Among many other things, the promotion of Mohammed bin Salman as crown prince of Saudi Arabia widens a rift in the world’s most important oil-producing region.
Known as MBS to facilitate distinction with Mohammed bin Nayef, the uncle he displaced, the 31-year-old go-getter seems driven by two priorities: Saudi modernization and response to an Iranian threat he considers dire.
The latter worry underlies the ostracism of Qatar by Saudi Arabia and Sunni allies.
Concern about Qatari dalliance with the Muslim Brotherhood and assistance to terrorist offshoots no doubt fuel antagonism.
But if terrorism were the main concern, the Sunni states would have found rare common cause in deadly terrorist attacks June 7 in Iran for which the Islamic State claimed responsibility. With its warily warm relations with Tehran, Qatar might then have settled into another conflicted alliance.
The other Sunni governments hardly noticed—at least outwardly. The wound is deep.
Late in May, 200 Saudi descendants of Mohammed Ibn Abd al-Wahhab, founder of the fundamentalist strain of Sunni Islam dominant in Saudi Arabia and Qatar, challenged the emirate’s religious foundation.
They ran newspaper advertisements demanding that the name of Wahhabism’s founder be dissociated from the Qatar State Mosque.
The rebuke followed statements, purportedly by Qatari Emir Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, critical of hostility toward Iran.
Tamin’s disavowal of the statements—computer hacking, he said—didn’t assuage officials in Sunni rival states, least of all MBS.
Like many Saudi royals, the new crown prince worries about the emergence of a Shia corridor connecting Iran with the Mediterranean, led by Tehran.
MBS, in fact, instigated the Saudi incursion into Yemen against Houthi rebels supported by Iran.
The resulting quagmire is unpopular in Saudi Arabia. So are other MBS projects of still-questionable promise, such as partial privatization of Aramco and economic reform.
Obviously, the royal family isn’t daunted. Its influential Allegiance Council is reported to have voted 31-3 to support elevation of MBS—and with him radical change in the kingdom and beyond.
(From the subscription area of www.ogj.com, posted June 23, 2017; author’s e-mail: [email protected])