Crown price Mohamed Bin Salman came to power when he was 29 years old but his wild aspiration for governance along with his father’s fascination with him will probably make him the youngest king for the rich kingdom soon.
King Abdulaziz the first monarch and founder of Saudi Arabia had 45 sons, of whom only four are still alive; Salman the current King, Talal, father of the multi-billionaire Al-Waleed – currently in custody – Migren, the previous crown prince who was prompted to resign in favor of Mohamed Bin Nayef and Mohamed bin Selman, and last one is Ahmed bin Abdulaziz.
So this is the first time to see the crown prince not from the sons but from the grandsons and a young grandson as well.
MBS has many rivals who are not happy with him becoming a king and see this as a threat to the family especially after the many files he failed in like Yemen where he launched a war that squandered at least 10 billion dollars and has failed to end it in his favor, as well as his retreat from the Syrian file after many months his foreign minister kept promising to oust Assad. His domestic handling was no much better, as economically he raised taxes, petrol price and started cornering the expats with more liabilities while they constitute the highest percent of labor in country. The way he handled the family affairs were dramatic especially his last raid on top heads in kingdom including sons of late King Abdullah as well as top business people in claim of corruption. With all those who are unhappy with MBS, he decided to get rid of them all, and probably all at once.
After 4 days now of his arrest of the big names, it seems he has succeeded in the first phase. All wonder now what would be his next move? MBS prudent style, his belief he has succeeded so far, will make him more confident to go further. This time regionally. But he might want to close the internal file of him being a king first. If this happens and it seems very likely, then the region will be before a young kind, with no style of reaching middle way stances, and having the full support of president Trump, might give him the appetite to start a proxy war against Iran, one of his biggest fear in the region. He can choose Yemen for sure as the land of fight, as well as Iraq and Lebanon, where he forced its prime minister Hariri to resign days ago and accused Iran of a direct act of war after a missile targeted king Khalid airport in Riyadh from Yemen.
Saudi in the coming war will be supported by Trump, UAE, Bahrain, possibly Egypt and Sudan and for sure Israel as it will see it a good chance to limit the military capabilities of Iran where its biggest fear come from. Another quick move can come against Saudi’s small neighbor Qatar and in this case Saudi will be in a direct combat with the Turkish troops there.
With the tone of Trump saying he trusts MBS move, we can expect many unpredicted moves in the region. Iran seeing all this, will it be silent or it will try to be the first mover, may be in Palestine where it has its ally Aljihad Alislami,movement which has recently pledged to give a harsh response to Israel after the latter killed many of its members in one of the tunnels.
Iran, Saudi, Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, Yemen, Iraq, Turkey all are engaged in wars in one way or another. Having MBS in will make the nightmare come true, so all need to be ready as the show has just started and no one knows when or how it will end.
