Saudi king names son as heir to throne
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — Saudi Arabia’s King Salman appointed his 31-yearold son Mohammed bin Salman as crown prince on Wednesday, placing him first-in-line to the throne and laying the groundwork for an entirely new generation of royals to take the reins.
Saudi Arabia’s once powerful counterterrorism czar, Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, was removed from the line of succession — giving the younger prince a firmer hold on the kingdom’s foreign policies, including its close ties with U.S. President Donald Trump, its rivalry with Iran, its more than twoyear-long war in Yemen and its punishing moves to isolate Qatar.
The appointment of such a young royal as the immediate heir to the throne essentially sets Saudi policy for decades in the hands of a man seen as a risk taker.
“He could be there for 50 years,” said Kristian Coates Ulrichsen, a research fellow at the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy at Rice University. “If you look at it positively, it is basically setting Saudi Arabia’s course into the 21st century.”
The shuffle stripped Prince Mohammed bin Nayef of his title as crown prince and interior minister, overseeing security.
The all-but-certain takeover of the throne by Prince Mohammed bin Salman awards vast powers to a young prince who has taken a hard-line with Iran and who has led a war in Yemen that has killed thousands of civilians. Iran’s state TV has called the appointment a “softcoup in Saudi Arabia.”
The prince, known as MBS, already oversees a vast portfolio as defense minister. He has also become popular among some of Saudi Arabia’s youth for pursuing overhauls that have opened the deeply rigid country to entertainment and greater foreign investments as part of an effort to overhaul the economy.
The Saudi monarch quickly named him secondin-line to the throne two years ago, to the surprise of many within the royal family who were older and more experienced.
MBS is now poised to become the first Saudi monarch from a generation of royals who represent the grandsons of the country’s founder, King Abdul-Aziz. For decades, the throne has passed from elderly brother to elderly brother — all sons of the late founder.
The recasting of the line of succession marks the first real test of the ruling Al Saud family’s ability to manage the inevitable generational shift from the sons of Saudi Arabia’s founder to his grandsons, said Torbjorn Soltvedt, an analyst at global risk consultancy Verisk Maplecroft.
The royal decree stated that “a majority” of senior royal family members — 31 out of 34 — from the socalled Allegiance Council support the recasting of the line of succession. The Council is comprised of senior princes who gather in secret and vote to pick the king and crown prince from among themselves.