What new Saudi prince means for U. S. ISRAELI- PALESTINIAN TIES
Hawkish defense minister bin Salman has shown strong bond with Trump
Saudi Arabia’s King Salman, in a surprise announcement, named his son Mohammed bin Salman as crown prince, making him first in line to the throne. The prince, 31, who has been defense minister, is a hawkish statesman who formed a strong bond with President Trump when they met in March.
The appointment of the new crown prince could have a strong impact on Saudi policy in several key areas that matter to the U. S.:
CONFRONTATION WITH IRAN
Saudi Arabia and Iran are regional rivals who support opposing parties in civil wars in Yemen and Syria.
Saudi naval forces on June 16 seized an Iranian vessel suspected of carrying explosives and members of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to attack a Saudi oil facility in the Persian Gulf.
U. S. forces have long tried to avert open conflict between Saudi Arabia and Iran on the high seas, said Eric Pelofsky, a special assistant to former president Barack Obama who focused on the war in Yemen. “At the moment, the crown prince seems to think always on offense is the way to go.”
Bin Salman, whose Sunni monarchy considers itself the protector of Islam’s holiest shrines in Mecca and Medina, accused Shiite Iran of trying to “control the Arab world” and dismissed the possibility of a dialogue because of its leaders’ “extremist ideology.”
“We are not waiting until there becomes a battle in Saudi Arabia, so we will work so that it becomes a battle for them in Iran,” he said in a May 2 interview that ran on several Saudi television channels.
Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations, Gholamali Khoshroo, later called the comments “unveiled threats.”
The rivalry with Iran drives most of Saudi Arabia’s international relations and helps shape its dealings with the U. S., said Hussein Ibish, of the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington, a think tank.
He said bin Salman’s hawkish approach to Iran is in line with Trump, who has made countering Iran and its support for terrorism a priority. Saudi Arabia and Israel share a common enemy in Iran and an alliance with the U. S., and all three are fighting terrorism and coordinating those efforts to some extent. The failure of peace efforts between the Israelis and Palestinians has prevented full diplomatic and economic relations.
Bin Salman would like to develop what today is a clandestine security and trade relationship with Israel into an open and deeper partnership, said Simon Henderson, director of the Gulf and Energy Policy Program at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
Ibish said the Saudi prince’s calculation would likely be based on how close he can get to Israel without providing fodder to “extremists and fanatics” in the region who capitalize on Arabs’ legitimate concerns about the Israeli occupation and Palestinian rights.
“Anyone who deals with the Israelis gets slammed with this,” Ibish said.
As Trump adviser and son- in- law Jared Kushner arrived in Israel last week to discuss a possible peace deal, Ibish said the goal is not necessarily a “final status agreement” but rather “real progress” that provides stability and hope for a future resolution.
“This is the thinking among those in the Gulf interested in this,” including bin Salman, Ibish said.
RIFT WITH QATAR
Bin Salman is likely playing a key role in the rift with Qatar in the Saudi- led Gulf Cooperation Council.
Saudi Arabia sought to isolate Qatar to pressure the small nation to end its support for extremist groups, such as the Muslim Brotherhood and others that seek to challenge the leadership of the Sunni- led monarchies of the Persian Gulf.
Qatar is a key U. S. ally and host to U. S. forces coordinating the air campaign against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria and naval forces patrolling the Persian Gulf.
Lori Plotkin Boghardt, a former Saudi Arabia analyst at the CIA and now at the Washington Institute, said bin Salman is likely to adopt more assertive policies than Saudi Arabia has pursued in the past two years.
U. S.- SAUDI- RUSSIA RELATIONS
Bin Salman has fostered good relations with Russia, another major oil producer, and with the United States, on which Saudi Arabia relies for security and highend military hardware.
The Russian- Saudi relationship is focused on preventing a free- fall in the price of oil.
Because Moscow is also allied with Iran in Syria, it provides the Saudis an indirect but useful communications channel to Iran.
Bin Salman “has been a big part of the diplomatic outreach to Russia,” Ibish said.
The crown prince also has developed a strong relationship with Trump.
“The Saudis have put a lot of effort into recruiting Trump to their view of the region, and they’ve been quite successful at it,” Plotkin Bloghardt said. “They seem to have Trump and some of his key advisers on board. We can expect this kind of campaign from the Saudis to continue.”