BEHIND
THE SCENES BATTLE TO REPLACE KING SALMAN
An internal political storm is
roiling SAUDI ARABIA, as the crown prince and his deputy jockey for power under
an aging King SALMAN — while some other members of the royal family agitate on
behalf of a third senior prince who they claim would have wider family support.
Background Information: SAUDI
ARABIA
SAUDI ARABIA AFTER ABDULLAH
THE NEXT-GEOPOLITICAL-TSUNAMI
THE QUIET WAR IN SAUDI ARABIA
SAUDI ARABIA: WAR INSIDE IN
ITS OWN TERRITORY
For the secretive oil kingdom,
whose internal debates are usually opaque to outsiders, the recent strife has
been unusually open. The tension between Crown Prince MOHAMMED BIN NAYEF and
his deputy, MOHAMMED BIN SALMAN (the king's son), is gossiped about across the
Arab world. Dissenters from the royal family have begun circulating open
letters that have drawn tens of thousands of readers online.
Succession worries were in the
background in early September when SALMAN, 79, visited WASHINGTON, accompanied
by his son MOHAMMED BIN SALMAN, 30. US officials were eager to meet the young
deputy crown prince. But they were concerned that “MBS,” as he’s known, might
be challenging MOHAMMED BIN NAYEF, who is viewed in WASHINGTON as a reliable
ally against AL-QAEDA.
MORE
DIVERSIFICATION?
MOHAMMED BIN SALMAN’S supporters
argue that he’s an ambitious change agent in a kingdom that needs one — after
suffering from decades of aging, defensive leaders. The young prince urges more
diversification of the economy, greater privatization, and a future that’s
closer to the more open model of the UNITED ARAB EMIRATES than to the
conservative House of SAUD. He is said to have engaged top US consulting firms
in framing his modernization plans.
“His vision is hugely impressive
in its scope, detail and pace,” says one former senior US official who recently
had a lengthy meeting with MOHAMMED BIN SALMAN. The current, frenetic political
situation “could be the early stages of upheaval, or of a SAUDI ARABIA that’s
vastly more capable, economically, politically and militarily.”
Critics counter that MOHAMMED BIN
SALMAN is impulsive and inexperienced — and that he has championed a costly but
unsuccessful war in YEMEN. These dissenters argue that the YEMEN war has
strengthened AL-QAEDA’S position there and brought new pressure from refugees
and insurgents on SAUDI ARABIA’S border.
The internal tension has
increased over the past month. Days after returning from WASHINGTON, SALMAN (at
his son’s urging) fired SAAD AL-JABRI, a minister who was MOHAMMED BIN NAYEF’S top
adviser. The US and other Western nations were concerned because JABRI had been
one of the kingdom’s main intelligence contacts with the West. JABRI is said to
have questioned MOHAMMED BIN SALMAN’S tactics in YEMEN, fearing that AL-QAEDA was
growing stronger there.
MOHAMMED BIN NAYEF has also been
undercut by the disbanding of the royal court structure that was available for
previous crown princes. Without his own court, he’s had to rely on the king’s
son, who, though nominally his deputy, controls access to the king and makes
most key decisions.
SUCCESSION
QUARREL
The succession quarrel has opened
the way for a broader debate within the family, including four open letters
calling for removal of the king and his crown princes. I spoke several times
recently by telephone with a senior prince who wrote two of the letters, which
were first noted in a September 28 article in The Guardian by its CAIRO
correspondent, Hugh Miles.
The dissident prince told me he
favours the installation of Prince AHMED, 73, a son of the founding King ABDUL-AZIZ.
“He would be the choice of 85 percent of the AL-SAUD family,” argued this
prince, who requested anonymity. AHMED served briefly as minister of interior
but he was never in the line of succession to King ABDULLAH, who died in
January.
The prince’s first letter
criticized “the marginalization of the sons of ABDUL-AZIZ” and danger to “the
strength and closeness of the family and its staying in power.” He followed
with a second, shorter letter discussing SALMAN’S “weakness” and arguing that
he was “completely reliant on his son’s rule.” Two other inflammatory letters
have surfaced, supposedly written by other anonymous family members.
Background Information:
SAUDI ARABIA’S CONCERNS THAT
THE KINGDOM MAY BE THE ISLAMIC STATE’S NEXT TARGET
SAUDI ARABIA & ISLAMIC
STATE: BETWEEN IRAQ AND A HARD PLACE
SAUDI ARABIA: WAR INSIDE IN
ITS OWN TERRITORY
Power politics suggests that the
current stalemate could continue awhile. SALMAN controls the money; MOHAMMED
BIN NAYEF controls the interior ministry and its surveillance network; and MOHAMMED
BIN SALMAN controls the key oil and economic ministries. The deputy crown prince
told a recent visitor that he didn’t expect to be king until he was 55, which
is roughly MOHAMMED BIN NAYEF’S age. That informal comment is hardly a
guarantee of stability, however.
How will this SAUDI political
cyclone evolve? Given the uproar in the normally placid kingdom over the last
nine months, the answer from veteran SAUDI watchers is: nobody knows.
Via BA Herald
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