THE GENIUS OF PRINCE ABDULLAH
by George Jonas
National Post
May 30, 2005

After King Fahd, what? The ruler of the kingdom that raised 15 of the 19
9/11 hijackers is on his
deathbed. Though his condition is reported as stable, the Saudi king, said
to be 82, may or may not
recover from what is believed to be pneumonia.

The king is "said to be" 82 and "believed" to suffer from pneumonia because
autocracies are
reluctant to confirm even the most innocuous details. A tyrant's instinct
is to stamp the time of day
"top secret." Speak or leak, the official Saudi Press Agency is likely to
dissemble. Not that it matters:
Whatever caused King Fahd to be rushed to the hospital named after him in
Riyadh last Friday, and
whether he recovers from it or not, the figurehead monarch's days are
numbered.

King Fahd has been living on borrowed time for the last 10 years. After a
massive stroke sidelined
him in 1995, his half-brother Crown Prince Abdullah succeeded him in all
but name. Fahd, his
memory and concentration diminished, officially regained authority in 1996,
but has in fact been
reduced to an extra in his half-brother's oily operetta.

The nominal king makes a photogenic extra, Saudi-style: A corpulent figure
sporting a little goatee
at the centre of official photographs. The charade has to do with the
labyrinthine ways of the House
of Saud. The formal succession of Abdullah, in the event of Fahd's death,
is expected to proceed
smoothly. It's no wonder, considering that informally it has long been
accomplished. Still, things
don't always go as scripted, even -- or perhaps especially -- in the Middle
East.

Abdullah, who at last count had four wives, seven sons and 15 daughters, is
81 himself. Having no
full brother, he lacks a natural power base in the family politics of the
royal house -- though this
very fact has enabled him to slip through the cracks between opposing
factions as the compromise
candidate. His age and family status could operate for him as easily as
against him in the event of a
palace revolution challenging his rule.

A revolution is unlikely to come, though, either from inside or outside the
palace. If one did come,
chances are it would fail. The Saudi autocracy will probably survive King
Fahd's passing, not because
it lacks opponents, but because it has chosen and nurtured them carefully.

At first blush, the Royal House's politics make no sense. Saudi princes
appear to subsidize their
enemies. The royals of Riyadh dispense their largesse among the fanatics of
Islam, the followers of
Wahhabism, the proponents of theocracy. It's puzzling, for these
ultra-conservative Islamists accuse
King Fahd and his tribe of having betrayed Saudi interests to America.
They're Osama bin Laden's
followers, sometimes hands-on as the terrorists of 9/11, but minimally as
sympathizers. It seems
suicidal for the House of Saud to support them.

Yet support them it has, with Abdullah in the lead. The Crown Prince has
embodied
traditionalist-nationalist sentiments as much as his photogenic
half-brother. Abdullah has opposed
all modernist, America-friendly factions within the royal family. Until
9/11 at least, the Crown
Prince had no trouble reconciling lip-service to good relations between the
United States and Saudi
Arabia with being a staunch sponsor of the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Is there method to this madness? Many observers suggest that the royal
family's embrace of militant
Islam is a cynical ploy. Bribing fanatic and xenophobic al-Qaeda-types
ensures they'll pursue their
subversive activities outside the borders of the kingdom, leaving the Saudi
royals to enjoy their oil
revenues in peace. In essence, the Saudi princes say to bin Laden's true
believers: "Here's some
money. Go blow up tall buildings in the land of the Great Satan and leave
us alone."

It seems to me the political genius of the Saudi royals goes further. They
remember the fate of
autocrats who threw in their lot with Washington without bothering to hedge
their bets. The long
list includes such worthies as Taiwan's Chang kai-Shek, Cuba's Fulgencio
Battista, Vietnam's Ngo
Dinh Diem, and Iran's Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi. These strongmen were all
abandoned by their
U.S. allies in their hour of need. They were thrown to the wolves.

Abdullah and his half-brothers seem determined not to add to their number.
There's nothing more
dangerous for an autocrat than to be America's unconditional friend.

The United States has always had ambivalent feelings about despots. When a
U.S. administration
believed, however mistakenly, that it could coexist with a more popular or
"democratic" regime, it
left its erstwhile ally in the lurch. By the time Washington realized that
Fidel Castro or Ayatollah
Ruhollah Khomeini had even less to do with democracy than Battista or the
Shah -- and, on top of it,
they were America's enemies -- the damage was done.

Do despots have a defence against such high-minded treachery,
American-style? Yes: They can make
any alternative to themselves unmistakably worse. By breeding their own
Wahhabi opposition, the
Saudi princes leave nothing to chance. Democratic reform in Saudi Arabia
raises the spectre of
al-Qaeda. Much as George W. Bush supports democracy, he's unlikely to
abandon his royal ally
Abdullah to a democratically elected Osama bin Laden.

© National Post 2005

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