Is Mohammed Bin Nayef the coming King?

Written by Nasser Kandil,

At the peak of the Saudi engagement in the region’s wars and the desperate effort to prove the status of the regional country which is able to change the path of events, since it occupied a coddled status at Washington which it cannot annoy it, the Americans have interfered ungraciously and forcefully twice in the last year in the reign of the late King Abdullah Bin Abdul Aziz, and in the beginning of the reign of the King Salman Bin Abdul Aziz  in drawing the structure of the Saudi throne,  the first one was to assign the Prince Mukrin Bin Abdul Aziz as a Crown Crwon Prince in the reign of Abdullah, in the eve of the visit of the US President Barack Obama to the Kingdom, while the second one was in a similar assignment of the Prince Mohammed Bin Nayef in the same position as a Crown Crown Prince, after the King Mukrin has become a Crown Prince in the absence of the King Abdullah and the accession of the King Salman of the throne. The two steps which the King Salman has done from outside the US agenda were the exemption of Mukrin the liable friend of the Americans as a man of intelligence. Thus the Prince Mohammed Bin Nayef the first man of the Americans in Riyadh has occupied the position of the Crown Prince, hoping to go on step by step to reach the second step with the American consent through the assignment of his son Mohammed Bin Salman as a Crown Crown Prince.

Since then, it seemed that the King the father and his Minister of Defense his son the Crown Crown Prince have put their fate in an adventure that their superiority is based on its success, and they will pay the cost in case of its failure, thus was the war of Yemen, the escalation in Syria, the announced war on the nuclear understanding with Iran, mobilizing all Washington’s allies who are complaining of the American effeteness, the defeat in front of Russia and Iran, and their call to form a political field front that disables the paths of settlements, and presents to Washington the facts which show that the image is not black, and the war did not end, and that it is still possible to do a lot. Within this endeavor the announced trinary coalition of Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Israel, and Al-Qaeda organization was born, and the hot war on Russia and Iran was emerged too, the Turks have dropped the Russian aircraft over the Syrian airspace, the Saudis killed the Iranian pilgrims and executed the dissident clerk Al Sheikh Nimr Al- Nimr, moreover the Israeli Saudi Turkish prosecution processes have been accomplished against the leaderships of Hezbollah, in each time it seemed that the Crown Price Mohammed Bin Nayef leaves the leadership to the King and his son and moves aside silently, does not speak but rarely, a general speech that does not express more than the big outlines of Riyadh’s policies.

The two Salmanis continued in their path till the end after they reached the impasse in the two wars of Yemen and Syria, moreover the trinary alliance and its fourth ally Al –Qaeda organization has failed in presenting what is enough to make the Americans change their policies despite Washington’s wishes of the success of the bet on the allies’ presence in the field. But what has happened was opposite to their desire, the equations which they wanted to rebel against accompanied with the encouragement of Washington have been proven, furthermore, they became more stable either through the Turkish failure against Russia and the continuation of Moscow of its hot policies in Syria through taking the initiative, or through the continuation of Iran of its calm regional progress despite the Saudis provocations, and after the Syrian and the Yemeni wars have reached to what requires reviewing the policies and taking into considerations the equations which the Russian Iranian Syrian alliance imposed and their fourth ally Hezbollah, such as field bases that do not leave any attempt for the maneuver, either to be restricted with the proposed controls by Moscow and be a partner in the settlements and the war on terrorism or to be outside the ring, Washington accepted the available, it has accepted the worse avoiding the worst, as it has already done when it accepted the understanding about the Iranian nuclear program. Saudi Arabia followed it shyly either through accepting the engagement in the path of the Yemeni settlement, or through meeting the graduation in applying Moscow’s terms about the war on Al Nusra front and forming the negotiating delegation in Geneva on behalf of the Syrian opposition.

In the turning point and what it includes of an implicit admission of the abject failure of the two Salmanis, and the storms of their resolving, and after they lost the Russian golden opportunity for Saudi Syria dialogue which gathered the Crown Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman with the Head of the Syrian National Security Council the Major General Ali Mamlouk, as well as after missing the American Russian golden opportunity that carried by Pakistan and Indonesia for Saudi Iranian dialogue instead of breaking up the diplomatic relationships. The silence dominated on the campaign of the Salamanis, there was no speech from each of the King and his son, but the Crown Price Mohammed Bin Nayef come out of his silence and talked in details about a consultative meeting on the sidelines of the meeting of the Gulf Cooperation Council and said that the failure has affected the Saudi policies in the two wars of Yemen and Syria, he blamed the allies who did not live up to their pledges in the war of Yemen, and they were not honest in their guarantees in the war of Syria, thus the matter requires reconsideration, an evaluation of policies, and an acceptance of presenting difficult concessions, however after hours of broadcasting the speech which the Crown Prince announced and which was spread on the Saudi site Al-Watan Online the speech was omitted and the site was stopped.

The participants in the dialogue in which the Crown Prince has declared emphasized through their tweets on Twitter and in statements in the Western newspapers the trueness of the speech of the Prince Mohammed Bin Nayef, and thus the deleting or the stopping of Al-Watan Online is no longer have a meaning in proving or negating the validity of the speech, but it is a sign of its repercussions and implications inside the Saudi House, either was the deleting or the stopping an initiative from the Cown Prince to restrict the speech inside the inner house or was an outcome of a conflict that broke out inside the house, but its certain that the speech has been said and that the Crown Prince has decided to come out of his silence and declared what must be said for announcing the starting of the new phase, which whenever was the endeavor to hide its paths and its features, it is still a connecting and dismantling in policies and positions, which will lead to resolving the bet for an answer to the question, for whom the King will step down, for his son after exempting the Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Nayef, as when he exempted his predecessor the Prince Muqirn, and after he has brought the Prince Nayef a step near the throne paving the way for his son Mohammed Bin Salman to proceed two steps forward or will he step down only, and thus the Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Nayef will be the King, who in return will dislodge his Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman the son of his predecessor the king who has started dislodging the Crown Prince, therefore the time passed and it was the turn of his son?

It is the tracks of events which decide not the desires, the desire of the King Salman is clear, it was through giving the control of the throne to his son before his departure, the wining in Yemen and Syria and having a distinguished status at Washington towards stepping down the Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Nayef without American opposition, otherwise the failure and the reconsideration in policies and the preparation for critical concessions, that have started and the Crown Prince has foreshadowed as a policy in his deleted speech, this means the fall of Salaman and his candidate for the throne, his Minister of Defense and the Crown Crown Prince, and the preparation of the Prince Mohammed Bin Nayef for the throne in a day not so far, after the wars of the King and his son in Syria and Yemen were towards another perspective that targets its stepping down, however this does not mean that the new forthcoming king will be less hostile toward the axis of the resistance…. But it is politics.

Translated by Lina Shehadeh,