Heart transplants are a recent phenomenon. Stomach transplants have yet to be attempted. [Gluttons are counting the days.]  Head transplants, however, have been practiced for millennia, especially when the head is crowned.

For example, Alexander’s vast empire was large enough – stretching from Greece to the Indus - to satisfy the covetous ambitions of his many generals. After Alexander’s death, one of them - Ptolemy I Soter – ousted the earlier rulers of Egypt and founded the Ptolemaic dynasty which lasted 300 years.

The last Egyptian monarchy owes its propulsion to the British when, after relinquishing their mandate in 1922, they saw Fuad I installed as King of Egypt even though he was more Albanian, Circassian, and Turkish than Egyptian.

Similarly, modern Greece imported its monarchs, first in 1830 from Bavaria when the Great Powers (Great Britain, France and Russia) installed King Otto. After his deposition in 1862, George Prince of Denmark was invited, elected, and enthroned with Allied support.

In time, King George I’s grandson Philip married Princess Elizabeth. The night before their marriage in November 1947, Philip was granted British nationality and a Dukedom. (The satirical magazine Private Eye always referred to him irreverently as ‘Phil the Greek’). King Charles III therefore has Greek and Danish lineage from his father’s side and German, Danish and French blood from his mother’s side. The British Royal Family has more foreign blood than migrant dinghy dodgers.  

Perhaps the most blatant transplants of monarchs occurred in the Levant when the British and later the Americans sought to retain their control over the viscous sands of Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Jordan, and Iran.

King Faisal bin Saud refused to loosen the kingdom’s purse strings. He was disposed off when his U.S. educated nephew Prince Faisal bin Musaid assassinated him in March 1975.

Sheikh Shakhbut bin Sultan Al Nahyan, ruler of Abu Dhabi, thought he could ration his unstoppable wealth. The British decided otherwise. They engineered his removal in 1966 and replaced him with his younger brother Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan.  A diplomat once asked the British Foreign Office why it did not just take over the Gulf states. The reply given was: ‘Why should we, when we can rule the rulers?’

 In Iraq, the British midwifed a kingdom in the 1920s and supported  the short-lived Hashemite dynasty that lasted three generations - Faisal I, Ghazi I, and Faisal II. They could not prevent the uprising that overthrew and then murdered the young 23 year-old King Faisal II in July 1958. Unusually for an Arab ruler, Faisal had a talent for drawing and painting, honed perhaps during his education in Harrow Public School, England.

His cousin King Hussein of Jordan (also educated at Harrow) suffered the twin trauma of seeing his grandfather King Abdullah murdered and having to succeed prematurely his mentally ill father King Talal. Again unusually for an Arab ruler, Hussein ruled continuously, for 47 years. Perhaps his British education inclined him towards taking an  English girl Toni Gardiner as his first wife.

His mother Queen Zeyn objected. She relented only when Hussein agreed that no child of that marriage could succeed to the Jordanian throne. His younger brother Hassan bin Talal was declared Crown Prince. He remained so for 34 years and would have been king. However, Hussein, on his deathbed, under pressure from the U.S., declared his son Abdullah from Ms Gardiner to be his successor. As short as his father, Abdullah now struts on the international stage by grace and favour of the White House.

The latest pawn in the hands of western powers is the self-styled Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi. The dynasty to which he lays claim came into existence in 1925 when his grandfather Reza Khan (with British support) replaced the tottering Qajars.

It is almost half a century since his father Reza Shah fled Iran and sought refuge in the United States. Opposition even in the U.S. proved too strong, exacerbated by the capture of the U.S. embassy in Tehran by revolutionary guards. The last Shah – once hailed by President Jimmy Carter as ‘an island of stability’ - was forced to seek asylum in Egypt.

During the recent conflict between Iran and Israel, Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi betook himself post haste to Tel Aviv where he offered himself as a candidate for the Persian throne. (His father had been a covert ally of Israel. His secret police Savak had been trained by Israel’s Mossad.)

 Israel’s PM Netanyahu did not bite. He knew his Edmund Burke: ‘The difference between the real leader and the pretender is that the one sees into the future, while the other…acts upon expediency.’

The days of detachable monarchs have gone. America has replaced them with disposable allies.

F. S. AIJAZUDDIN

[DAWN, 22 Jan. 2026]