Today’s Wall Street Journal profiles the wierdness that is the Saudi Royal Family.
From the look of things, it seems like there will be infighting within the House of Saud between various brothers and half-brothers, each of whom apparently wants a chance to call himself “King.” The results of this are easy to see:
So Saudi Arabia is facing a future of kings with short reigns. They will probably be dubbed “Saudi Brezhnevs,” after the increasingly decrepit leadership in the final years of the Soviet Union. It was entirely predictable: 12 years ago, a former British adviser to the Saudi royals preferred a Monty Python metaphor, “The parrots will fall off their perch in rapid succession.”
Saudi Brezhnevs huh ? The original Brezhnev died in 1982, and the country he led went into the dustbin of history 8 years later. The consequences of something similar happening in Saudi Arabia are unlikely to be good:
Al Qaeda appeals to a section of Saudi public opinion because of resentment of the royal family’s domination of power and business, as well as corruption. The next few years in the kingdom are going to be difficult enough anyway because of the declining years of Abdullah and Sultan. Gridlocked palace politics could turn instability into disaster.
