Category Archives: Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia

In naming son as Saudi crown prince, Salman skips an entire princely generation

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In a stunning move, Muhammad bin Salman, the son of the current king, has been named crown prince of Saudi Arabia. (SPA)

Just a few years ago, Saudi Arabia and its oversized royal family faced a conundrum.

With the ascension of Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud at the age of 79 in January 2015, it confirmed that the Saudis weren’t yet prepared to turn over the reigns of government from the legendary second generation of sons of Ibn Saud, generally seen as the founder of the modern Saudi state. Salman, the 25th son of Ibn Saud, ascended the throne, while Muqrin bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, an even younger brother, became crown prince. Not long ago, it was conventional wisdom that Saudi Arabia had become a gerontocratic horizontal monarchy where power passed from brother to increasingly infirm brother, with no plan for transitioning to a younger monarch.

Salman, now 81, who effectively governed the country was rumored to be suffering from Alzheimer’s disease when he ascended the throne. Today, however, he presides over a kingdom that’s taken a much more muscular role regionally, from a devastating proxy war in Yemen against Houthi rebels and former president Ali Abdullah Saleh(and, really, against Iran) to a deepening diplomatic crisis with Qatar over its alleged funding of Islamic terrorism (including  relatively pro-democratic groups like Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood), despite the Saudi kingdom’s own funding of hard-line Wahhabists.

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RELATED: Why Trump’s outreach to Saudi Arabia
might not be so clueless

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But within three months, he had replaced Muqrin as crown prince from a member of the next generation — the revered interior minister Muhammad bin Nayef bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, now 57 years old, the deputy crown prince who became a beloved Saudi figure among American policymakers in the 2000s and early 2010s for his effectiveness in Saudi counterterrorism efforts that proved largely successful (by either bribing and rehabilitating would-be jihadists or eliminating them).

In recent years, there were reports that Muhammad bin Nayef, who suffered ill effects from a 2009 assassination attempt, was in increasingly ill health.

That may have been an issue in Salman’s decision today in removing Muhammad bin Nayef, both as interior minister and crown prince. Instead, Salman’s own son, the 31-year-old Muhammad bin Salman Al Saud, who replaced his father as the Saudi defense minister upon his father’s ascension to the throne in January 2015, will now be elevated as crown prince. In the last two and a half years, Muhammad bin Salman’s star has been on the rise, just as Muhammad bin Nayef’s star has been on the wane. His tenure as defense minister hasn’t always been smooth, given the aggressive and sometimes over-hasty steps he took in 2015 to intervene in Yemen before his country’s security services and armed forces seemed ready to carry out his plans. But no one paying attention could have missed the ambition of the king’s son. Continue reading In naming son as Saudi crown prince, Salman skips an entire princely generation →

Saudi Arabia, United States

Why Trump’s outreach to Saudi Arabia might not be so clueless

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US president Donald Trump made his first visit to Saudi Arabia over the weekend. (Mandel Ngan / Getty)

Most American presidents kick off their international schedule with a visit to neighboring Canada or Mexico.

US president Donald Trump, having picked fights in his first 100 days with both, instead chose Saudi Arabia, launching a five-stop tour that has now taken him to Israel and will also take him to the Vatican, Italy and Belgium on his maiden foreign trip in office. As many commentators have noted, Saudi Arabia was an incredibly odd choice for the leader of a secular democracy.

Nevertheless, Trump came to Saudi Arabia with a firm message of camaraderie. The Obama administration took a more balanced approach to the conflicts of the Middle East, measuring support on a case-by-case basis. While Obama-era policy didn’t exactly rebuff the Saudis, it did put some limits on the bilateral relationship (belatedly, on the use of US arms to kill civilians in the ongoing war in Yemen). Moreover, the Saudis were aghast at the multilateral deal with Iran over nuclear energy, given that it created a preliminary avenue of cooperation between Washington and Tehran, though no one should doubt that the United States remains much closer to Saudi Arabia than to Iran, and that was always true during the Obama administration.

But Trump is returning to the previous approach — unqualified support for Saudi Arabia vis-à-vis its neighbors, especially Iran. In contrast to the Obama administration’s desire to stay out of the regional Sunni-Shiite conflict, essentially a proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran, Trump has made it clear that he’s taking the Sunni side.

It’s a throwback to US policy, not in the 2000s under the Bush administration, but more to the 1980s under the Reagan administration. Unlike George W. Bush, who routinely spoke about human rights and democracy, Trump brought no value judgments to Riyadh, though the Saudi kingdom remains one of the most repressive regimes on the planet. Bizarrely, Trump’s daughter Ivanka discussed female entrepreneurship in a country where women do not have the right to drive cars. US commerce secretary Wilbur Ross marveled at the lack of protesters, in a country where freedom of expression is met with imprisonment — or worse.

The Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Riyadh projected Trump’s face, alongside that of the Saudi king, Salman, on its facade.

It’s not clear, exactly, what Trump received in return. Trump handed gift after gift to the Saudis, in exchange for the royal treatment in Riyadh, with parades and pomp and little else, short of bold new promises to help rein in Sunni extremism, and the opening of a new Global Center for Combating Extremist Ideology.

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RELATED: One chart that explains Obama-era Middle East policy

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That’s clear enough from the $110 billion arms deal that Trump signed with the Saudis on Saturday, which will boost Saudi efforts to bolster Yemen’s president Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi in an ongoing and bloody war with nominally Shiite Houthi rebels that control Yemen’s north, and who are supported in part by Iran. In an uncharacteristically bland speech on Saturday, Trump embraced the Muslim world as an ally in the global fight against extremist ideologies — remarkable for a president who, during the 2016 election, called for a ban on all Muslims entering the United States and who railed against the Saudis for funding the kind of extremists who planned and carried out the 2001 terrorist attacks.

Generally speaking, though, the consensus is that Trump got played for a sucker.

But there’s another interpretation worth considering. Continue reading Why Trump’s outreach to Saudi Arabia might not be so clueless →

Saudi Arabia

Why Saudi Arabia’s ‘landmark’ council elections are a joke

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An Arabian woman takes part in municipal elections in Jeddah. (Getty)
An Arabian woman takes part in municipal elections in Jeddah. (Getty)

For the increasingly beleaguered Saudi royal family, it’s been a tough year.saudi_flag_icon

Headlines have highlighted misbehaving princes, struggles over Saudi succession, the wisdom of Saudi Arabia’s campaign in Yemen, a 20-year record in the number of the country’s executions (including the beheading of political critics and poets), the death of over 700 religious pilgrims during the Hajj in a stampede just outside Mecca and shifting US alliances in the region.

In perhaps the cruelest indignity of them all, businessman and Republican presidential contender Donald Trump slammed as ‘dopey’ Al-Waleed Bin Talal, an influential Saudi prince who runs many of the kingdom’s business and investment interests, last week on Twitter.

But for one weekend, at least, Saudi Arabia was in the news with fluffy headlines about historic municipal elections that allowed women, for the first time in Saudi history, to vote and to run for office, complete with photos (like the one above) that show a purportedly modernizing country where women are now enjoying the right to vote amid a loosening of other gender-based restrictions.

Don’t buy the hype.

Women only sparingly cast ballots in an election for only two-thirds of the members of essentially powerless municipal councils in a country that remains one of the most authoritarian regimes in the world, where an absolute monarchy, in tandem with Wahhabi clerics, have restricted the rights of women to a degree virtually unknown across the globe in the 21st century.  Continue reading Why Saudi Arabia’s ‘landmark’ council elections are a joke →

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14 potential game-changers for world politics in 2014

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Though I rang in the new year with a list of 14 world elections to watch in the coming year (and 14 more honorable mentions to keep an eye on), I wanted to showcase a few more thoughts about what to watch for in world politics and foreign affairs in 2014.

Accordingly, here are 14 possible game-changers — they’re not predictions per se, but neither are they as far-fetched as they might seem.  No one can say with certainty that they will come to pass in 2014.  Instead, consider these something between rote predictions (e.g., that violence in Iraq is getting worse) and outrageous fat-tail risks (e.g., the impending breakup of the United States).

There’s an old album of small pieces conducted by the late English conductor Sir Thomas Beecham, a delightfully playful album entitled Lollipops that contains some of the old master’s favorite, most lively short pieces.

Think of these as Suffragio‘s 14 world politics lollipops to watch in 2014.

We start in France… Continue reading 14 potential game-changers for world politics in 2014 →

Saudi Arabia, United Nations

Why Saudi Arabia gave up its non-permanent Security Council seat

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Saud-Al-Faisal

On Friday, just one day after it was awarded a non-permanent, two-year seat on the United Nations Security Council, Saudi Arabia abruptly announced to the world that it was rejecting the seat, much to the bafflement and diplomatic dismay of the rest of the world.saudi_flag_iconUN

It’s unprecedented for a country to make a years-long effort to win a non-permanent seat, only to turn around a day later to renounce the seat.

The Saudis denounced the Security Council’s inability to act in the Middle East and called for reform:

The manner, the mechanisms of action and double standards existing in the Security Council prevent it from performing its duties and assuming its responsibilities toward preserving international peace and security as required,” the Saudi Foreign Ministry said in a statement. “Allowing the ruling regime in Syria to kill its people and burn them with chemical weapons in front of the entire world and without any deterrent or punishment is clear proof and evidence of the U.N. Security Council’s inability to perform its duties and shoulder its responsibilities.”

Security Council reform is long overdue, but it’s hard to see the Saudis becoming the poster child for political reform in Turtle Bay.

So what gives?

Commentators pointed to several immediate reasons.  The Saudis are angry that US president Barack Obama failed to hold steady in his threat to use military force against Syria.  The Saudis are upset that the United States recently cut off military aid to Egypt’s new, undemocratic government.  The Saudis are worried that the recent steps toward better relations with Iran could mean that the United States places less importance its longtime strategic relationship with Saudi Arabia.

But none of those really give us a full explanation — the Syria showdown was two months ago, and the Saudis would have more influence on the process to rid Syria of chemical weapons from within the Security Council than outside it.  Furthermore, they could use their vote on the Security Council for the next two years as leverage to curry favor with the United States.  And in the ‘P5 + 1’ talks with Iran, Saudi Arabia would certainly have a more central role if it were sitting on the Security Council while Iran struck a deal with the international community.

Eric Voeten, writing at The Monkey Cage, now at home at The Washington Post, argues that Saudi Arabia’s approach to diplomacy has long been a backdoor, behind-the-scenes affair, and that doesn’t fit well with the high profile of sitting on the Security Council: Continue reading Why Saudi Arabia gave up its non-permanent Security Council seat →

Saudi Arabia

Saudi Prince Mohammed’s elevation to interior minister augurs start of generational change

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Although Suffragio covers mostly countries where democratic elections feature prominently in national politics, this month’s Chinese transition reminds us that although some countries do not have elections, they most certainly have politics.

That’s true in Saudi Arabia, where last week we saw the signs of the first transition of power to a new generation, the grandchildren of Ibn Saud — or King Abdulaziz — with the elevation of Prince Mohammed bin Nayef as interior minister on November 5.

The current Saudi king, Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, is Abdulaziz’s 10th son, and has governed since 2005, but has really effectively been the de facto Saudi leader since the previous king’s stroke in 1995.  The current Saudi crown prince (heir to the throne) is Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, Abdulaziz’s 25th son.

Prince Mohammed (pictured above) replaces Ahmed bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, himself Abdulaziz’s 31st son (allegedly!).

But Abdullah is 88 years old, Salman a relatively sprightly 75 years old, and Ahmed is 70, and the once-thriving set of Abdulaziz’s sons has thinned over the years, leading to increased speculation about how the next generation of the House of Saud will begin to assume power.  The next generation of Saudi leadership will face huge challenges, not least of which how to provide employment opportunities to young Saudis, deal with calls for political reform in the era of the ‘Arab Spring,’ and diversify an economy that remains too dependent on oil — and that’s before the trickier foreign policy issues presented by a United States that will brook no further Saudi-grown terrorist attacks, a Yemen at the south of the Arabian peninsula that’s becoming a chaotic terrorist haven, and Syria, a close Saudi ally, descend further into a bloody civil war.

Prince Mohammed had served as assistant interior minister since 1999, and he’s made headlines as a relatively modern Saudi royal — U.S. and other officials have applauded his efforts in attacking home-grown terrorism within Saudi Arabia, and he was in 2009 himself injured in a suicide attack.  he’s seen as somewhat more reformist than the current ruling generation, but no one really knows where his true passions lie.

The director of the Eurasia Group‘s Middle East practice, Crispin Hawes wrote in Foreign Policy on Friday that the move may presage the elevation of Khalid Al Faisal Al Saud, a son of the late King Faisal, to become second deputy prime minister and accordingly, second in line to the throne (after Salman, the crown prince):

Abdullah seems intent on defining a long-term plan for the succession in an effort to prevent the kingdom from instability if, as is possible, there is a rapid series of deaths among the current and elderly ruling generation. The transition to the generation of Mohammed and Khaled al-Faisal, grandsons of Abd al-Aziz Ibn Saud and modern Saudi Arabia’s founder, has been the subject of speculation for years. Faisal is in his early 70s, only a few years younger than Salman, but the move is a very significant one.

Prince Khalid is currently the governor of Mecca province, Saudi Arabia’s most populous province and the home of its chief port Jeddah (and of, course, the great pilgrimage city of Mecca itself).  Like Prince Mohammed, Khalid enjoys favor from both conservative and relatively liberal members of the House of Saud.

Some background is in order, because the Saudi succession is a complex business.

King Abdulaziz, then still known as just Ibn Saud, first conquered Riyadh (the homeland of the Saud family) in 1902.  He fought in concert with the Allied powers during World War I against the Ottoman Empire (which controlled Arabia at the beginning of the 20th century), and consolidated power in 1932 to create the modern state we know today as Saudi Arabia.  As such, Ibn Saud / King Abdulaziz is generally accepted as the founder of the current kingdom.  With the discovery of oil in Saudi Arabia in 1938, and the wide-scale extraction of oil beginning in the 1940s, the Saudi grip over the Arabian peninsula has been relatively secure, financed by vast oil wealth, and since Abdulaziz’s death, each successive Saudi king has been one of his many, many sons — at least 37 and possibly 45 or more.

Abdulaziz’s kingdom has been ruled by one of his many sons to this day, which means that the Saudi leadership has become increasingly geriatric.  Continue reading Saudi Prince Mohammed’s elevation to interior minister augurs start of generational change →