17 March 2015

The coming of a new king in an old land

Pinak Ranjan Chakravarty
March 17 , 2015

The king is dead; long live the king. The king of Saudi Arabia, Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz passed away on January 23, 2015, just before India celebrated its Republic Day with the president of the United States of America, Barack Obama, as chief guest. Saudi Arabia is a long-standing American ally and Abdullah's demise was important enough for Obama to cut short his visit to India and stop over in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, to convey his personal condolences to the new king, Salman bin Abdul Aziz, a half-brother of Abdullah and, as the former crown prince, the designated successor. Saudi Arabia's government is tightly controlled by the Al Saud family. It is the only country in the world which bears the name derived from a family, Al Saud. There are no political parties, no public institutions of governance and no politics, except within the royal family. The Al Saud family has kept it that way to maintain a vice-like grip on the country.

The new king's succession was smooth. Another half-brother, Muqrin bin Abdul Aziz, was appointed the new crown prince and the first deputy prime minister, making him a potential candidate in the line of succession. Under Saudi law and practice the king has to be a son or a direct male descendant of Abdul Aziz al Saud, the founder of the modern kingdom of Saudi Arabia. All kings after him have been his sons. Abdul Aziz reportedly fathered over 40 sons and over a hundred daughters from his dozen or more wives and numerous concubines. The issue of succession came up during the final days of Abdul Aziz, because his eldest son, Saud, was incompetent. So Abdul Aziz decreed that Saud will succeed him but Feisal, his shrewd second son, would become the crown prince and thereafter, the throne would pass from one son to another on the basis of seniority and competence. Saud visited India in 1955, the first Saudi king to do so. Some years after Abdul Aziz's death, Saud was persuaded to resign and Feisal, as king, modernized Saudi Arabia. Half a century later, Abdullah was the second to visit India in 2006, as chief guest for the Republic Day celebrations.

The succession issue has remained a contested one within the Al Saud family and in 2007, Abdullah promulgated a succession law under which he was the last king with the absolute right to choose his own successor. All kings after him would be required to nominate successors for consideration by a committee or a group known as the Allegiance Council, comprising 35 senior princes. The yet untested Allegiance Council can accept or reject a nominee or choose its own independent candidate for king. Reportedly the council has one seat for each recognized son of Abdul Aziz, to be filled either by a living son or one of his male heirs. The council is an attempt to create a formal family structure to replace the informal family consultations. It seeks to promote meritorious princes and prevent incompetence to rise by allocating positions of power on the basis of merit to different factions in the Al-Saud family comprising upwards of 7000 princes. Jockeying for power in the Al Saud family is endemic.

Abdullah had taken the unusual step of creating the post of deputy crown prince and appointing Muqrin to this position in 2014. This was a move to protect the interests of Abdullah's sons and prevent power from slipping into the hands of rival members of the royal family. There were indications that the Allegiance Council was divided and did not approve of Muqrin's appointment. Muqrin is the 35th son of Abdul Aziz from a Yemeni wife or a concubine. In the faction-ridden Al Saud family, the mother's origin matters. Muqrin's mother's status was not high enough for him to merit this appointment. Muqrin, as the Saudi intelligence chief, was involved in arranging Nawaz Sharif's release from prison and his exile in Saudi Arabia, in a deal worked out with Pervez Musharraf.

Salman also appointed a nephew, Muhammad bin Nayef, as the minister of interior, deputy crown prince and second deputy prime minister. This appointment in a heavyweight ministry is significant because it brings in a new generation family member, a grandson of Abdul-Aziz, into the top Saudi ruling structure and puts him in the line of succession.

The new king also appointed his 35-year old son, Muhammad, as minister of defence and head of the royal court, easing out the widely detested Khalid al-Tuwaijri, an aide of Abdullah. The defence ministry is another heavyweight ministry with enormous funds and clout and will now be headed by another grandson of Abdul Aziz. The scions of the Tuwaijri family had become hereditary occupants of the post of the secretary of the royal court and were involved in court intrigues and foreign conspiracies, ranging from taking sides in the Egyptian power struggle and the rebellion against Syria's Assad regime.

These appointments are also being seen as strengthening the Sudairi clan faction in the royal family. The Sudairi faction comprises seven sons of Abdul Aziz from his favourite wife belonging to the Sudairi tribe and their progeny. Salman, the new king, is the sixth of the seven Sudairi brothers. The other three surviving Sudairi brothers have been removed from the line of succession for various reasons. The new interior minister is the son of another Sudairi brother, the late Nayef bin Abdul Aziz, a former interior minister. The new defence minister and head of the royal court is also a Sudairi scion. It is rumoured that the 79-year-old Salman suffers from Alzheimer's. His ability to govern will decrease and these appointments will act as buffers in case Salman is incapacitated.

Salman is no stranger to controversy. He has a history of funding al Qaida and his son stands accused of prior knowledge about the 9/11 attacks. Salman was the chief coordinator of the Saudi regime's fund-raising for the Afghan mujahideen as well as for the Bosnian Muslims during the wars in the Balkans. He was responsible for funding extremist Islamic groups in various conflicts around the globe. It has been reported that Salman also helped in recruiting foot soldiers for the Afghan Salafist leader, Abdul Rasul Sayyaf, who mentored both Osama bin Laden and the 9/11 mastermind, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. This history will now be downplayed by the West.

All political power in this country made fabulously wealthy by exporting oil is controlled by the Al Saud family which runs the government with a few allies who are mostly technocrats. Widely regarded as despotic, governance is based on mediaeval Islamic laws, under which the death penalty is public beheading. The legal system is based on the Sharia. Saudi Arabia is the only country in the world which bans women from driving. Women have to veil themselves and have to be escorted by male relatives when venturing out of their home. No criticism is permitted against the royal family and dissenters are punished by public flogging or imprisonment without trial.

While the US lectures all countries on human rights, it avoids comment on the human rights situation in Saudi Arabia. Human rights groups have noted that more than 2,000 people were executed in Saudi Arabia between 1985 and 2013, thousands flogged and imprisoned without due process. The US government lets human rights groups do the criticizing. Saudi Arabia has bought arms worth billions from the US and the United Kingdom and invested its vast wealth in Western countries. Saudi Arabia and Qatar provided arms to Syrian rebel groups which have joined jihadists who are now part of the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq. There is little doubt that Saudi Arabia fuelled the Sunni-Shia sectarian conflict in the Middle East and in other Islamic countries, in pursuit of its rivalry with Iran. WikiLeaks mentions a cable from the US embassy in Riyadh that says that Abdullah persistently encouraged the US to attack Iran. When people of some Arab countries revolted against dictators, Saudi Arabia intervened in different ways to ensure that the rebellion did not reach it. In Bahrain, Saudi forces intervened to crush a popular uprising which had threatened the rule of the ruling Sunni al-Khalifa monarchy in a country with a Shia majority.

While Obama saw it fit to deliver an oblique shot on religious intolerance before leaving India, he will certainly not criticize Saudi Arabia either on human rights or religious intolerance. American unwillingness to criticize Saudi Arabia underscores the reality of geo-politics which puts national interest above human rights, religious tolerance and other humanistic values. But commenting on religious intolerance in the Indian context can go out of control on either side. India-US ties have a lot of potential and can lead to a defining partnership for the future. It would be unwise to fritter away the opportunities created by the current positive momentum in bilateral ties by pandering to domestic lobbies in either country. If the US can practice cautious reticence regarding Saudi Arabia, it could practice the same in India.

Abdullah's legacy is a mixed one with a few redeeming features. He acquired a reputation as a reformer and tried to nudge his country's highly conservative establishment towards more liberal policies. He was successful in bringing women into public life and provided generous scholarships for education abroad to Saudi women. This legacy, however, is marred by the alleged mistreatment of his own daughters who have been confined in their houses because they refuse to accept the debasing and discriminatory treatment reserved for women. He did not have much wiggle room to bring about drastic changes in his country's clerical establishment, whose default position is to oppose any modernization. Abdullah did initiate some measures to strengthen the cabinet system, Majlis al-Shura and the ossified judiciary. Introducing national and inter-faith dialogues were other significant initiatives. His counter-terror strategy at home and the partnership with the US helped in countering terrorist organizations like al Qaida, but other interventions have led to the creation of extremely radicalized groups, the most extreme of which is the Islamic State.

The high point of Abdullah's foreign policy legacy is, undoubtedly, his steering of Saudi-US relations after the 9/11 New York attacks and stemming the tide of the Arab revolt from reaching the Gulf countries and crushing all opposition ruling regimes in the Gulf states. Abdullah also left his stamp on regional issues. The Abdullah Peace Plan to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict did not find much traction as it failed to get enough support. Saudi foreign policy under Abdullah showed signs of greater assertiveness with Saudi intervention and involvement in Bahrain, Egypt, Syria, Yemen and Libya.

But in Yemen, Saudi Arabia's neighbour to the south, the rebel Iranian-backed Houthi Shia militia overthrew the government, causing a huge setback for the Saudis. The other armed group in Yemen is al Qaida which claims to defend Sunni interests and is now locked in an armed struggle with the Houthis, plunging Yemen into a civil war and making it the fourth failed State in the Middle East.

Relations with India and China, however, improved as both economies became important consumers of Saudi oil while Saudi Arabia explored possibilities of parking its sovereign wealth in the emerging economies. When Abdullah accepted to the invitation to visit India as chief guest for the Republic Day celebrations in 2006, Pakistan, which was not on his itinerary, was upset. The then president, Pervez Musharraf, rushed to Saudi Arabia to plead for a visit to Pakistan. The plea was accepted and Abdullah stopped over in Islamabad during the same tour that took him also to China.

Saudi Arabia faces many challenges. Apart from the failing State, Yemen, along its southern border, it now has to contend with the Islamic State on its northern borders. Saudi Arabia's policies in both theatres are responsible for the current conflict raging there. Funding Islamic groups in various countries and promoting its brand of Wahabism and Salafi practices have not helped Saudi Arabia protect its interests fully. With oil prices at a historic low, Saudi Arabia has to also factor in the possibility of a grand bargain between the US and its rival, Iran. #

On the domestic front, the inevitable challenge to one-family rule cannot be held back for ever, as the better educated youth, both male and female, question the Saudi governing model. The best antidote to revolution would be to initiate political and social reforms, allow national politics to grow, permit dissent, release political prisoners, build political institutions, prepare the country for elections and move towards a constitutional monarchy. Under Abdullah, some cosmetic changes came about. Salman is not likely to be a trail blazing reformer and will not deviate from traditional Saudi policies. Change when it comes may be led by younger members of the Al Saud family. India can only hope for stability and gradual reforms in Saudi Arabia as any revolutionary change will be very destabilizing, given India's economic stakes in the region.

The author is a former ambassador and secretary in the ministry of external affairs and had served as a diplomat in Saudi Arabia

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