January 28, 2015
Perhaps the most dramatic aspect of the succession in the
Saudi Arabian monarchy last week was how undramatic and routine it was. The
sixth such succession to a new monarch and crown prince in modern Saudi history
lacked the tension and behind the scenes jockeying for power that had been so
widely hyped in much of the Western and sensationalist Arab media.
This is because two of the three most important
dimensions of Saudi state and society — domestic governance and petroleum
policy — are fully under control and in the hands of the ruling authorities,
headed by the House of Saud. There is little chance for the moment that any
external exhortations would bring about any significant changes in these two
domains. Saudi internal and petroleum policies in recent years have evolved
broadly in line with prevailing priorities, including occasional local and
limited reforms alongside occasional forceful moves — like the current sharp
oil price drop — to maintain Saudi Arabia’s share in the global oil sales market.
Any faster or further reforms in domestic policy
will reflect the natural evolution of interests and values within Saudi
society. These move very slowly — somewhat like gun control policies within the
United States, which reflect the same kind of persistence of conservative
values that seem impervious to even the most shocking abuse of guns.
The third major dimension of Saudi society and
state — regional policy — is the most dynamic and intriguing, because it
responds heavily to the actions of others who are not within the control of the
Saudi system. Regional and foreign policy is the arena where traditional
conservative Saudi values and operating methods run up against the challenges
of modern geopolitics and aggressive initiatives by many other states and
non-state actors.
Regional and foreign policy has always been
conducted quietly and discreetly, using Saudi moral, political and financial
influence to maintain stability above all else in the region. Occasional forays
into regional conflicts — like confronting Gamal Abdel Nasser in Yemen in the
1960s — was just that, very occasional.
Those days are behind us. Today’s Middle Eastern
and global orders present a very different picture from the previous 80 years
of Saudi statehood. The collapse of the Cold War in 1990 removed the great
stabilizer that had kept the Middle East largely unchanged politically for half
a century. The combination of rapidly growing populations alongside economic
stagnation and disparity caused most Arab countries by the 1990s to suffer
internal stresses and challenges to their established power structures. Some
states fragmented or reconfigured, like Somalia, Yemen, Sudan and Lebanon;
others saw their all-powerful central governments cede authority here and
there, which allowed non-state tribal, militia and religious actors to emerge
and share power, if not formal sovereignty.
So King Salman now engages with regional and
global orders marked by several new patterns: total chaos in some areas,
partial state collapse in others, widespread use of political violence and
terrorism, and massive intervention by foreign actors. Saudi Arabia itself
suffered from political violence in recent decades, but ultimately beat back
the attempt by Al-Qaeda within the kingdom to foment trouble and challenge the
state.
The traditional Saudi style of quiet action and
indirect intervention in regional issues is unlikely to succeed in the
turbulent new regional conditions. Violent actors like ISIS, Al-Qaeda in the
Arabian Peninsula and many other smaller such groups do not respond to the
kinds of Saudi and other political engagements that maintained regional calm in
the past, including mediation, development aid, and others. A new sectarian
streak in regional and local tensions — especially Sunni-Shiite rivalries — is
a troubling and novel element, which the Saudi authorities cannot ignore
because of their historic role as custodians of the Islamic heartland and
guardians of Sunni Islam.
The late King Abdullah responded to these
realities quite forcefully, and quickly grasped the new factor in the Middle
East that now faces his successor King Salman: There are no more local
conflicts in this region, and all local or national strife is directly linked
to greater regional powers and sometimes global confrontations. It is not
feasible to address local issues with a local power-sharing antidote, such as
happened in Lebanon at the end of the civil war in 1990. Conflicts like Syria,
Iraq, ISIS, Yemen, Bahrain, Lebanon, Libya and even Egypt link directly to
regional actors like Iran, Turkey, Qatar and others, now including Saudi
Arabia, which itself has responded to the regional conflicts by stepping in to
forcefully support rebels in Syria, the Lebanese armed forces, the Egyptian
government, and, when possible, conflict-ending peace agreements such as the
Saudis attempted over the years in Lebanon, Palestine and Yemen.
Rami G. Khouri is published twice weekly in
the Daily Star. He was
founding director and now senior policy fellow of the Issam Fares Institute for
Public Policy and International Affairs at the American University of Beirut. On
Twitter: @ramikhouri.