Saudi succession stable, for now

How will this succession affect the overall stability of the region?
The region had been preparing for this; they had expected it. So, it is not a major issue in the region. It is not sending other countries around into any sort of panic. It is much more of a domestic issue in terms of stability and the power dynamics in the country.

What we had for the last 10 years was Fahd effectively out of the picture, with then-Crown Prince Abdullah running the day-to-day affairs of the country. But he wasn’t fully in charge. He still had to have things approved by the king.

Now that gave the king’s enormous personal entourage a tremendous amount of power. Those princes are all now very nervous about what’s going to happen in the future. The power they were wielding is now gone or quickly diminishing. 

So, in terms of instability, I think that’s where it would lie, not necessarily on a regional level.

Saudi officials are saying that don’t expect any major changes of foreign policy.

King Fahd embraced the West, and Abdullah himself is seen as having a close relationship with President Bush — the two met at Bush’s Crawford, Texas, ranch a few months ago. How is Abdullah expected to continue that policy and foster the Saudi relationship with the United States?
There is an expectation on the part of the Saudi people for Abdullah to come into his own, to not be as blindly pro-American as Fahd was perceived to be, although they don’t expect any radical shift of policy. But the perception on the ground is that Fahd was much more pro-American than Abdullah.

For example, Fahd was the one who allowed U.S. troops into Saudi Arabia in 1990, when faced with a threat from Iraq. That was a controversial move in this country.

Fahd had a reputation for trying to please everyone, and that he was somewhat of an appeasement lassie. That he wanted to appease the Americans, and his own royal family, he let the princes get away with a lot of shenanigans, and wanted to appease the Islamists, a bedrock of society.

By trying to do that, he might have created the inherent tensions and conflicts that are part of Saudi society today. It’s a polarized state where you have some people who are very pro-Western and some people are radical, violent Islamic extremists. 

What we are hearing from Saudi officials is that Abdullah might try now to focus more on the Palestinian issue than he has in the past. The meeting in Crawford between then-Crown Prince Abdullah and President Bush was thought here as quite a breakthrough. It was seen as an important meeting and that the two of them had a good bond.

There might be some more pressure here for Abdullah to follow up on that and to try to get more from the U.S. Particularly regarding promises on the Palestinian issue that were perceived to have been made before the war in Iraq — when there was talk of a Palestinian state. What we are hearing now is that Abdullah would now like to see some of those promises come into fruition. 

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