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.
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 son Mohammed bin Salman, 30. U.S. 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.
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 U.S. consulting firms in framing his modernization plans.
“His vision is hugely impressive in its scope, detail and pace,” says one former
senior U.S. 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 United States 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.
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.
The dissident prince says that he favors the installation of Prince Ahmed bin
Abdulaziz, 73, a son of the founding King Abdul Aziz ibn Saud. “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 King
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.
Power politics suggests that the current stalemate could continue awhile. King
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 past nine months, the answer from veteran Saudi watchers
is: Nobody knows.