Bruce Riedel is hoping the travails of Saudi Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman (MBS) continue and, I suspect, end in MBS crashing and burning, if only metaphorically, as he opines in AL Monitor:
The premeditated murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Istanbul last month was an act of terrorism. The Saudis are desperately trying to salvage the reputation and credibility of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who undoubtedly ordered the assassination. The Donald Trump administration is colluding with Riyadh. But revelations about the prince continue to emerge, further sullying his brand. At home there is unease in the royal family about what his tarnished reputation means for the kingdom. …
Desperately seeking rehabilitation, the crown prince is hoping the world will forget about Khashoggi and move on. So is Trump. But the reality is that the Saudi leader has a closet full of skeletons and horrors that won’t be shut.
The war in Yemen tops the list. After more than three years of war, 18,000 coalition airstrikes and the crippling blockade, 18 million Yemenis are at risk of malnutrition and disease. Save the Children estimates that more than 85,000 children under the age of five have already starved to death in the war. The coalition is pouring weapons in to the country, arming various fractious militias. There are so many weapons in the country that Yemen is an exporter of small arms to other countries in the region.
The Yemeni catastrophe is MBS’s signature policy initiative, and he has been the biggest obstacle to a cease-fire. According to several sources, MBS threw a temper tantrum when the British suggested a truce earlier this month.
A temper-tantrum? Grown-up leaders do not throw temper-tantrums. They may narrow their eyes and veil their thoughts and swear revenge to their lovers, but hopefully their obscured rage results in strokes and heart attacks before they do anything serious.
And I’m really quite serious. The idea that the successor to the King of a major country is impulsive, vain about his capabilities, and ambitious to put his stamp on history is deeply unsettling to me. Saudi Arabia, despite our national incompatability, is an important American ally, and is consequently well-armed. Whether Saudi impotence in Yemen is due to wretched Saudi planning, inferior troops, improper weaponry for the war terrain, or the heroism of the Yemenis is really irrelevant; the fact that MBS stepped into such a situation and is consequently failing is really all the current King should need to know in order to can his ass – or worse.
And so we see why nepotism is frowned upon in enlightened countries. Too often, it’s merely another word for tolerated incompetence.
Because of their continuing, and perhaps mistaken, importance as an ally, we can’t just laugh at them as clowns. But it should also be clear that the United States will not be clearing them off the table as an ally. President Trump’s alleged financial ties to the Kingdom won’t permit that (and, thus, why no President should be permitted to retain commercial interests as has Trump).
So we’ll just have to grit our teeth and hope King Salman decides his kingdom is more important than his pride and his son and dumps him as Crown Prince. Will the King exercise good judgment? Let’s ask Riedel:
The crown prince rules by terror, not consensus. His ascent to power has been entirely the work of his father, and the king seems determined to stick with his son. Nonetheless, the region is rife with speculation about the kingdom’s future and how it will play out. Will the king retire early? Will the family accept MBS? Will the security apparatus turn on the crown prince if he executes officials who were doing his bidding?
The only certainty is that the crown prince is likely to remain a reckless and dangerous player. Istanbul will not be the last debacle he leads the kingdom into.
Yeah, seems unlikely.
