The Saudi Gerontocracy Gets Sick(er)

The relatively pro-American king of Saudi Arabia, Abdullah, is coming to the US for medical treatment.  The patient has presented with a blood clot which puts pressure on the spinal nerves already insulted by a bad disc.  The eighty-six year old king has relinquished his role as protector of the Haj to the interior minister, Prince Nayef ibn Abdulaziz and his role as chief of the National Guard to his son Prince Mitab.  Other ruling functions will be taken over by the eighty-two year old Crown Prince Sultan, who is returning from Morocco where he has been recuperating from surgery in the US early last Spring.

Sultan is next in line for the throne when Abdullah goes to his reward.  Coming next after Crown Prince Sultan is Prince Nayef who is currently second deputy prime minister in addition to his role as chief secret policeman.  Nayef is known to be a religious conservative thus standing at some remove from the current king and crown prince.

The feebleness of the monarchy is not enhanced by the physical frailty of both king and crown prince.  Complicating the matter of succession is the question of whether or not opposition of a significant sort exists to the ultimate coming to the throne of Nayef.  Even though the order of succession is well established and was underscored by the appointment of Nayef to the seemingly redundant post of second deputy prime minister, (done to expand Nayef's hands-on knowledge of how the game of politics Saudi style is played inside the royal tent) this does not assure automatically that the parade to the throne will go down as a well choreographed exercise.

Any palpable resistance to the emergence of Nayef has the real potential of rocking, even toppling the House of Sand.  Even if the ordained order of precedence is followed seamlessly, Nayef as king complicates US policy in the Mideast.  It might also bode a sharp increase in the so far low key conflict between Shite Iran and Wahhibist Saudi Arabia.

The whiff of instability or a shift in the orientation of the king has immediate implications for the US.  The recently culminated arms deal with Saudi Arabia might be in jeopardy.  The administration has requested a fast track approval process from Congress.  Ideally Congress would act favorably during the lame duck session but, more realistically, action will be postponed until the new Republican dominated Congress convenes next year.

Already some congress types including Republicans who support the deal at least nominally have raised the issue of what happens if there is regime change in Saudi Arabia.  The usual inference made from such chin rubbing is anxiety over the potential that the US equipment would be used against Israel.  Another contending inference is the AIPAC is flexing its backroom muscle.  Both inferences have some merit, particularly the latter as more than a few Democrats owe their continued tenure in office to the blessings by Jewish voters combining inherent progressive predilections with concern for the wellbeing of Israel.

There is another, totally different reason to take a long hard look at the weapons deal given the religious conservatism of Nayef.  Actuarial tables almost dictate that Nayef will make it to the throne within ten years and possibly much sooner.  His commitment to the austere, severe theology and practices of Wahhibism will have a number of effects, all of which will exhibit themselves quickly after Nayef takes charge.

The critical context here is the role played by Saudi Arabia in exporting Wahhibism throughout the Muslim and much of the non-Muslim world.  The copious spewing of petrodollars in support of Wahhibist mosques and madrassas has had significant impact upon the growth of political Islam to include the violence embracing portion.

Pakistan went from a country which wore its defining Islam rather lightly to a heartland of violent political Islam quickly after Zia took the Saudi money and force fed his "Islamization" program more than thirty years ago.  The Taliban may have been fabricated in Pakistan but only as a consequence, an easily foreseeable result of Saudi exported Wahhibism.  The same dynamic can be seen elsewhere from the Philippines to North Africa.

Even in the US, Saudi funded Wahhibist mosques and madrassas have served to create homegrown adherents of violent political Islam.  The same applies to the UK and much of Western Europe.

As a man far more religious in his character than Abdullah and, before him, Fahd, it may be expected that support for the Wahhibist Export Program will increase under Nayef.  As a significant, direct and positive correlation can be seen between the increase in Wahhibism and the growth of violent political Islam, it is not out of line to suggest that the same will occur to an even greater degree with Nayef serving as Guardian of the Two Mosques.

Iran threw down the gauntlet years ago, challenging Saudi Arabia for the role of regional hegemon.  To date the House of Saud has responded with the caution which has characterized most of its existence.  Given that Nayef takes his task of advancing the interests of the Sunni (even those who are not Wahhibist) against challenge by the "apostate" Shites, Saudi responses or counters are likely to become less and less restrained in the future.

As some of the more pessimistic (or realistic) observers of Iraq have predicted ever since the first American combat boot hit the ground in that country, the most probable first venue of confrontation between the mullahs of Tehran and the Sunni establishment will be Iraq.  The ongoing conflict between the triumphalist oriented Shia and the former masters of Iraq, the minority Sunnis, will not end soon, even if by some miracle the current political impasse achieves a simulacrum of solution.

The Iranians have played a semi-overt and quite aggressive program of support for their co-religionists in Iraq.  To date the Saudis have been most notable by the absence of open (or even much covert) support for their Sunni cousins.  The success of the Iranians over the past couple of years in backing both openly and otherwise the Shite political slate has undercut the often repeated assertion that Arab Iraqis will be immune to the influence of the foreign Persians regardless of religious identity.

Formerly attempts at some sort of "pan-Islam" movement have foundered on the rock of nationalism.  Historically the notion that nationalism trumps religious identity has been correct.  The growth of "fundamentalist" which is to say political Islam since the Iranian Islamic Revolution has changed the game completely--particularly with respect to the Shites.  For members of this long discriminated against, marginalized minority component of Islam, the worm has well and truly turned with the success of the Iranian Revolution and the removal of the Sunnis from their position of dominance in Iraq by the American invasion.

Again due to his religious convictions it is doubtful that a King Nayef would be deaf to the plight of Sunnis across the border.  This may not mean war in its conventional sense but it will mean conflict of a sub-war nature in all its messy extent, including restrictions on the flow of oil from three very large producers of that much prized substance.

The push by Iran for its very own "Mahdi Bomb" may, to a high order of probability, convince a King Nayef to go the same course.  There is no doubt that the other Sunni majority or dominated states of the Gulf region would seek to push Nayef in this direction.  The only alternative to a quickly developing nuclear arms race in the Gulf would be success by the US and its diplomatic partners--and this is not likely.

Then, of course, there is Israel.  Depending on the details of the regional political context five years or so from now, a King Nayef might be convinced that he has a special responsibility to remove the Jewish thorn from the side of the Arab/Muslim camel.  While a strong anti-Israel stance on the part of King Nayef may not be a for sure, a realistic possibility of such coming to pass represents a very severe challenge to regional and global stability even if an Israeli-Palestinian comprehensive peace agreement has come into existence.  (Not that anyone should bet the ranch on that eventuality.)

It would behoove the Obama administration to plan on the emergence of Nayef to power in the very short term.  The House of Saud has not been particularly stable for years.  The nature of the current king as well as the next man in line do not encourage delay in considering just how Nayef might or could alter the current context--and what, if anything, the US can do to safeguard its interests with a changed context.

Unfortunately, the Obama administration has not yet demonstrated the slightest capacity to think ahead, to plan for unpleasant but highly probable contingencies.  "Muddling through" might work for the British, and the French place great faith in their equivalent, "Systeme D," but kicking the can down the street is a very poor way for the US to conduct business in the Mideast--or anywhere.

But, as they say around the Oval, "Who has the can?"