WHO WILL BE KING?

rough second draft

It just hit me: the wide chasm between the comments by Turki al-Faisal (See January 7 “Is Saudi Arabia Coming Back...) and those by the King (See January 7 “Turki al-Faisal is on His Own...”) may indicate a rift within the Saudi ruling elite. And it likely isn’t fully about Gaza. It’d be about preparations to replace both King (too old) and Crown Prince (suffering from cancer. Health condition purposely kept unclear.)

The king’s words struck me as adaptation from Bandar’s, and Mubarak’s. It took courage for Turki to state (earlier) that he would be a martyr for God and Palestine. To have done it, he must've had the support of other princes. Bandar seems to have retorted through the King.

I’m going out on a limb -- not having researched the issue enough. But we may be witnessing a rift within the ranks of Saudi princes in preparation to retire both King and Crown Prince, or at least agreeing to a timetable for retiring them. Turki’s statements likely were meant not only as message to Mr. Obama but, too, to galvanize those princes who are pre-disposed to dislike Bandar and his Israeli leanings.

It could be, too, that Turki's American advisers have told him about the pre-disposition of the President-elect, though it's highly unlikely Mr. Obama would take Hamas's side. But it's very possible that Mr. Obama wouldn't be (and shouldn't be) enamored by Mr. Bandar.

Weighing on Turki is the fact that, overall, going Israeli as Bandar had done has lost the Kingdom a lot of influence in its own backyard. Israel has been inching its way into the UAE (and possibly Oman) without a check. (The UAE Foreign Minister has been nothing but a tool of American Middle Eastern policy as designed and implemented by the harmful idiots and Israel's diaspora boys.) And the Kingdom has been belittled by Qatar's progressive and clearly Islamic foreign policy -- though Qatar has done a stunning job at concealing the fact by seemingly opening up to Israel.

As a result, the Kingdom in the future should be pulling not only against Iran, but against Israel too, in the Kingdom's own backyard. It'd be leaving its fate and the fate of the ruling family in the hands of the Israelis and their diaspora in the land of the harmful idiots.

Are we on to a new era in Saudi politics?