01/23/2015
King Abdullah's writ lasted all of 12
hours. Within that period the Sudairis, a rich and politically powerful clan
within the House of Saud, which had been weakened by the late king, burst back
into prominence. They produced a palace coup in all but name.
Salman moved swiftly to undo the work
of his half-brother. He decided not to change his crown prince Megren, who was
picked by King Abdullah for him, but he may choose to deal with him later.
However, he swiftly appointed another leading figure from the Sudairi clan.
Mohammed Bin Nayef, the interior minister is to be his deputy crown prince. It
is no secret that Abdullah wanted his son Meteb for that position, but now he
is out.
More significantly, Salman, himself a
Sudairi, attempted to secure the second generation by giving his 35- year old
son Mohammed the powerful fiefdom of the defense ministry. The second post
Mohammed got was arguably more important. He is now general secretary of the
Royal Court. All these changes were announced before Abdullah was even buried.
The general secretaryship was the
position held by the Cardinal Richelieu of Abdullah's royal court, Khalid
al-Tuwaijri. It was a lucrative business handed down from father to son and
started by Abdul Aziz al Tuwaijri. The Tuwaijris became the king's gatekeepers
and no royal audience could be held without their permission, involvement, or
knowledge. Tuwaijri was the key player in foreign intrigues -- to subvert the
Egyptian revolution, to send in the troops to crush the uprising in Bahrain, to
finance ISIL in Syria in the early stages of the civil war along his previous
ally Prince Bandar bin Sultan.
The link between Tuwaijri and the
Gulf region's fellow neo-con Mohammed bin Zayed, the crown prince of Abu Dhabi,
was close. Tuwaijri is now out, and his long list of foreign clients, starting
with the Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi may well feel a cooler wind
blowing from Riyadh. Sisi failed to attend the funeral on Friday. Just a
question of bad weather?
Salman's state of health is cause for
concern, which is why the power he has given his son is more significant than
other appointments announced. Aged 79, Salman is known to have Alzheimers, but
the exact state of his dementia is a source of speculation. He is known to have
held cogent conversations as recently as last October. But he can also forget
what he said minutes ago, or faces he has known all his life, according to
other witnesses. This is typical of the disease. I understand the number of
hospital visits in the last few months has increased, and that he did not walk
around, as he did before.
So his ability to steer the ship of
state, in a centralized country where no institutions, political parties or
even national politics exist, is open to question. But one indication of a
change of direction may lie in two attempts recently to establish links with
Egyptian opposition figures.
I am told that senior advisers to
Salman approached an Egyptian liberal opposition politician and had a separate
meeting with a lawyer. Neither of them are members of the Muslim Brotherhood
but have working contacts with it. Talks were held in Saudi Arabia in the last
two months about how reconciliation could be managed. No initiative was agreed,
but the talks themselves were an indication of a more pragmatic, or less
belligerent, approach by Salman and his advisers. It was understood that these
meetings were preparatory to a possible initiative Salman may announce once he
was in power.
The policy of the late King was to
declare the Brotherhood terrorist organization on a par with the Islamic State
and al Qaeda.
Even before the
Sudairis made their move, a power struggle within the House of Saud was
apparent. Early on Thursday evening, rumors on Twitter that the king was dead
flooded the Internet, which is the primary source of political information in
the kingdom. There were official denials, when a Saudi journalist on al
Watan newspaper tweeted the information.
The palace's hand was forced when two
emirs tweeted that the king was dead. MBC TV network cut broadcasting and put
the Koran on screen, a sign of mourning, while national television kept on with
normal programming. This was a sign that one clan in the royal family wanted
the news out quickly and the other clan was stalling for more negotiations.
The need for a change of course is
all too apparent. On the very night in which the royal drama was taking place,
a political earthquake was underway in Saudi Arabia's backyard, Yemen.
President Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi, his prime minister and government resigned
after days of virtual house arrest by Houthi militia. Hadi's resignation leaves
two forces in control of the country both of them armed to the teeth: an Iranian
backed militia which gets its training from Hezbollah, and al Qaeda, posing as
the defender of Sunni muslims.
It is a disaster for Saudi Arabia and
what is left of the ability of the Gulf Cooperation Council to make any deal
stick. Their foreign ministers met only the day before. Yemen's former
strongman Ali Abdullah Saleh, who was levered out of power three years ago and
who according to leaked telephone calls, advised the Houthis on how to grab
power, is now calling for fresh elections, and there were already calls on
Thursday night for the south to split away from the North. Yemen, in other
words, has officially become the Middle East's fourth failed state.
The meteoric rise of the Houthis in
Yemen was not the result of spontaneous combustion. It was planned and plotted
months ago by Saleh and the United Arab Emirates. Saleh's son, the Yemeni
ambassador to the UAE, was a key figure in this foreign intrigue, and as I
reported before, he met an Iranian delegation in Rome. This was picked by US
intelligence and communicated to Hadi. The year before, the then Saudi
intelligence chief Prince Bandar flew a leading member of the Houthi delegation
via London for a meeting. Incredible as it seemed, the Saudis were re-opening
contact with an Iranian backed Zaydi or Shia sect with whom they had once
fought bitter wars.
The Saudi/Emirati plan was to use the
Houthis to engage and destroy their real target, which was Islah, the Islamist
party and chief representative of the Sunni tribes in Yemen. As elsewhere in
the Arab world, the entire focus of Abdullah foreign policy after 2011, was to
stop the Arab spring in its tracks in Tunisia and Egypt and crush all forces
capable of mounting an effective opposition in the Gulf States. Everything
else, including the rise of Saudi's foremost regional rival Iran, became
subservient to that paramount aim to crush democratic political Islam.
The Yemen plan backfired when Islah
refused to take up arms to resist the Houthi advance. As a result, the Houthis
took more control than they were expected to, and the result is that Yemen
stands on the brink of civil war. Al Qaeda's claim to be the only fighters
prepared to defend Sunni tribesmen, has just been given a major boost.
It is too early to tell whether King
Salman is capable of, or even is aware of the need for changing course. All one
can say with any confidence is that some of the key figures who stage-managed
the Kingdom's disastrous foreign intrigues are now out. Meteb's influence is
limited, while Tuwaijiri is out.
It is in no-one's interests for chaos
to spread into the Kingdom itself. Maybe it is just coincidence that Abdullah
died almost on the eve of the anniversary of the January 25 revolution in
Egypt. But the timing of his death is a symbol. The royal family should learn that
the mood of change, that started on January 25 is unstoppable. The best defense
against revolution is to lead genuine tangible political reform within the
Kingdom. Allow it to modernize, to build national politics, political parties,
real competitive elections, to let Saudis take a greater share of power, to
free political prisoners.
There are two theories about the slow
train crash which the Middle East has become. One is that dictatorship,
autocracy, and occupation are the bulwarks against the swirling chaos of civil
war and population displacement. The other is that dictators are the cause of
instability and extremism.
Abdullah was evidence in chief for
the second theory. His reign left Saudi Arabia weaker internally and surrounded
by enemies as never before. Can Salman make a difference ? It's a big task, but
there may be people around him who see the need for a fundamental change in
course. It will be the only way a Saudi King will get the backing of his
people. He may in the process turn himself into a figurehead, a constitutional
monarch, but he will generate stability in the kingdom and the region
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