'Time to do your homework!' 'Time to take a shower!' He's always the one who will take them on a motorcycle ride or play with them on the bed and tickle them."

These days Queen Rania seems triumphantly in command of all her roles, although she's far too smart to crow about her accomplishments. "I feel a little bit more relaxed now," she says modestly. "It also has something to do with turning 30 and being more comfortable in your skin. You just have a more balanced approach to everything. It's very liberating. You care less about what people think of you. It's important for me to stay true to myself, and not focus too much on how I want to be viewed, because that could lead to me being insincere. The best route for me is doing what I believe in."

She has virtually introduced the topic of child abuse—something no one had ever discussed publicly in Jordan—into the national dialogue.

The Hashemite family she married into, which claims direct descent from the prophet Muhammad, first came to power following the Great Arab Revolt of 1916 against the Ottoman Turks. British partition created the new Emirate of Transjordan, and Great Britain formally recognized Emir Abdullah—great-grandfather of the current King Abdullah—as head of state in 1923. The country gained its independence in 1946, with Abdullah as its first king, and changed its name to Jordan in 1950. Abdullah was assassinated the following year, and in 1952 his grandson Hussein became king.

Jordanians seem incapable of imagining their country headed by anyone other than a Hashemite ruler. "After all, their name is the name of the country," one prominent Jordanian reminds me. "It's the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. You can't really gauge the popularity of a monarch here; it's like talking about God."

Other reasons are more pragmatic than sentimental. "The alternative might be chaos, and who wants to risk revolution?" says another Jordanian. "You could get an Islamic government or a despot like Saddam Hussein. Better the devil you know!"

When Abdullah became king, his transition to power was greatly eased by Jordan's reverence for his father, who was much beloved for his humility and dedication to his people. Accustomed to a relatively normal life, the unpretentious young king and queen have felt free to redefine their roles.

"For me it was very important for us to set our own style of monarchy," Queen Rania says. "We don't necessarily have to rely on any previous model or any other country. Sure, you can get some guidelines and some ideas, but it is very important for the monarchy to cater to Jordan and Jordanians. And I think what people expect here is for the monarchy to be close to them, to represent them well, to take care of their needs. Accessibility is very, very important."

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Her philosophy is simple: Queen Rania believes that royals should use the Golden Rule as a guide—and hold themselves to an even more rigorous standard. "Not only do you want to treat people the way you want to be treated, you want to treat them better," she says. "If you were to say good morning to your colleague without a smile when you walk into the office, he's not going to think too much about it. But if I did it, then they're going to think, Ohhhh—why is she treating me like this? You have to go that extra mile to be sure you really project helpful energy to people; they need that from you. I know when my husband smiles at someone, he can make their day. It is very important to be aware of that, because you could unconsciously be hurtful to people, without even meaning to."

Colleagues say the queen takes pains not to pull rank. "She's so down-to-earth and unassuming, and she's so easy to work with," says Lawrence Yanovitch, the policy director for the Washington-based Foundation for International Community Assistance, a global nonprofit network of institutions providing small loans to poor entrepreneurs. Queen Rania is a board member, and Yanovitch works with her on many projects. "There is an ease in the way she speaks to villagers, the way she speaks to her staff. She doesn't have much pretense. She's really a queen for our era, because she's not removed, not distant. If you're going to have a queen, she's everything you could hope for a queen to be."

I didn't grow up thinking I was going to be queen," says Her Majesty. "For me, queen is not something that I am. It's something that I do."

"The other day she participated in a marathon," says Rana Husseini, a reporter for The Jordan Times. "Tell me, in what country would you see the queen running with the people? She's trying to show she's one of us. She's not snobbish or arrogant."

The king and queen have tried to maintain their former lifestyle as much as possible, going to movie theaters and dining in restaurants as well as dispensing with many formalities. Queen Rania also prefers that friends address her by name instead of by title. "I wouldn't want to hang out with my friends if they called me 'Your Majesty,"' she says. "The whole point of being with friends is to relax and have fun and enjoy yourself, and if someone is going to call you 'Your Majesty,' then that makes you uptight, and it becomes very difficult to have natural, casual relationships. It can be difficult to make new friends, but even with old ones it depends on the person. Some people care about titles and the superficial aspect in their life, and other people care about the substance, and I would want my friends to be of the latter category."

The queen even drives herself around in a rotating array of vehicles, albeit discreetly followed by security. The royal family also continues to live in the same comparatively modest house in suburban Amman. Although they could have moved into a royal palace when King Hussein died, Queen Rania says, "There was so much upheaval in our lives that it was important for us to have some semblance of normality, some continuity. I really didn't want to expose my children to another traumatic thing. We're building a new house now, simply because the one we're in is not big enough to have public areas and a private area."

Construction on the new home has already generated much chatter in Amman. "They're saying it's huge," whispers one Jordanian. But the house won't be ready for another year, according to Queen Rania, who describes its style as "Islamic architecture interpreted in a modern way"—an apt parallel to the royal approach in other areas as well.

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Both king and queen have been strongly influenced by Western sensibilities. King Abdullah—whose British-born mother was Princess Muna, the second of King Hussein's four wives—was educated in Britain and America. English is his native language, and he has worked hard to improve his halting Arabic— unlike Queen Rania, for whom Arabic is the mother tongue, although she also speaks English well. The daughter of a doctor, Rania was born in Kuwait and attended the American University in Cairo. Before marrying Abdullah, she worked at Citibank and Apple Computer.

The new regime has taken aggressive steps to modernize the kingdom, from overhauling its educational and technological systems to encouraging economic development and foreign investment. "The king and queen are both committed to the same vision of a modern, truly representative, truly democratic Jordan, and they have done a lot in four years," says Bassem Awadallah, the government's minister of planning. "She is a full partner."

The royal couple is well aware that progress must be balanced by respect for Jordan's history. "Jordan is a combination of traditions which we're very proud of—of cultural traditions, of very strong family ties—while at the same time looking forward," says Queen Rania. "Being a well-educated population, being able to deal with the West without being intimidated, being able to learn the tools of the 21st century, such as how to use the computer— to really reconcile tradition with modernity—I think that's the way forward, and that's what sets Jordan apart from other cultures in this region."

But to a growing coterie of admirers, what most strikingly sets Jordan apart is its very liberated queen. "She's quite a role model for Arab women," says Representative Kirk. "What we're seeing in places like Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, and Jordan is a new phenomenon. They're becoming mini-Hong Kongs—free-trade zones that are very open to the outside world, with a lot of foreign travel and business coming through. That requires a new kind of leadership, very cosmopolitan and sophisticated, and Queen Rania is definitely on the cutting edge; she is wholly new in this style of leadership, and it is tremendously advantageous for her country. The United States has given Jordan a billion dollars over the last year, and part of the reason is Jordan's strategic position and the policies of the king and his ministers— but part of the reason is her. When Abdullah ended up as king, the thought was: Will the palace bureaucracy force her to be a Stepford queen, or will she emerge in her own role? And she, in about four and a half nanoseconds, started carving out her own role. She is a unique asset for Jordan."

"The fact that she's Palestinian and speaks Arabic better than [the king] does is very important. The majority of Jordanians are Palestinian."

King Abdullah seems equally dazzled by the emergence of his wife's high-voltage celebrity. "People are saying he's besotted by her," one Jordanian tells me over tea in Amman. Although in earlier years there were rumors of marital tension between Rania and Abdullah, those have all but evaporated. "King Abdullah is an accidental king who wasn't meant to be," says a Jordanian expatriate. "So his wife, who is very smart and capable, asserted herself from the beginning—and it worked. He realized what an asset she is, and what kind of impact she has made worldwide. The fact that she's Palestinian and speaks Arabic better than he does is very important. In the Arab world, you are where your great-great-great-grandfather came from—and the majority of Jordanians are Palestinian."

Observers are particularly impressed that the king doesn't appear to worry about being overshadowed by his formidable queen. "Abdullah is definitely a sensitive millennium male," says Representative Kirk. "When you meet with her and her husband, she talks as much as he does, taking a very large role—with the same educational level and confidence. When Queen Rania takes the lead, his body language is 'Yeah, Rania, go! Tell him! You were just on that trip—tell him about that too!' He's a fan; you can see. It feels like you're talking to a modem American couple."

Her intellectual facility is clearly a major factor. "She's incredibly intelligent," says Lawrence Yanovitch. "She's got a razor-sharp mind, and she's able to absorb material quickly and speak out forcefully on the issues."

Queen Rania attributes her husband's liberated attitudes to his secure self-image. "He's definitely very, very confident of himself," she says. "When you say he gives me all that freedom or whatever, I think that says more about him than it says about me. He's not intimidated by anybody, and he's not a chauvinist in any way. I think that's one of the best things about him. I'm the kind of person who I think would have struggled if it wasn't equal."

And is it? "In terms of a personal relationship, yes, it's equal," she says, choosing her words with care. "In terms of who he is and who I am, no. Because he is the king, he does have executive power. He is where the buck stops. I'm here to support him, and I don't mean that in a submissive way. But in that respect, we're not equal."

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Nevertheless, their partnership is substantive as well as fluid. "It's not formal," Her Majesty explains. "You just talk, and a lot of ideas come out from these discussions. A lot of times he inspires me; he says something and I pick up on it and run with it— and sometimes I inspire him, too. You kind of share your experiences and share your outlook and say, 'Today this is what I saw, and I think we should do something about this, and I think that should be done,' and so on. But there is no formal way of strategizing it. I think sometimes, looking from the outside in, people tend to overestimate how things happen. I certainly, beforehand, would look at a head of state and I'd think any decision that comes out or anything that's done must have a lot of thought and a lot of experts, must have a scheme and a strategy. But in reality, people make decisions as human beings, and although they rely on expertise sometimes, a lot of the time it's just their own instinct and the way they want to do things."

"Abdullah is definitely the fun parent," she admits with a grin. I'm the one who says, 'Time to do your homework!' 'Time to take a shower!' "

For Americans, the royal marriage most obviously recalls the White House partnership between former president Bill Clinton and Hillary Rodham Clinton—minus the acrimonious controversies over wifely overreaching. In carving out her own areas of expertise, Queen Rania has exhibited a shrewd grasp of both the potential power of her role and the cultural constraints upon it. She has virtually introduced the topic of child abuse—something no one had ever discussed publicly in Jordan—into the national dialogue, launching a shelter for abused children and a consciousness-raising campaign that has met with surprisingly little opposition, given the patriarchal nature of Jordanian society.

"When I started working on child abuse, a lot of people said, 'People will resist you talking about it,'" she says. "But I found that people were very receptive. When you deal with something in an open and honest manner, people appreciate it. People realize you can't hope to find solutions until you admit that there is a problem."

Another priority is microfinance, the policy of extending credit to women in impoverished rural areas to help them create their own businesses. In many cases, loans as small as $200 can transform marriages and children's futures along with the family finances.

"Four and a half years ago, Mrs. Clinton was championing microfinance, and Queen Rania had just become queen and was selecting her issues, and she thought microfinance was a great issue for her," says Lawrence Yanovitch. "Microfinance appealed to the queen because it's a practical solution. She's obviously very interested in advancing the economic status as well as the political status of women. But she's not just lending her name or visiting the projects. She's actually getting into the nuts and bolts of how these programs work. She has depth in the way she grasps the issues, and she commands a lot of respect because of that depth."

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She is also clever enough to avoid the obvious pitfalls. "She knows right where the limits are," says Representative Kirk. "She is a master at pushing the envelope for women, always being appropriate while advancing their cause. She is utterly charming to all the old chauvinists, and her fellow Jordanians regard her with great deference and respect. Her internal legitimacy is very powerful. Sixty percent of Jordanians are Palestinian, and she is Palestinian and Kuwaiti-educated, so they identify strongly with her. She has sponsored enterprises throughout the country, with loans that go to everything from buying a sewing machine to start a sewing shop to buying a bus to run a private bus service to sponsoring small irrigation projects to renting cell phones so a village can get telephone service. The way she has structured it is as adaptable as the women it serves. She gives them dignity—and power vis-a-vis their husbands."

And as her own power continues to grow, Queen Rania's lustrous dark-eyed gaze is reaching far beyond the tribal villages where she is transforming women's lives on a grassroots level.

Despite its breezy lakeside position, encircled by towering Alps, Geneva is sweltering under a rare tropical heat wave when King Abdullah and Queen Rania arrive to give separate speeches at the Palais des Nations, the imposing U.N. headquarters. "The Palais isn't equipped for this kind of heat," mutters one Italian regular, frantically fanning her flushed face.

But when the king and queen make their entrance, Queen Rania looks as crisp as if she were protected by her own private bubble of air-conditioning. Seated behind placards identifying their nations of origin, the delegates applaud and crane their necks as the royal couple makes its way down a long aisle to the stage. The queen is wearing a black Donna Karan suit whose cinched belt and flirty little peplum emphasize her minuscule waist. Her pleated, knee-length skirt swings entrancingly as she walks, her legs as long and perfect as those of a Thoroughbred racehorse, her stride surefooted despite her icicle-thin sling-back stilettos. Alone, King Abdullah might seem a short, round-faced young man, more personable than glamorous. But the breathtaking dark beauty at his side transforms him completely, and the delegates can't take their eyes off her.

As King Abdullah gives a calm, articulate speech about the need for economic development to combat poverty and terrorism in the Third World, Queen Rania listens attentively. Her face is somber as she nods almost imperceptibly at his major points, never lapsing into the glazed, vacant smile of a Nancy Reagan.

"There is a lot of anti-Americanism, and my husband is viewed to be someone who's an ally of the United States," Queen Rania admits.

One-third of the world's people "suffer the hardships and dislocations of globalization, but have not yet reaped its benefits," says the king, citing such problems as illiteracy, subsistence living, and lack of health care. "Is it any surprise that those communities can become recruiting grounds for extremist ideologies? ... Only by defeating want can we heal the divisions and despair that feed global violence."

Appealing for foreign investment, technological assistance in bridging the "knowledge gap," and the removal of trade barriers, King Abdullah also makes an impassioned pitch for the Aqaba "road map" to peace and for support in ending the Arab-Israeli conflict. Wearing a well-tailored navy suit and a cornflower-blue tie, his cultivated accent hovering somewhere between Britain and America, he could be any educated Western businessman outlining an enlightened vision for a world of peace and prosperity through mutual cooperation.

An hour later, Queen Rania—who is delivering the keynote speech on child trafficking for the World Day Against Child Labor—is introduced by Juan Somavia, director general of the U.N.'s International Labor Office. "It's quite extraordinary, the manner in which the world listens to you," Somavia tells her deferentially.

When the queen speaks, her tone is reasonable but firm, her delivery flawless as she decries child trafficking as "one of the very worst forms of abuse.... This brutal trade in human lives is a billion-dollar industry ... fueled by human poverty."

Warning that the U.N. believes human trafficking is "the fastest-growing business of organized crime," she tells her spellbound audience, "None of us has the right to say, This isn't my responsibility'—or to pretend that we don't have that problem in our country.... Denial is no longer an option." Invoking her own experience fighting child abuse in Jordan, she adds, "Surely there is no shame in admitting that evil exists. There is only shame in knowing it exists and turning our heads away."

When she exits the auditorium, eager reporters and photographers leap into action, chasing her and her entourage down the hall as if she were a famous movie star. As always, she appears decorous enough to pass muster in the Islamic world and chic enough for the pages of Vogue. With a message that resonates from the Third World to the First, she has perfected the art of cross-cultural communication.

Her diplomatic skills have been put to the acid test by the international tensions of the last few years. Queen Rania readily admits that her part of the world is backward by American standards, particularly with regard to gender. "Women have a really long way to go," she acknowledges. But she dismisses the common Western view that Islam is a major culprit in the oppression of women.

"I think it has to do less with religion and more with the fact that this is a part of the world that has not made such progress," she says tactfully. "You'll find the same kind of problems with other less developed countries that are non-Muslim, whether in the Far East or Europe or Africa. Obviously the most difficult thing to change is the cultural perception; that's the biggest struggle. We in Jordan have been trying very hard to change some of the laws that hinder women's progress."

Jordan has begun to reform its divorce laws, and Queen Rania has, like Queen Noor, taken a strong stand against so-called honor killings, in which men murder female relatives who have had sex outside of marriage, even when they've been raped. "I'm not going to tolerate somebody who believes in 'honor killings,' " says Queen Rania. "In the Koran there is no justification whatsoever for 'honor killings'; in fact, it's anti-Islamic. You need awareness programs; you need Islamic clerics to go out and explain to people about this issue."

In the Islamic world, however, radical clerics are often the most violent extremists—and all-too-influential instigators of terrorism, according to many Western analysts. But Queen Rania rejects the idea that such extremism is a hallmark of Islam. "I think it exists in Christianity, Judaism, every kind of religion," she says. "Yes, there is jihad, which is holy war, in Islam—but even that is open to interpretation. I know that Islam certainly does not condone the taking of innocent lives.

"I think we all have a common enemy, and it's not defined by borders or countries or religions," she adds. "Extremism is on the rise in many countries. Whether it's Muslim or Christian or Jewish, all religions seem to have a rise in extremism. Some of these things are being said by Muslim clerics, but you hear similar things being said by religious figures in the United States who are just as inflammatory, just as damaging. For me they're in the same camp—the camp of incitement, of hatred, of violence. Every person has a right to express his point of view, but where it becomes dangerous is when there is incitement that can lead to violence or loss of life. We have to have a bit more responsibility when we express our views. We hear people from different religions calling for the death of this or the death of that, and all those things are equally damaging. Islam is just another victim of those extreme views. But, for every voice of extremism, there are hundreds of moderate voices."

Moderation was hard to find during the war on Iraq; the Jordanian people were virtually unanimous in their opposition, and King Abdullah had to walk a difficult tightrope to placate his subjects while satisfying his Western allies—a particular imperative given Jordan's dependence on large infusions of American aid. Its geography didn't help. "We're right between Iraq and Israel," says Margaret Shurdom, a board member of the Jordan River Foundation, which implements many of the queen's social and economic programs. "When the king said, 'We're between Iraq and a hard place,' that was literally true. The Iraqi people are our neighbors, our family, our economic partners. We feel the same empathy toward the Palestinians."

So far the king seems to have survived the squeeze without fatally alienating anyone, but his country's opinion of the United States has taken a beating. "There is a lot of anti-Americanism, and my husband is viewed to be someone who's an ally of the United States," Queen Rania admits. "Some people don't like that, but the important thing is that people understand why he took this stance—and that has come as a result of him communicating very clearly with the people. I think people appreciate candor and, even if they don't like what you do, the fact that you respect them enough to explain it to them."

A recent American poll found that only 1 percent of Jordanians held a favorable view of the United States. "It is important for decision-makers in the United States and here to look at the reasons," says Queen Rania. "I think the root cause would be the situation in the West Bank, and the fact that for decades there has been a perception in Jordan, as there is in other parts of the Arab world, that the United States was not evenhanded in dealing with the Palestinians and the Israelis. A lot of people therefore blame America for the suffering of the Palestinian people, and then after that for the war on Iraq; they look at it as a full package. I do think that a lot of the criticism of the U.S. is unfair criticism; it's looking at one angle of things, not having a comprehensive view of the situation."

Regrettably, Queen Rania's array of expensive purses has earned her the nickname of the Handbag Queen. "She buys and buys and buys!"

But she prefers to emphasize the positive. "I really do believe that what happened in Aqaba shows the American intention," she says, referring to the peace summit. "You have a president who is trying to be evenhanded and maybe to find a solution. You've got to do that, not only because it's morally correct to deal with this issue, but also because the nature of our world today shows that any problems that are unresolved can really hurt us."

Jordan's recent prominence has made it easy to forget what a tiny country it is. Resource-poor, with a population of only five million—nearly a third of whom live in poverty—and a high unemployment rate, the desert kingdom seems an incongruous fit with its sophisticated rulers, who are as much at ease in the White House and Buckingham Palace as in Arab capitals and tribal villages. When Queen Rania's Jordan River Foundation held a gala fund-raiser at Versailles last year, the queen was dazzling in a pink silk gown as she mingled with the star-studded roster of 600 guests. Whether she is wearing Galliano or Dior or the Lebanese designer Elie Saab, as on that particular evening, she is always the most beautiful woman in a crowd.

But while such forays raise money as well as the queen's international profile, they can cause touchy political problems back in the Third World, where a Bedouin tent can seem centuries as well as thousands of miles from a champagne reception at Versailles.

On an arid, windswept field outside the royal-palace compound in Amman, a rather meager lineup of soldiers stands at attention while the city's mayor shows King Abdullah and Queen Rania the plans for a new public park to be built on the site. Surrounded by a group of dignitaries, the king is on hand to preside over a ceremony in which Jordan's flag, fluttering red, white, green, and black in the breeze, is raised to inaugurate what is being billed as the world's tallest flagpole. "We're going to be listed in The Guinness Book of Records," a member of the royal staff says with pride.

King Abdullah and Queen Rania watch as the giant flag is raised, whereupon everyone applauds dutifully. The whole scene feels like a parody from some Woody Allen movie about a banana republic, although Queen Rania looks as chic as ever in ivory slacks and a teal-blue top, a sleek antelope-colored handbag slung over her shoulder.

Regrettably, Queen Rania's array of expensive purses has earned her the nickname of the Handbag Queen. The minutiae of royal life provide constant fodder for obsessive gossip in Jordan, and spending habits are relentlessly scrutinized. "Chanel, Fendi, clothing and jewelry—she buys and buys and buys!" says a disapproving Ammanite. The ruling family's wealth is particularly fascinating to their subjects despite the veil of mystery concealing its dimensions. "How rich is the royal family? No one knows," says one Jordanian with a cynical smile.

Money is also a major source of tension within the royal family, which one insider describes as "like a nest of vipers, all jockeying for power." After King Hussein died, many royals were rumored to be upset that he left a disproportionate share of money to Queen Noor and their four children while slighting his other offspring by different wives. "The inheritance was a big, big issue," says another royal confidant.

An even bigger one is the question of who will follow Abdullah on the throne. When King Hussein chose Abdullah as his successor, Hamzah, his older son with Queen Noor, became the crown prince. He is therefore next in line for the throne. The Jordanian constitution, however, designates the king's eldest son as his heir.

The children of Rania and Abdullah are still young—Prince Hussein is nine, Princess Iman is almost seven, and little Salma is turning three—and the queen is fiercely protective of their ability to enjoy a normal childhood. Hussein hasn't even been told that he might one day become king. "It's a taboo subject," Queen Rania says. "That's a subject I don't intend to talk to him about. It's not fair to him, and it's damaging for a child to grow up thinking like that. I tell him, 'If you want to succeed in life, you have to work, you have to prove yourself, you have to treat people the right way.' My husband is the best example of someone who grew up not thinking he was going to be king, and it made him a real person, a human being people can easily relate to. He grew up making real friends, having real relationships, experiencing what it was like getting summer jobs, what it's like to get into fights, what it's like to share a room in boarding school. If you grow up sheltered, you pay a price. And there's nothing right now that makes me think my son will be king. We have a crown prince, and that's that."

Most Jordanians nonetheless expect that King Abdullah will eventually bypass his half-brother Hamzah in favor of his own son. "Everyone wants what's best for their children, and Rania is not what would have been best for Noor's children," observes one Middle East expert in the United States.

Queen Noor's children are far less visible in Jordan than they used to be, and Noor herself "has almost disappeared from the local scene," one observer reports. The general explanation is that Jordan is a small country, and there isn't room for two queens.

"Queen Noor and Queen Rania are very similar," says one Arab professional woman. "They're both intelligent, both ambitious, both media-savvy—and both want international media coverage. Everyone wants to be Princess Diana, and they saw each other as competition. Rania is more powerful than Noor ever was, because of her strong position with her husband. But Rania couldn't have achieved what she has if Queen Noor hadn't gone before. It was Queen Noor who made the position of the queen as a working queen and partner."

Both queens suffered negative reactions as a result. "The criticism about Queen Rania is that she travels too much, spends money on expensive things, gives too many interviews to Western media—these are exactly the same criticisms that were made of Queen Noor," a Jordanian journalist points out.

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Many women view the eternal carping as sexist and hypocritical. "This is a society that hasn't got used yet to a queen taking too much of the spotlight from the king, but Abdullah is such a modern guy he doesn't mind being overshadowed by his wife," says Randa Habib, the director of Agence France-Presse in Jordan. "Some people who are very conservative have mixed feelings when they see the queen in magazines abroad. But this reputation as a jet-setter comes mostly from the wealthy jet-setters themselves. The rich and snobbish part of Jordanian society can guess what kind of clothes she wears, what kind of jewelry. It's not the common people who see that. When she goes to visit a project in a rural area, she is wearing simple clothes. Queen Rania is a very clever queen, and she is something the people should be proud of. But what you find in Arab countries trying to modernize are people who have not decided whether they want a Westernized way of life, whether they're going to be dragged out of the past. They would like to be perceived as modem countries abroad, but at the same time they have these anxieties."

"Rania is more powerful than Noor ever was.... But Rania couldn't have achieved what she has if Queen Noor hadn't gone before."

At times this gives local life a somewhat schizoid quality; in Jordan's tribal areas it is not uncommon to see a man talking on his cell phone while riding a camel, or a Bedouin tent with a satellite-TV dish and a Mercedes parked outside. Many Arabs feel that such tensions are precisely why the progressive views of Jordan's rulers are so important.

"I sometimes feel the king and queen are far ahead of the rest of us," says Maha Khatib, director of the Jordan River Foundation. "They are more visionary, and we're trying to follow the path. Things are not easy to change. You have to change mind-sets, and all kinds of archaic systems that don't fit anymore. But they see what should be done in the coming years. They can see the Jordan of 2020."

Whatever the resistance, the potential influence of Queen Rania—who is currently the president of the Arab Women's Summit-can scarcely be overestimated. With more than a billion Muslims worldwide and the status of women one of the most pressing challenges facing Islam, Queen Rania represents not only a bridge between the Islamic world and the West but also an educated, empowered female leader capable of facilitating enormous progress for Third World women. "She understands that she can be a role model for Arab women," says Dr. Fawaz Zu'bi, Jordan's minister of information and communications technology. "She understands the nuances of our culture and also understands the Western world. She does not mind taking on the tough issues, and she understands what needs to be done. She is still in the very beginning of this process, and there is big potential there."

Representative Kirk concurs. "She's very young, and she clearly has a lot of room to grow," he says. "But this is the big leagues, and she's playing a perfect game."