Saudi Arabia is at war with itself

Saudi
Arabian Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman attends a summit
of Arab and Latin American leaders in Riyadh, Saudi
Arabia.

AP/Hasan
Jamali

• More than a dozen princes and high-level officials have
  been arrested as the result of a power struggle.
• The power struggle could destabilize Saudi Arabia,
  which was already weakening. 

---

 

Forget Yemen, Syria and Lebanon, just a few of the countries in
which Saudi Arabia is fighting a proxy war with Iran, its
long-time enemy. The Saudi royal family now appears to be at war
with itself. Regardless of who wins, the conflict could
destabilize Saudi Arabia, which was already weakening anyway.

Palace Intrigue

What’s happening in the country is the definition of palace
intrigue. The king, Salman bin Abdul-Aziz, took the throne in
January 2015 following the death of his half brother, Abdullah, a
son of the nation’s founder who had ruled the country for two
decades. It was a relatively straightforward succession. It’s now
common knowledge that it took a behind-the-scenes power struggle
for King Salman to crown his son, Mohammed bin Salman, a prince
and name him his chosen successor. But on Nov. 4, the power
struggle became brazenly public. That day, Salman and his son had
more than a dozen princes and former high-level officials
arrested, including a world-famous billionaire. The reason for
their detention is simple: Salman is trying to remove obstacles
that could prevent Mohammed bin Salman from succeeding him.

King Salman is the first monarch in the history of the modern
kingdom to buck this particular tradition. Usually, a successor
is chosen by consensus among the sons of the founder of the
kingdom. But now that the second generation is nearly all dead,
and now that there are too many third-generation princes to
convene, it has become more difficult to choose who will become
the next king.

He has bucked other traditions too. Salman has strengthened his
son’s claim by bestowing on him sweeping powers over security and
economic affairs. Mohammed bin Salman is the defense minister,
the head of a strategic economic council, controller of Saudi
Aramco and, after Nov. 4, the chief of an anti-corruption agency.
And Salman did all this by removing from power his half brother
and his nephew, both of whom were crown princes. He has also
sidelined powerful members of the clerical and tribal
establishments.

Some rumors suggest that the purges were made in response to a
plot against Mohammed bin Salman. It’s unclear if that is
actually the case. But whether the rumors are true or whether the
arrests were pre-emptive, the outcome is the same: There are
fewer threats to a Mohammed bin Salman reign. One of the princes
arrested, Mitab bin Abdullah, for example, was the minister of
the National Guard – the parallel military force to the regular
armed forces under the Ministry of Defense. He and Mohammed bin
Salman shared responsibility for Saudi Arabia’s armed forces.
Until Nov. 4, that is.

Mitab’s brother, Turki bin Abdullah, was also arrested. (He was
removed from his post as governor of Riyadh in 2015, the year
King Salman took the throne.) Perhaps the most famous target was
Prince Alwaleed bin Talal. He is an entrepreneur who is mostly
disinterested in politics, but his father is a known liberal who
opposed Salman as king and now opposes Mohammed bin Salman as his
successor.

Facing the Facts

Arresting these individuals accomplishes two things. First, it
guarantees their capitulation to Mohammed bin Salman. Second, it
gives the Salman faction more mileage out of the anti-corruption
drive. Between that and their calls for a more moderate version
of Islam, the king and his son are moving away from the
traditional sources of support (clerics and tribal
establishments) and toward new ones: popular appeal among the
country’s youth, which makes up about two-thirds of the
population. The old guard is an obstacle for the reforms needed
to move the kingdom beyond its current impasse – put simply:
depending almost solely on oil revenue – and thus a threat for
the leadership. They are using populism to inoculate themselves
from the potential consequences of their power grab.

In the process, though, they are inadvertently laying the
foundations for the next crisis. Relying on popular support means
they will be forced to enact more reforms than they actually want
to – or are even capable of. Despots who try to be populists
usually end up being neither and, in their failure, lose power.

It is too early to tell what will be the outcome of the power
struggle. Whoever comes out on top will be unable to ignore the
fact: that Saudi Arabia is a country in decline, largely because
of low oil prices but also because of the general disarray in the
Middle East. In this context, then, the events of Nov. 4 are more
than petty power grabs – they are attempts to make the country
pliable enough to accept necessary reform at a time of increasing
regional chaos.

The kingdom cannot both change its nature and hope to meet the
external challenges at the same time. It has to consolidate at
home before it can act effectively beyond its borders. But this
sequence of priorities is not a luxury that the Saudis enjoy.
Their historical enemies the Iranians are gaining ground, and
they cannot simply focus on domestic politics.

Take, for example, another thing that happened Nov. 4. The leader
of Riyadh’s main proxy in Lebanon, Prime Minister Saad Hariri,
resigned after criticizing Iranian interference in his country.
By having Hariri pull out of the coalition government in Lebanon,
the Saudis hope to weaken Iran’s premier proxy, Hezbollah, which
benefits from the coalition government in Beirut. But it’s a weak
and probably ineffective move. Now that the Islamic State is
weakened, Iran has the advantage in Iraq and Syria.

Riyadh’s inability to deal with external threats, if anything,
will only intensify its domestic ones. Even though the king and
his son have the upper hand, an inability to effectively counter
the Iranian threat could weaken their position at home and thus
aggravate the infighting.

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