Perhapsthe most excitable people following the death of King Fahd Ibin Abdal-Aziz of Saudi Arabia on Monday were the oil traders, spooked bypossible unrest in the world’s biggest oil exporter.
The priceof crude oil jumped close to US$62 a barrel, even though Saudiofficials were quick to say that the kingdom would stand by itslong-standing policy aimed at pumping enough oil to satisfy markets andstabilize prices, as well as maintain a spare capacity cushion of 1.5million to 2 million barrels per day (bpd).
Within SaudiArabia, the cradle of Islam (home to Mecca and Medina), however,reaction was calm, with the late king’s half brother, Crown PrinceAbdullah, 82, quickly installed as the new monarch. Fahd’s brother,Prince Sultan, the 81-year-old defense minister, became crown princeand next in line to the throne.
The smooth transition shouldhave been expected. Fahd had been the country’s absolute monarch since1982, until he was debilitated by a stroke in 1995, which effectivelyresulted in Abdullah assuming power. [1]
However, with boththe new king and the next in line in the twilight of their years, theissue of succession can be expected to become pertinent in the not toodistant future, at which time Saudi Arabia can expect some turmoil.
Monday’stransition shows, if only for the moment, that Arabs are indeedimproving in their political conduct. The transition from Jordan’s KingHussein to his son Abdullah in 1999, that of Syria’s president HafezAssad to his son Bashar in 2000, and that of Palestinian leader YasserArafat to his successor Mahmud Abbas in 2004 all show that Arabs haveto some extent abandoned coups, revolts, and assassinations in theirconstant quest for political leadership.
The rise of Abdullah Abdullahhas been the subject of much speculation in the Arab world and abroad.Many consider him strong, an Arab nationalist and anti-Western. Thelast trait is in fact a little inflated by the Arab street and media.It stems from his refusal to permit the US to use Saudi territory forthe war on Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003.
But he didthis not because he is anti-Western, but rather because he saw it asmadness for Saudi Arabia to become entangled in such a mess, fearingfor domestic security and the threat from the country’s most infamous,and alienated son, Osama bin Laden.
Also, the targets in bothAfghanistan (the Taliban) and Iraq (Saddam Hussein) were traditionalenemies of Saudi Arabia. Allying Saudi Arabia with the Americans atthis stage, and granting them a platform to launch war, would haveenraged the many fanatics inside the kingdom.
They need littleencouragement to further terrorize Saudi society: al-Qaeda’s declaredobjective, in addition to going after American targets, is to bringdown the House of Saud, which has traditionally been a US ally anyway.(Saudi Arabia is also a leading oil supplier to the US, which takesabout 1.6 million bpd of Saudi crude out of total imports of about 10million bpd.)
Abdullah’s supporters argue that there is nocontradiction between being pro-West and pro-Arab – it’s a question ofthe economics of the time. Abdullah opened the contest for SaudiArabia’s gas riches in 1998, when he selected eight international firmsto invest in a $25 billion opening of natural gas fields. But only oneproject worth up to $2 billion involving Royal Dutch/Shell and Totalsurvived after a dispute over commercial terms. Saudi Arabia holds 236trillion cubic feet of natural gas.
However, Saudi Arabia’supstream oil sector, home to 264 billion barrels of crude, has beenoff-limits to multinationals since the 1970s, and the new king isexpected to keep it this way. “State oil company Saudi Aramco’sexpertise and piles of cash enable it to drill for oil under its ownsteam,” Reuters quoted a Saudi official as saying.
Abdullahmade headlines with a proposal for an all-Arab peace deal with Israelin 2002, echoing Fahd’s 1981 plan, saying that Arabs shouldcollectively normalize ties with Israel if Tel Aviv withdrew from alloccupied Arab territory. The plan was turned down by Israeli PrimeMinister Ariel Sharon.
Domestically, Abdullah has establishedhimself as a reformer. He has taken steps to polish the royal family’simage and publicly acknowledged that corruption is a problem. He hasintroduced limited social and political liberties, such as municipalityelections and granting criminals the right to an attorney. Torture inprison was banned by Abdullah. He has worked relentlessly to combat thefundamentalist threat that has rocked Saudi Arabia since 2001.
Over2,000 fanatic preachers have been removed from mosque pulpits. Theywere either jailed for their views, or re-educated. Excesses of thereligious police force, known in Saudi Arabia as al-mutawa’aand hated for its ruthlessness and crudeness in the 1980s and early1990s, have been greatly curtailed. The religious police are lessvisible on the streets and their treatment of citizens is more politeand less aggressive.
One to watchAbdullah tried tosoothe relations with the US after September 11 through the Saudiambassador to Washington, Prince Bandar bin Sultan. Bandar, who isAbdullah’s nephew, took up the job in 1983 and kept the post untilstepping down, amid a lot of speculation, in July. The new Crown PrinceSultan is Bandar’s father, and many speculated that he returned home tobe in a position to jockey on Fahd’s death.
Bandar has been atthe Oval Office with many US presidents, as a friend, diplomat andadvisor. After September 11 he toured the US, holding face-to-facemeetings with US citizens to reduce criticism of Saudi Arabia, at thetime known to angry Americans only as home to 15 of the 19 terroristswho attacked America. US media, public opinion and many statesmenblamed the Saudi monarchy for its religious indoctrination at schools,mosques and universities, and called for Abdullah to make immediatechanges.
Bandar is a good friend of the Bush family,particularly the elder H W Bush, and is affectionately called “BandarBush”. The former US president wrote to The New York Times about PrinceBandar: “To this day, Bandar is the only person besides the presidentof the United States that Bar [Barbara Bush] lets smoke [a cigar] inour house.”
Stories had been circulating that Bandar andAbdullah hated each other and that Bandar’s father (Sultan) had hiseyes set on the throne and would use his armed forces to wrest it fromAbdullah when Fahd died. This turned out to be nonsense, and Bandar isreportedly earmarked for a more senior job in domestic Saudi politics.
Heis not very popular in Saudi Arabia, however, because of hisextravagant lifestyle in the US, which alienates the conservatives, thefanatics and the emerging middle class.
The Saudi publicremembers only too well that Bandar donated $1 million to Barbara Bushto combat illiteracy in America, and another $1 million to Nancy Reaganfor the “Just Say No” anti-drug campaign. The Saudis, and Arabs ingeneral, argue that Palestinians, Iraqis and other miserable Arabs aremore worthy of such generosity. Yet despite his reputation, Bandar isdefinitely going to be one of the most powerful and influential peoplein the post-Fahd era.
The US viewWashington hasmade it clear, through different channels in recent years, that it doesnot welcome, although it cannot really oppose, Abdullah. It has oftenhinted that Fahd should be succeeded by a younger, modernized king whois pragmatic, pro-Western and less committed to Arab nationalism. Thewounds from Abdullah’s stance vis-a-vis the Americans in 2001 and 2003are apparently not forgotten by the Bush White House.
Some inthe US administration argue that appointing a young and popular kingcould undermine al-Qaeda’s efforts to denigrate and destroy the imageof the House of Saud. A people enjoying prosperity and a good king,these officials claim, would work with the monarchy, rather thanagainst it, to combat terrorism and bin Laden.
But theopposite is true. A young, flamboyant king with little legitimacy andexperience, and less commitment to either Islam or Arab nationalism,would enrage al-Qaeda even further and prompt it to increase itsattacks on the House of Saud. Also, observers of Abdullah claim thatthroughout the 1980s he opposed Saudi Arabia’s dependence on the US,and worked on strengthening its ties with regional players like Iranand Syria. This too, has been frowned on by America.
Therelationship between Riyadh and Washington had been strong since it wascreated by Fahd’s father, King Abd al-Aziz, and president FranklinRoosevelt during World War II. It reached new dimensions in 1979 wheninstability in Iran – the Islamic revolution – forced the Americans toreach for a new, rich ally in the Gulf once the Shah was driven out ofpower.
Both countries backed Saddam Hussein in his war againstIran in the 1980s, and likewise teamed up to eject him from Kuwait in1991. A new relationship was created when, in August 1990, thensecretary of state Dick Cheney and General Norman Schwarzkopf met withFahd and secured permission to use his territory to launch their war onSaddam.
Abdullah was worried that once in, the Americans wouldfind it difficult to leave Saudi Arabia. He called for an exitstrategy, and when none came along he began to voice his displeasure atUS policies in the Middle East and continued military presence in SaudiArabia. Many conservatives in America, searching for reasons tocriticize the Saudi monarchy, blasted Abdullah when, after thePalestinian uprising broke out in 2000, he allowed a charityorganization run by his brother Nayef to compensate the families ofPalestinian martyrs. To the Americans and Israelis, those dead men wereterrorists. To Abdullah and Arab public opinion, they were heroes anddefenders of a cause.
Down the line Succession inSaudi Arabia is based on a hereditary line in the House of Saud. Poweris handed down among the sons of the kingdom’s founder, King Abdal-Aziz, who died in 1953. When Fahd became king in 1982, he reliedheavily on his full brothers to rule by his side. They includedInterior Minister Prince Nayef, Defense Minister Sultan and PrinceSalman, the governor of Riyadh. Sultan, who remains in charge of theDefense Ministry as well as being crown prince, Prince Nayef and PrinceSalman are part of the “Sudairi Seven” clan which gets its name fromtheir mother.
Under terms of a 1994 law, when becoming king,Abdullah is able to designate his successor irrespective of seniority.He did not do that on August 1, despite speculation that he mightappoint a royal of the third generation. Instead, he loyally appointedSultan as crown prince.
All the previous Saudi kings begantheir reigns in their late 50s or early 60s. Fahd, for example, was 61.Now Abdullah is 82 and Sultan is 81. Sultan’s brother, Prince Nayef,also head of the internal security forces, is 71. The grandsons of thefounder, King Abd al-Aziz, whose rights to the throne were recognizedin March 1992 by King Fahd himself, are mostly middle-aged.
Infact, many in the royal family who had their eyes set on the throne hadkept Fahd alive since 1995 for one reason: they hoped that Abdullahwould die before him.
Given the advanced age and medicalconditions of the first generation of Saudi royals (Fahd, Abdullah,Sultan), it is likely that a king will die every two or three years aswhat remains of King Abd al-Aziz’s children take their turn on thethrone. As the crown is passed on, prosperity, stability and reformswill likely be slow. They will probably be too slow for the majority ofSaudi youth, where 50% are under the age of 18. This generation, likethat of other Arabs in the Arab world, wants reforms and modernization.
Ruling Saudi Arabia in the manner that has prevailed since the1930s will be difficult for any monarch as the world advances into the21st century. This is the real challenge that King Abdullah may notlive long enough to face, but his successors will have to bring thecountry up with the times.
Note [1] KingFahd was born in Riyadh in 1923, and was still a teenager when hisfather united the Arabian peninsula and ousted its former sovereign,King Hussein, the great-grandfather of Jordan’s current King Abdullah,from the Arabian desert. King Abd al-Aziz al-Saud united the kingdomand created modern Saudi Arabia in 1932, naming it after himself.
Fahdstudied at the Princess School in Riyadh, with a heavy emphasis onIslam, and in 1945 began his career by attending the foundingconference of the United Nations in the US, with his brother, PrinceFaisal (later king), then minister of foreign affairs.
In 1953his father appointed him minister of education, at the age of 30. Thesame year he attended the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in London.In 1962, he became minister of interior and in 1967 deputy primeminister.
On March 25, 1975, King Faisal was assassinated andanother brother, King Khalid, assumed the throne. Fahd became the nextin line, and when Khalid died on June 13, 1982, Fahd became the fifthking of Saudi Arabia.
Fahd’s rule was marked with a degree ofprosperity, modernity and stability, only shaken recently (sinceSeptember 11) by al-Qaeda bombings and terrorist attacks inside SaudiArabia.
Fahd wanted to go down in history as a grand builder -and he did. He had his name inscribed on great monuments, roads,buildings and bridges scattered all over the kingdom, which hetransformed from a Bedouin society into a highly modernized andtechnically developed country.
Fahd’s most memorableachievements in Arab affairs are the 1981 Fahd Plan and the 1989 TaifAccord in Saudi Arabia. The Fahd Plan was received with mixed emotionsand particularly shunned by the Saudi clergy and intelligentsia becauseit recognized Israel’s right to exist. It was supported at the time byArafat because it ended the historic conflict and created a Palestinianstate with a capital in Jerusalem, in addition to calling on Israel towithdraw from the Arab territories it had occupied in 1967.
TheTaif Accord was held under Fahd’s patronage, becoming the conferencethat ended the Lebanese civil war in 1990. Fahd was particularlyinvolved in Lebanese affairs through his trusted friend Rafik Hariri,whom he supported wholeheartedly when the latter became prime ministerof Lebanon in 1992 and who was a key political figure until his murderon February 14 this year.
Fahd’s death surprised nobody. Inrecent years, reports had surfaced about his deteriorating health,preparing the Saudi street for the news. He was distant from politicalaffairs, living on borrowed time since suffering a brain stroke in 1995which left him confined to a wheelchair in a near-comatose state.
Infact, so sick was the Saudi king that he was unable to travel to SaudiArabia from his treatment and summer vacation in Spain to attend ason’s funeral in 1999.
Sami Moubayed is a Syrian political analyst.