There’s plenty that’s attracted criticism of Saudi Arabian policy since King Salman succeeded to the kingdom’s throne almost five years ago and made his son Mohammed Bin Salman, now crown prince, a cabinet minister.
There’s the war in Yemen and the blockade of GCC partner Qatar; the announcement of Vision 2030 which called for a transformation in the Saudi economy in 15 years which hadn’t been managed in the previous 50; suggestions of a radical shift in the kingdom’s approach to Israel and the detention of leading businessmen on charges of corruption.
Saad al-Hariri was detained in Riyadh in 2017 and forced to announce his resignation as Lebanon’s prime minister, something he disavowed when he returned to Beirut. Last year, the ambassador to Canada was withdrawn over a critical statement made by its foreign minister.
In October 2018, Jamal Khashoggi was murdered and dismembered by associates of the crown prince in Istanbul. Prominent liberal activists have been imprisoned.
All this tested but failed to undermine the axiomatic conviction that the Saudi Arabian regime is legitimate, invaluable and irreplaceable.
Because of its status as the world’s leading oil exporter, huge financial reserves – much invested outside the kingdom – and role as guardian of Muslim Holy places, Saudi Arabia is more than the Middle East’s most influential nation. It’s one of the world’s most important, a member of the G20 with permanent representation on the board of the IMF.
The ruling Al-Saud family has for decades been seen across the world as Saudi Arabia’s human embodiment. The kingdom’s name said it all.
The Al-Saud has enjoyed the support of the US since the kingdom was created in 1932. This is not because it exemplifies the values America champions but because there was no conceivable alternative to a regime that combines an Arabian system of governance, credibility in the Islamic world and a determination to retain power.
The Saudi Arabian government guaranteed the flow of oil exports and was a pillar of the regional status quo against communist subversion and regional revolutionaries.
I started writing about and visiting Saudi Arabia in 1979 and in the intervening 40 years no question was more likely to get short shrift in the embassies in the kingdom visited for briefings than one suggesting the Saudi regime was unstable, dispensable or both.
There have been many moments of concern: the Iranian revolution and the seizure of the Holy Haram in Makkah by Islamic radicals in 1979 and Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990 were the most important.
But any doubts about the regime’s viability would be dismissed, though sometimes without much real conviction.
History shows that those who banked on the kingdom’s survival even in the darkest periods of those 40 turbulent years were right. But it also suggests nothing lasts forever.
The attacks on Saudi Arabian oil facilities on 14 September which the kingdom says were sponsored by Iran may prove to be the turning point that sceptics have long forecast.
The fact they were unprecedented is probably the least important. There’s a first time for everything.
What matters most was the limited subsequent oil price rise.
The US, which becomes a net oil exporter in 2020, and the world no longer needs Saudi Arabian oil in the way it did.
This is a chilling turning point, but it was bound to occur in due course. Non-Opec supplies are growing, oil demand growth is slowing and most forecasts show world petroleum consumption will start falling in about 15 years.
For Saudi Arabia, a worrying but still distant prospect became in September a sobering immediate reality that’s been noted across the world.
The second turning point is that the kingdom’s vulnerability to hostile regional rivals has been exposed in an unprecedented manner.
Despite the investment of hundreds of billions of dollars in defence and security, a blow was dealt to its most important assets in a sophisticated but low-cost attack. If it could happen once despite everything that’s been spent and done, it could happen again.
The world’s denounced the attacks. The US says Iran’s the ultimate culprit. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo described them as an act of war.
Saudi Arabia, victim of an action that is indefensible in principle and international law, has demanded the world acts to punish those responsible.
But an event of this nature is also a failure of national security and foreign policy. The Saudi government’s primary responsibility is to protect its people and defend its territory.
It is in this context that other features of Saudi Arabian policy will come under closer scrutiny. Saudi Arabia’s joined the UAE since 2015 in a campaign against the Muslim Brotherhood — a Sunni political movement that combines adherence to a conservative form of Islam with elections — which has affiliates across the Middle East and beyond. This has involved interference in Arab nations struggling with the aftermath of Arab Spring uprisings in 2010-11.
Its highest expression was support for the military coup in Egypt in 2013 which led to the emergence of President Sisi as the country’s new dictator. He’s tried to assume the mantle of Abdel-Gamal Nasser, an army officer who was Egypt’s president from 1954 until 1970. But personal deficiencies, the crude suppression of the opposition and the weakness of Egypt’s economy are fuelling a new crisis that supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood are bound to exploit.
In Saudi Arabia, the ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood offered an alternative to dynastic rule. It was contained so long as the Al-Saud were seen to be at least as committed to conservative Muslim values.
Overdue domestic reforms including allowing women to drive are partly designed to appeal to the West. Since the average American only thinks about the kingdom when oil prices rise, this is a pointless exercise though it will help corporations defend investing in Saudi Arabia or securing investment from the kingdom.
It also has limited domestic resonance among women rich enough to own a car and with the skills to drive one when gender separation preventing them finding a well-paid job has been retained.
But for those arguing that Muslim countries shouldn’t have an all-powerful king and a super-rich royal family, these reforms are both symbolic and provocative.
This was why Saudi Arabia adhered to conservative forms of social organisation while it simultaneously implemented one of the world’s most far-reaching programmes of economic reform.
The ruling family’s relationship with the kingdom’s business community is also under pressure. After Abdul-Aziz captured the Hejaz in 1925, the Al-Saud secured the co-operation of Jeddah’s merchant families through patronage and government contracts. There was resentment about the accumulation of royal wealth, but there was enough flowing from the kingdom’s oil sales to keep most business people content most of the time.
This came to an end in 2017 when hundreds of business people were detained on suspicion of corruption in Riyadh’s Ritz-Carlton Hotel.
The business community always knew its place but its existence suddenly depended upon one man’s whim.
Among the victims of the September oil field attacks is the plan for a Saudi Aramco IPO. No dispassionate foreign investor will invest in the company until there’s a guarantee they’ll never be repeated. That’s impossible so long as Iran is hostile and parts of Iraq, Syria and Yemen are controlled by Riyadh’s opponents.
There are reports that Saudi business people are being pressurised to buy shares in an initial domestic Saudi Aramco IPO. With memories of the Ritz Carlton detentions still fresh, they are unlikely to say no. But the well of business goodwill is being drained.
The Saudi Aramco IPO is a key element of Crown Prince Mohammed’s modernisation programme. It’s designed to spread directly and more widely the benefits of the kingdom’s oil income and engage foreign investors with Saudi Arabia’s long-term future.
It can’t be shelved without a loss of face. But it can’t go ahead as originally planned until threats to the kingdom’s oil industry are permanently countered.
Which leads us to the US. President Trump’s expressed sympathy for the kingdom but is rejecting military action against Iran. That’s wise, but leaves Saudi Arabia with almost no option apart from reaching an understanding with Tehran.
This too would involve an enormous loss of face. And a deal with Iran would probably have to encompass recognition of Tehran’s interests in Lebanon, Syria and Yemen.
The Yemen war and murder of Khashoggi have damaged the West’s capacity to convince its people that uncritical support of Saudi Arabia is justified. The attack on its oil fields highlighted the kingdom’s diminishing oil market influence and limited ability to counter its regional rivals. The US’ dependence on Saudi oil has almost disappeared. Unappeasable domestic critics of Saudi Arabian modernisation are still influential. The business community’s been alienated.
The foundations supporting the Saudi status quo have been weakened.
And the damage could be irreparable.