THE GROWING DESPERATION OF CROWN PRINCE ABDALLAH

Crown Prince Abdallah is desperate. He has set himself the goal of putting the House of Saud and its Kingdom in order, following the September 11 events. He has met little success.

Abdallah's task had become difficult, if not impossible, as he needed to tame the United States, the main aggressor against the Kingdom's government, yet the Kingdom's chief ally. The Americans, following September 11, had used their Office of Propaganda and Psychological Warfare(OPPW)--we'll call it that, since its real name remains unknown--at the Pentagon not only to wage psychological warfare against the Iraqi Baath; they have used OPPW to coordinate the process of establishing full control over the Kingdom's government. The rationale: The United States cannot afford to trust that government. Not after September 11.

By unleashing aggressive ideas about breaking up the Kingdom--by men who seemed to owe their jobs to OPPW and to the Pentagon, outside and inside of government--in an orchestrated bad cop(OPPW's men)-good cop(the Bush family)act, and by insinuating that some of the Kingdom's princes were implicated in September 11, OPPW mobilized an already-infuriated American public in support of anti-Saudi policies. With the American public behind it, OPPW set about to establish full control of Saudi Arabia's government.

The strategist at OPPW feel that the Saudis are unable to govern themselves. Accordingly, OPPW has initiated intervention in the various aspects of governance in Saudi Arabia: from school curricula to the installment of King and Crown Prince. Abdallah watches but is helpless at modulating the increasingly iron-clad American mandate over his family and his Kingdom.

The divisions, jealousies, and incompetence within the royal family are at the heart of Abdallah's helplessness. Some of his half-brothers can't seem to appreciate the true aims of OPPW, and feel that, whatever the aims of the American strategists, these could be beneficial to them individually. Abdallah's helplessness is made all the worse by the absence of a local or regional broker who can forge agreements and consensus among the members of the royal family. Divided, the Saud brothers have become pawns at the mercy of the American national security establishment. OPPW can whip the American public into an anti-Saudi mood almost instantly by leaking a "concern" any time it meets any resistance to its wishes in the Kingdom.

The absence of elections in the Kingdom contributes to the helplessness Abdallah feels. True, the Saudi government has launched an initiative for municipal elections, to take place in one year. But the turmoil in that country might delay these elections, and the delay can be disastrous for Abdallah's cause of preserving some independence for the Saudi government. How?

Only elected leaders with a popular mandate can stand in the way of the Pentagon's OPPW--and its contractors: its paid tentacles in consulting firms and right-wing think-tanks. (The left has ignored the importance of balance of power analysis in the unipolar world; but such analysis is still crucial, especially when unconventional warfare is factored into it.)
Elected leaders in this modern unipolar world will be the royal family's best protectors against OPPW's goal of total control of the Saudi government. In other words, the royal family will have to chose: To become marginalized by the United States self-righteous ideologues or to take a risk and have elected leaders preserve a role for it, one that is independent of Big Brother.

An elected leader can tell Big Brother that his/her constituency will not stand for this or that, and may direct his/her constituency accordingly. A non-elected one will not be believed, however much his/her supportive press protests otherwise. (Besides, Big Brother is buying into the Saudi-owned media, anyway, especially the one based in London and other places outside the Kingdom.)

Abdallah has tried to use foreign policy as a way of balancing OPPW's schemes. But, in this unipolar world, where the Kingdom had invested nearly its entire money and political capital in the United States, OPPW can afford to ignore--and has-- Abdallah's foreign policy moves, which it has deemed non-consequential in every sense.

Only elections will save some independence for the Kingdom's government and a role that is significant for the royal family.