http://www.collive.com/show_news.rtx?id=7636
Exclusive to us: The Arab revolt has spread to Arabia [we're dropping the descriptor "Saudi" since that will, in the near future, no longer be the name of the country currently known as "Saudi Arabia."] 22 Feb 2011 -- Some 100 youth took to the streets of Hafar Al Batin, calling for the end of the Saudi regime. Hafar Al Batin is a city in northeast Arabia. The Crypto-Zionist Saudi regime, through media propaganda, has devoted attention to the return of King Abdullah II after his recent surgery in NYC, New York and convalescence in Morocco.... Arabians are infuriated about the lack of government response to the floods in Jeddah and the fact that Abdullah did not do anything about the damage caused by the floods. On the eve of Abdullah's return, Arabians took to the streets calling on Abdullah not to return, chanting "we don't need you." No news agency has covered the Arabian protests, except Islah TV, which has confirmed the news. People in Arabia now say "Enough is Enough." We are told there will be a big uprising in the coming days in Arabia. Islamic Ummah Party calls for reforms. Opposition says Sauds are not the only ones who have right to rule the country....
http://video.ft.com/v/834974701001/Debate-Saudi-stability-London-mega-rich
Abdullah welcomed to Riyadh by Bahrain King Hamad.
http://www.alquds.co.uk/index.asp?fname=today\24z498.htm&arc=data\2011\02\02-24\24z498.htm
But watch-out for events in Saudi Arabia ... I have written for years that unless the Crypto-Zionist Al-Saud Dynasty disappears and its symbiotic alliance with the Wahhabi's/crazies vanishes completely, there is very little hope for Muslims , since Saudis would like for all Muslims Sunnis to remain backwards and obscurantist and remain utterly beholden to Riyadh/KSA and the Saudi Dynasty for money, for Qur'ans, for Mosques and all useless/unfocused Jihadi activities worldwide....
http://misralhura.files.wordpress.com/2008/02/prncis.pdf
Saudi Arabia and Israel are two parts of the same beast - just as Apartheid Israel must go so much the dictatorsh
There are actual Mossad and CIA/MI6 spies right inside the ZIOCON Saudi royal family....
The US coordinate
http://www.sauduction.com/index.htmlSaudi Arabia's succession struggles....
http://wikileaks.ch/cable/2008/10/08RIYADH1619.html
Yesterday, November 17, in the middle of the Eid al-Adha holiday, the Saudi Press Agency announced that Prince Badr, the long-serving deputy commander of the Saudi Arabian National Guard (SANG), had asked to be relieved from that role due to ill health. Minutes later, the agency announced that Badr's request had been accepted and that King Abdullah's son, Mitab, had been named SANG commander as well as a minister of state and a member of the Council of Ministers. Unstated was that King Abdullah, who had served as SANG commander since 1962, had given up the position.
The announcements have added to speculation that rivalry between the king and various senior princes is peaking. It remains to be seen whether leadership change in the kingdom -- the world's largest oil exporter and home of the two holiest places in Islam -- will be carefully choreographed or lead to open squabbling.
Photo-Op Politics
http://www.youtube.com/watch?gl=US&feature=player_embedded&v=wk_mvSp1xmA
An extraordinary sequence of royal news stories have emerged over the past few days, showing that either the senior princes are determined to keep up appearances of relative good health or, more likely, their sons are insisting on broad coverage to show that their fathers remain important players. Last week, the eighty-seven-year-old king disappeared from view, failing to chair the weekly council of ministers meeting. Four days later, on November 12, he was reported to be resting due to a herniated disc.
The next day, eighty-six-year-old Crown Prince Sultan, who has been suffering from cancer and is convalescing in Morocco, appeared in public as if to show he was ready to take over Abdullah's mantle. He was photographed signing an airport contract, even though his mental faculties are reportedly so poor that he is no longer able to function in the posts he still holds (deputy prime minister and minister of defense and aviation).
On November 16, the king -- whose own moments of lucidity are said to be declining as well -- appeared in public for a lunch with various princes and senior officials. Standing only briefly, he leaned heavily on a cane.
All of this has taken place against the background of the Hajj, the annual Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca. In Riyadh's view, ensuring the event's smooth operation is the royal family's preeminent responsibility. Given Abdullah's absence, the task of supervising this year's arrangements has fallen to seventy-seven-year-old Prince Nayef, the second deputy prime minister and interior minister, widely considered to be a future king.
Military Triad
For years, Abdullah, Sultan, and Nayef have led three distinct military bodies in the kingdom: respectively, the 100,000-strong SANG; the 75,000-strong army and 20,000-strong air force; and the 80,000-strong paramilitary and police units. SANG's principal role is seen as protecting the royal family from military coups; American advisors substantially built up and retrained the force during the 1970s following a 1969 plot involving air force officers. Although less well equipped than the army, SANG is regarded as more militarily competent. When Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1990, the army dithered while SANG units took up blocking positions on the border, helping to deter Iraqi armor from advancing on Saudi oil fields.
Leadership of SANG, the Saudi military, and the Interior Ministry forces is jealously guarded by the rival senior princes, who regard these responsibilities as personal fiefdoms. As fathers have become older, they have passed down increasing responsibility to their sons. Prince Mitab was made deputy commander for executive affairs at SANG in 2009. Sultan's son Khaled has been assistant minister of defense and aviation since 2001. And Nayef's son Muhammad has been assistant interior minister for security affairs since 1999.
Succession Rivalry
Prince Mitab's appointment as SANG commander not only fulfills a long-held personal ambition, but will also likely prompt his cousin Khaled to take over the role of defense minister from his father, Sultan. Similarly, Prince Muhammad will no doubt yearn for the position of interior minister. None of them are considered immediate candidates for the throne, however. For at least the next few years, that role will likely remain reserved for sons of the kingdom's founder, Ibn Saud, who have ruled in declining order of age since his death in 1953. Apart from Abdullah and Sultan, another eighteen surviving sons remain in line, but many have poor health, no apparent competence, or little family support. Nayef and Prince Salman, the governor of Riyadh province, seem like the only real candidates at present.
The main schism in the royal family remains the longstanding division between the so-called Sudairi sons of Ibn Saud (the largest group of full brothers, named after their mother's tribe) and their half-brothers. Sultan is the oldest surviving Sudairi; Nayef and Salman are among his full brothers.
For years, the Sudairis have plotted to undermine Abdullah. In 1982, when King Khaled died and was replaced by Fahd, himself a Sudairi, Fahd's brothers insisted that Abdullah give up command of SANG as the price for becoming crown prince. Backed by other half-brothers as well as the sons of the late King Faisal, Abdullah refused. His gesture this week of naming Mitab as SANG head effectively ensures that the force will remain independent rather than being absorbed into the main Saudi military, as the Sudairi princes have wanted for so long. SANG's domestic political influence is far wider than its 100,000 troops, at least a quarter of which are only part time. It also acts as a social welfare organization for the kingdom's Bedouin tribes, ensuring their loyalty to the House of Saud.
Challenges for the United States
Saudi Arabia's oil holdings and resultant wealth have made it an important member of the G-20. And on the ideological front, King Abdullah -- in the monarchy's traditional, self-styled role as "custodian of the two holy places" of Islam -- has been an important voice in depicting Muslim extremists as "deviants" rather than proper Muslims, per Saudi parlance. Encouraging Riyadh to maintain these positions has become an important policy objective for the Obama administration, even if it is still a work in progress: this week the State Department criticized the continued presence in Saudi textbooks of offensive references to other religions.
The advanced age and increasing ill health of the senior princes will likely enhance persistent tensions within the royal family. Washington is anxious to ensure that any transition is smooth, and that the new Saudi leadership continues its helpful policy stances, at least with regard to safeguarding global energy supplies and delegitimizing extremism.
An immediate concern for both Washington and Riyadh is facilitating progress on the recently announced $60 billion U.S. arms package to Saudi Arabia, which includes top-range F-15s for the Saudi air force and, for the first time, helicopters for SANG. Progress on the latter deal will likely be an important responsibility for the newly appointed Prince Mit3ab. Although Washington also intends to sell 24 Apache Longbow attack helicopters to the Saudi army and 10 more to the elite Saudi Royal Guard, these orders are dwarfed by the proposed sale of 156 helicopters to SANG: 36 Apache Longbows, 72 Blackhawk transports, and 48 Little Bird-type attack and utility craft. Indeed, the SANG component of the arms package is collectively valued at $29.6 billion, half the total.
The official U.S. Defense Security Cooperation Agency news release describing the deal confidently stated, "Saudi Arabia will have no difficulty absorbing these helicopters into its armed forces." Yet this notion -- as with hopes that the kingdom's approaching political transition will be smooth -- seems at best a testable proposition rather than a certainty.Saudi King Abdullah bin Abdul-Aziz has undergone a successful surgery in the United States to address a blood clot complicating a slipped spinal disc, according to a statement from the royal court on Nov. 24. The deteriorating health of the aging monarch comes as 82-year-old Crown Prince Sultan bin Abdul-Aziz, the king’s half brother, is suffering from cancer and has been spending much of his time resting in his palace in Morocco. The crown prince, who is also the country’s deputy prime minister, minister of defense and aviation, and inspector general, returned to Saudi Arabia on Nov. 20 to see to the affairs of the state in the king’s absence. The actual health status of both men remains opaque but, given their ages and medical histories, it is safe to assume that the kingdom will soon see a transition of power.
Since 2005, when Abdullah ascended to the throne after the death of his predecessor, King Fahd, the Saudi kingdom has been engaged in a slow transition of power from one generation to the next. Besides King Abdullah, there are some 19 surviving sons of the founder of the modern kingdom, of whom only four can be considered likely successors to the throne given their current positions and influence. This means the grandsons of the founder, a much larger group, will very soon dominate the hierarchy of the Saudi state. So long as power was in the hands of the second generation, succession was not such a difficult issue and was dealt with informally. However, due to the massive changes occurring both within Saudi Arabia and in the wider Middle East, this transition will come at a particularly difficult time for the next-generation leadership that, despite the formal processes for succession instituted by Abdullah, will likely be far less unified than the current one.
That said, the al-Saud regime has proved to be remarkably resilient over the course of its history, remaining in power despite the forced abdication of the founder’s successor, King Saud, in 1964; the assassination of King Faisal in 1975; and the stroke-induced incapacitation of King Fadh for nearly a decade until his death in 2005, when King Abdullah took the throne.
Saudi Arabia's Succession Labyrinth
The stability of the second generation’s leadership can be attributed, at least in part, to three key clans of the royal family acting as checks on one another. These include the Faisal clan, named for the successor to King Saud, who succeeded Saudi Arabia’s modern founder, King Abdul-Aziz bin Abdel-Rehman al-Saud; the Abdullah faction, named for the current king; and the Sudairi clan, named for the founder’s eighth wife, Princess Hassa bint Ahmad al-Sudairi. While Byzantine in its complexity, this balance has prevented incessant power grabs by King Abdul-Aziz’s hundreds of descendants.
The Three Main Clans
The clan of former King Faisal includes Prince Saud, the current foreign minister, and Faisal’s other two sons, Prince Khalid, governor of Mecca, and Prince Turki, who served as the kingdom’s intelligence chief from 1977 to 2001. The Faisal clan has somewhat weakened in recent years. Prince Turki, after briefly serving as ambassador to the United States and the United Kingdom from 2003 to 2006, currently holds no official position, though he remains influential. His older full brother, Prince Saud, who has been foreign minister since 1975, is 70 years old and ailing, and could step down soon.
Despite his influence over the years as head of the Saudi Arabian National Guard (SANG) from 1962 to 2010, crown prince from 1982 to 2005, and de factor ruler since 1995, King Abdullah’s faction is numerically small; he has no full brothers who hold key posts, and thus his clan is made up of his sons. King Abdullah’s most prominent son, Mitab bin Abdullah, recently took over the SANG, and the king’s oldest son, Khalid bin Abdullah, is a member of the newly formed Allegiance Council, set up to govern the succession process. Mishal bin Abdullah assumed the post of governor of the southern province of Najran, while another son, Abdul-Aziz bin Abdullah, has been an adviser in his father’s royal court since 1989.
The Sudairis have held a disproportionate amount of power, due in part to the fact that their leader, the late King Fahd, was the longest-reigning monarch of the kingdom, ruling from 1982 to 2005. The Sudairi faction includes many powerful princes, such as the clan’s current patriarch, Crown Prince Sultan, who serves as minister of defense and aviation and as inspector general; the vice minister of defense and aviation, Prince Abdul Rahman; Interior Minister Prince Naif; the governor of Riyadh province, Prince Salman; and Deputy Minister of Interior Prince Ahmed.
Even though the crown prince’s clan is bigger and more prominent than the king’s, the two clans remain the principal stakeholders in the Saudi ruling family because they control the two parallel military forces of the kingdom. This has been the case since the early 1960s when then-Crown Prince Faisal — as part of his efforts to take power from his half brother, King Saud — appointed Crown Prince Sultan as minister of defense and aviation and King Abdullah as head of the SANG. Since then, the two men have controlled the two separate forces.
King Abdullah’s move to appoint his son, Mitab, to head the SANG shows that control over the force will remain with his clan. Likewise, Crown Prince Sultan would like to see control over the regular armed forces go to his eldest son, Khalid bin Sultan (currently assistant minister of defense), after Prince Sultan either decides to step down as minister of defense and aviation or dies. But this remains to be seen since the king reportedly opposes Khalid’s taking over the Defense Ministry.
Further complicating the situation is that, thus far, clans have been composed of the various sons of the founder from different mothers. Now, many of these second-generation princes have multiple wives, who have produced many sons all seeking their share of power, adding to the factionalism.
Setting Up a Succession Plan
Sensing that the power-sharing method within the family had become untenable due to the sheer number of descendants seeking power and influence within the regime, King Abdullah in 2007 moved to enact the Allegiance Institution Law, which created a leadership council and a formal mechanism to guide future transitions of power.
This new, 35-member body, called the Allegiance Council, is made up of the 16 surviving sons of the founder and 19 of his grandsons — a disparity that will grow as the sons begin to die. Its purpose is to choose the new king and crown prince when they die or are permanently incapacitated, but the new institution remains an untested body. Perhaps most problematic, the processes the council is set to govern are being implemented at a time when the second generation is on its way out. Had this formal process of succession been initiated earlier, it would have been institutionalized during the era of the sons of the founder. They were far fewer in number and worked directly with their father to build the kingdom, giving them a stronger claim to authority than anyone in the subsequent generation. An earlier start would have allowed the second generation to deal with the many problems that inevitably crop up with any new system.
The composition of the Allegiance Council is such that it gives representation to all the sons of the founder. This is done through either their direct membership on the council or via the grandsons whose fathers are deceased, incapacitated, or otherwise unwilling to assume the throne. The reigning king and his crown prince are not members but each has a son on the council. The council is chaired by the eldest son of the founder, with his second-oldest brother as his deputy. Should there be no one left from the second generation, the leadership of the council falls to the eldest grandson. Any time there is a vacancy, the king is responsible for appointing a replacement, though it is not known if King Abdullah has filled the vacancy created by the death of Prince Fawaz bin Abdul-Aziz, who died in July 2008, some six months after the establishment of the council.
When King Abdullah dies, the council will pledge allegiance to Crown Prince Sultan, who automatically ascends to the throne. But the issue of the next crown prince is mired in a potential contradiction. According to the new law, after consultation with the Allegiance Council, the king can submit up to three candidates to the council for approval. The council can reject all of them and name a fourth candidate. But if the king rejects the council’s nominee then the council will vote between its own candidate and the one preferred by the king, and the candidate who gets the most votes becomes the crown prince. There is also the option that the king may ask the council to nominate a candidate. In any case, a new crown prince must be appointed within a month of the new king’s accession.
This new procedure, however, conflicts with the established practice in which the second deputy prime minister takes over as crown prince, a policy that has been followed since King Faisal appointed Fahd to the post. In fact, the current king, after not naming a second deputy prime minister for four years, appointed Interior Minister Prince Naif to the post in March 2009. The appointment of Naif, who is viewed within Saudi Arabia as the next crown prince and eventually the king, as second deputy prime minister after the establishment of the Allegiance Council has already raised the question of whether established tradition will be replaced by the new formal procedure.
The law also addresses the potential scenario in which both the king and crown prince fall ill such that they cannot fulfill their duties, which could transpire in the current situation given the health issues of both King Abdullah and Crown Prince Sultan. In such a situation, the Allegiance Council would set up a five-member Transitory Ruling Council that would take over the affairs of the state until at least one of the leaders regained his health. If, however, it is determined by a special medical board that both leaders are permanently incapacitated, the Allegiance Council must appoint a new king within seven days.
In the event that both the king and crown prince die simultaneously, the Allegiance Council would appoint a new king. The Transitory Ruling Council would govern until the new king was appointed. While it has been made clear that the Transitory Ruling Council will not be allowed to amend a number of state laws, its precise powers and composition have not been defined.
What Lies Ahead
The kingdom has little precedent in terms of constitutionalism. It was only in 1992 that the first constitution was developed, and even then the country has been largely governed via consensus obtained through informal means involving tribal and familial ties. Therefore, when this new formal mechanism for succession is put into practice, the House of Saud is bound to run into problems not only in implementation, but also competing interpretations.
To make matters worse, the Saudis are in the midst of this succession dilemma — and will be for many years to come given the advanced ages of many senior princes — at a time of massive change within the kingdom and a shifting regional landscape.
On the external front there are a number of challenges, the most significant of which is the regional rise of Iran, catalyzed by the Shia-dominated government in Baghdad and the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq. The Saudis also do not wish to see a U.S.-Iranian conflict in the Persian Gulf, which would have destabilizing effects on the kingdom. To Saudi Arabia’s immediate south, Yemen is grappling with three different insurrections challenging the regime of aging Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh. In the Levant, the Saudis have to deal with both Iran and Syria, which each enjoy far more influence in Lebanon than Riyadh. Egypt is also in the middle of a major transition as ailing 82-year-old President Hosni Mubarak, who has been at the helm for nearly 30 years, will soon hand over power to a successor — a development that has implications for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, another key area of interest for the Saudis. Even in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the Saudis are caught between two unappealing options: side with the Taliban, as they did during the Taliban’s rule in the 1990s, and risk empowering al Qaeda-led jihadists, or oppose the Taliban and thus help Iran expand its influence in the area.
Turkey’s bid for leadership in the Middle East is a new variable the kingdom has not had to deal with since the close of World War I and the demise of the Ottoman Empire. In the near term, the Saudis take comfort in the idea that Turkey can serve as a counter to Iran, but the long-term challenge posed by Turkey’s rise is a worrying development, especially since the Saudi leaders’ predecessors lost control of the Arabian Peninsula twice to the Ottomans — once in 1818 and then again in 1891.
While the Saudis have time to deal with a number of these external challenges, they do not enjoy that same luxury in their domestic affairs. The Saudis have been largely successful in containing the threat from al-CIAda...., but they have had to engage in radical reforms, spearheaded by King Abdullah, in order to do so. These include scaling back the powers of the religious establishment, expanding the public space for women, changing the educational sector and undertaking other social reforms. These moves have led to a growing moderate-conservative divide at both the level of state and society and have galvanized those calling for further socio-political reforms as well as the significant Shia minority that seeks to exploit the opening provided by the reform process.
Each of these domestic changes and their implications are deemed extremely uncomfortable by the religious establishment. While thus far the Saudis have been able to control the prominent Muslim scholars, known as the ulema class, especially with the limits on who can issue fatwas, the potential for backlash from the ulema remains. At the very least, the ulema will support more conservative factions in any power struggle.
All of these issues further complicate the Saudis’ venture into uncharted territory insofar as leadership changes are concerned. There are several princes who have already distinguished themselves as likely key players in a future Saudi regime. These include intelligence chief Prince Muqrin, the youngest living son of the founder and a member of the Allegiance Council; Prince Khalid bin Faisal, the governor of Mecca province; Prince Mitab bin Abdullah, the new commander of SANG; and Assistant Interior Minister Prince Mohammed bin Naif, the kingdom’s counterterrorism chief and head of the de-radicalization program designed to reintegrate repentant jihadists.
Since May 2008, when news first broke that Crown Prince Sultan was terminally ill, the expectation has been that the kingdom would have a new crown prince before it got a new king. King Abdullah’s recent hospital visit may or may not alter those expectations. But in the end, the real issue is whether the historically resilient Saudi monarchy will be able to continue to demonstrate resilience moving forward....
وكأنّ التاريخ يعيد نفسه. صورة للملك عبد الله على كرسي نقّال تذكّر بحال الملك الراحل فهد، وتفتح المعركة على الخلافة في ظل خلافات تستعر بين أمراء آل سعود، تجاوز صداها حدود المملكة، ليمتد إلى دول الجوار، بل إلى واشنطن
حراك غير اعتيادي تشهده الساحة الداخلية السعودية، كمّاً ونوعاً، منذ أيام، إذا ما أضيفت إليه بعض التسريبات الخارجة من الرياض، فإنّهما ينبئان بالحد الأدنى بتوجه نحو ضبط الخلافات التي تعتمل بين أجنحة العائلة المالكة، والتي بدأت تؤثر في الأداء الإقليمي للسعودية ودورها في المنطقة، وربما لا ينتهيان بترتيبات توريث الملك ما بعد عبد الله، الذي يثير حالة من القلق في واشنطن، سواء لدى الإدارة أو أجهزة الاستخبارات.
لكن بدايةً لا بد من الإشارة إلى المقولة التي تحولت لازمة في كل مقال عن السعودية ينشد المهنية: من يعرف ماذا يدور في أروقة آل سعود لا يتكلم، ومن يتكلم لا يعرف. غير أن الركون إلى بعض المؤشرات الظاهرة مع التسريبات التي تخرج بين الفينة والأخرى إلى العلن من داخل الرياض، تضاف إليها المعلومات الموجودة بحوزة العواصم المعنية مباشرةً بما يدور في السعودية مثل دمشق وبيروت وطهران، يمكن أن يساعد على تركيب الصورة.
من هذه المؤشرات سفر الملك عبد الله اليوم إلى الولايات المتحدة بهدف معلن هو «العلاج»، وإن كانت التسريبات تفيد أنه ذاهب ليبحث ترتيبات الخلافة، وعودة ولي العهد سلطان وأمير الرياض سلمان إلى السعودية أمس، وإن كان هناك من وضعها في خانة عدم ترك فراغ في السلطة، وقبلها كان تعيين الأمير متعب، الابن الثالث لعبد الله، رئيساً للحرس الوطني وعضواً في مجلس الوزراء الذي يرأسه والده (علماً أنه عسكري محترف يحظى بشعبية واسعة في صفوف الحرس، الذي يعدّ التشكيل العسكري الأقوى في المملكة بعديد يلامس المئة ألف عنصر ويتولى مهمة العلاقة مع القبائل وتوزيع الأموال عليها).
وهناك عودة بندر بن سلطان، بعد أشهر من الغياب القسري بفعل غضب عبد الله عليه، باستقبال حاشد من جانب العائلة المالكة في المطار.
وتفيد التسريبات أن «خطوة تعيين متعب في منصب كان يشغله عبد الله، هي عملياً المرة الأولى التي يتخلى فيها ملك عن منصب يشغله على حياته وقد أرادها عبد الله كنموذج يؤهله ليطلب من الآخرين الاقتداء به». وتضيف التسريبات نفسها أن عبد الله مع نقل السلطة إلى جيل الأحفاد، «ويبدو أن لديه تصوراً يقوم على تعيين خالد الفيصل نائباً ثانياً لرئيس الوزراء، مكان نايف، ما يؤهله ليكون ولي العهد المقبل، وخالد بن سلطان وزيراً للدفاع، ومحمد بن نايف وزيراً للداخلية، وتركي الفيصل وزيراً للخارجية، وبندر بن سلطان رئيساً للاستخبارات»، مشيرةً إلى مرض الأمير سلمان بداء القلب، وإلى أن «البحث جار عن منصب لمحمد بن فهد، على قاعدة أن السعوديين يهتمون جداً بأبناء الملوك».
مصادر قريبة من أروقة صناعة القرار في السعودية تقول إن «أولاد سلطان هم من أعادوه إلى الرياض لقطع الطريق على عمهم نايف لتسلم مقاليد الحكم فعلياً بغياب الملك». وتضيف إن «عبد الله، لمّا تسلم الحكم فعلياً بعد عجز الملك فهد، درّج عُرفاً بأن يحوّل جميع قرارات مجلس الوزراء، الذي كان يرأسه بغياب فهد، إلى الملك من أجل توقيعها. ولمّا كان أولاد سلطان يعرقلون هذا الأمر بحجة أن الملك تعِب أو نائم أو ما إلى ذلك، عمد عبد الله إلى تعيين عبد العزيز بن فهد وزيراً في الحكومة، وكان يعطيه، مع انتهاء كل جلسة، القرارات ليأخذها إلى والده لتوقيعها. ليس واضحاً كيف سيجري هذا الأمر الآن بغياب عبد الله».
تطورات تكتسب أهميتها من حقيقة باتت متداولة في كلياتها، وإن كانت غير معروفة كثيراً في تفصيلاتها، وهي أن السعودية وإن كانت صفتها مملكة، لكنها في الحقيقة أربع ممالك يتزعم واحدة منها عبد الله فيما يقود الثلاث الأخريات السديريّون الثلاثة: نايف وسلطان وسلمان، وهذه الممالك الأخيرة، وإن كانت في صراع في ما بينها، لكنها متحالفة في وجه مملكة عبد الله. فضلاً عن أن العائلة المالكة يعصف بها نوعان من الصراعات: الأول صراع أجيال بين أبناء الملك الراحل عبد العزيز آل سعود وبين أحفاده، والثاني صراع على النهج السياسي، بين تيار إصلاحي معتدل ومنفتح يقوده عبد الله، وآخر محافظ متشدد يقوده نايف وثالث فاسد مرتبط بأجهزة الاستخبارات الأميركية يتزعمه سلطان.
ولا بد من الإشارة هنا إلى حقيقة أخرى أثبتتها الممارسة في خلال العقود الماضية، تفيد بقدرة عائلة آل سعود على ضبط الخلافات والتناقضات داخلها، بل واحترام أمرائها للحدود في ما بينهم. لكن هناك من يتحدث عن أن هذا الأمر ظل صحيحاً إلى عام 1988، حين توفي الأمير محمد بن عبد العزيز، الذي كان يمارس دور عميد الأسرة الحاكمة أو المرجع المتمكن والحاسم لكل خلافاتها، ومن بعده أحيلت القضايا الاجتماعية والخلافات العائلية على مستوى الزواج والطلاق وما يوازيها من مشاكل للأمير سلمان، لكن لم يخلف الأمير محمد في شأن قضايا الخلاف الكبرى أحد.
ويبدو أن خلافات هذه الأسرة تجاوزت في خلال الفترة الماضية الحدود السعودية لتؤثر على أداء الرياض في مجموعة من الملفات، وبينها لبنان والعراق والعلاقة مع إيران وسوريا والعلاقة السنية الشيعية.
مصادر عليمة بشؤون المملكة وشجونها تقول إن «الناس في السعودية يدعون الله لأن يمد بحياة عبد الله أربع أو خمس سنوات على الأقل من أجل أن تتاح فرصة إلغاء هيئة الأمر بالمعروف والنهي عن المنكر، الذي بدأ العمل عليه». وتضيف إن «مشروعه الإصلاحي الداخلي قد سار قدماً، ما خلق حالاً من الارتياح الشديد في الأوساط المناهضة للفساد والمؤيدة للانفتاح وفي أوساط الشباب الذين يمثّلون عصب المجتمع السعودي. لقد حقق الكثير من الاختراقات: استقبل الشيعة والإسماعيليين، وأطلق للمرة الأولى حواراً سنياً شيعياً، كما أطلق الحوار الأول الذي شاركت فيه المرأة». وتتابع «كان لديه مشروع وطني عنوانه فلسطين. الكل يذكر خطبته الشهيرة أمام الجيش السعودي قبيل انطلاقه للمشاركة في معركة تحرير الكويت. كان خطاباً طغت عليه لغة أن هذا جيش تحرير فلسطين. حتى خرج من قال له، في الداخل والخارج، إن فلسطين في الغرب لا في الشمال. استمر الوضع على هذه الحال إلى أن جاءت رسالته الشهيرة الشديدة اللهجة إلى جورج بوش. طلب حلاً فلسطينياً، قبل أيام فقط من هجمات 11 أيلول، التي وضعت السعودية في موقع الدفاع، وأدت إلى مبادرة عبد الله التي إن عنت شيئاً فتصفية القضية الفلسطينية».
المصادر القريبة من أروقة القرار في السعودية تقول إن «عبد الله يعدّ أضعف ملوك المملكة. عجز حتى عن حسم قضية ولاية العهد، وما هيئة البيعة التي ألّفها في 2006 سوى ترحيل لهذه المشكلة. لم يستطع حتى حماية الإصلاحيين، الذين انفتح عليهم، من نايف الذي كان يعمد إلى اعتقالهم».
أما سلمان (74 عاماً) فتصفه المصادر نفسها بأنه «ذو وجهين؛ هو صديق المثقفين وفي الوقت نفسه على صلة بهيئة الأمر بالمعروف والنهي عن المنكر»، مشيرةً إلى أنه «مؤثر في قرار هيئة البيعة التي ألّفها الملك عبد الله لاختيار ولي العهد». وتضيف إنه «يحظى بتأييد العائلات الثرية وذات النفوذ التي استوطنت الرياض خلال السنوات الثلاثين الماضية»، مشيرةً إلى أن «هناك محاولة على ما يبدو لإقناع نايف، بالتنحي لمصلحة سلمان، لأسباب متعددة أولها أن وزير الداخلية، الذي يتحكم في الشرطة والمطاوعة (نحو 80 ألف عنصر معاً) طاعن في السن ويعاني مرض اللوكيميا، فضلاً عن أنه غير مرحّب به في واشنطن التي تصفه بالرجل الصعب».
وفي حديثها عن نايف، تصفه المصادر بأنه «المتحكم في الأمن والداخلية»، مشيرةً إلى أنه يأتي مباشرةً بعد سلطان في تولي العرش، وإلى أن نجمه قد صعد في الحرب التي شنها على تنظيم «القاعدة» وفي برنامج التأهيل الذي وضعه لمن سمّاها «الفئة الضالّة» من أجل إعلان «التوبة». وتضيف إنه «متطرف ومؤيد شرس لهيئة الأمر بالمعروف، بل للمؤسسة الدينية التي تستفيد من دعمه لها ويستفيد من دعمها له».
وتؤكد المصادر نفسها أن سلطان، الذي يقود جيشاً من نحو 80 ألف عنصر وقوات جوية من نحو 20 ألفاً، «هو حلقة الارتباط الرئيسية بالسي اي ايه»، مشيرةً إلى أنه أصبح «عاجزاً وفاقداً للحيلة فيما ابناه، بندر، لا يمكن حسابه على والده لكونه قد فتح على حسابه، وخالد، الذي يبدو رجل أعمال أكثر منه رجل أمن وسياسة».
وتتابع أن المشهور عن بندر «رعايته قاعدة العراق منذ أيام أبو مصعب الزرقاوي، وفتح الإسلام في لبنان»، مشيرةً إلى أنّ جناح سلطان هو أكثر من تضرّر من حملة عبد الله لمكافحة الفساد. «أقفلوا عليه مزاريب المال. توقفت العمولات، وحتى فواتير النفقات ما عادت تُدفع».
مصادر وثيقة الصلة بأروقة القرار في طهران ودمشق تؤكد «وجود خلاف جذري وحاد بين ما يمكن تسميته جناح الملك، والجناح السديري من الأبناء الروحيين للملك الراحل فهد»، في إشارة إلى إخوته نايف وسلطان وسلمان. وتوضح أن «تسمية أبناء فهد المقصود منها متابعة هؤلاء والتزامهم بنهج الملك الراحل وسياساته بعد وفاته»، مشيرةً إلى أنّ هناك «صراعات حتى في صفوف هؤلاء بين سلمان المنفتح على الليبراليين ونايف راعي السلفيين وسلطان وابنه خالد اللذين تنتهي حركة اتصالاتهما في مقر وكالة الاستخبارات المركزية الأميركية، وطبعاً درّة هؤلاء بندر، الذي فرض الأميركيون عودته إلى المملكة من أجل أن يلقي بعبئه وثقله على الملك عبد الله». لكنها صراعات، على ما تشير تلك المصادر، «تدور تحت سقف واحد، وهو اتفاق الجميع ضد عبد الله»، الذي «لا تجد من حوله رموزاً كبيرة. هناك ابناه، متعب، الذي كُلّف رئاسة الحرس الوطني، وعبد العزيز، المكلف العلاقات مع سوريا، ومعهما رئيس الاستخبارات الأمير مقرن، الذي يوزّع رجليه، واحدة عند عبد الله، والثانية عند بندر».
وتقول المصادر إنّ «عبد الله ليبرالي النزعة، لا سلفيّ. مناهض للوهابية، بل إنه يرفض هذا المصطلح أصلاً. إصلاحي بالمعنى الإداري والمالي والتنظيمي. يقبل كل شيء يجلبه الغرب. أكثر تقبلاً للشيعة وقادر على التعايش معهم. مؤيد للحوار بين الأديان، وأيضاً الحوار السني الشيعي. ينبذ التكفيريين ويقود الحوار مع سكان المنطقة الشرقية (شيعة السعودية). لا يمانع الاختلاط بين الجنسين، والدليل ما يجري في الجامعة التي تحمل اسمه. يطرب للأصوات المعتدلة في العالمين العربي والإسلامي لأنه يعدّها رافعة له. كما لا يمانع إجراء تسوية مع إيران، إذا وجد العرب صيغة مناسبة لذلك، لكن طبعاً إيران علي أكبر هاشمي رفسنجاني، وإيران محمد خاتمي، لا إيران محمود أحمدي نجاد، ليس لشيء سوى لأن هذا الأخير غير مقبول أميركياً. هو حليف وثيق للولايات المتحدة لكنه ديموقراطي النزعة. العلامة السوداء الأساسية في سجله أنه مع تصفية القضية الفلسطينية، على قاعدة المبادرة المعروفة».
في المقابل، تقول المصادر نفسها، إن «أبناء فهد يحتلون الطرف النقيض لعبد الله. صحيح أن التحالف مع أميركا يعدّ قاسماً مشتركاً بينهم. لكن هؤلاء جمهوريّو الهوى. هم مع القضية الفلسطينية. وكلمة «مع» هنا لا تعني تحريرها من البحر إلى النهر، بل مراعاة منهم لجمهورهم السني السلفي الذي يقدس هذه القضية». وتضيف «هم يستخدمون التيار السلفي لأخذ امتيازات سلطوية من الأميركيين في صراعهم مع عبد الله والمعتدلين، وفي الوقت نفسه يستفيدون من الهجمة الأميركية على إيران والشيعة لأنها تتناسب مع الوجه الوهابي الذي يرتدونه».
وتؤكد المصادر نفسها، في تفسيرها لانعكاس هذا الخلاف الداخلي على السياسة الإقليمية للرياض، أن «هذا ما يضعف الدور السعودي. فريق يأتي بحركة، فيقوم الآخر بعكسها. لعل المثال الأوضح ما حصل عندما دعا عبد الله إلى حوار أديان أواخر عام 2008. وقتها، دعا رفسنجاني وخاتمي، الذي لم يتمكن من الحضور. المهم، أنه في الوقت الذي كان فيه الحوار منعقداً، خرج 50 عالم دين سعودياً، بتحريض من نايف، ببيان يكفّرون فيه الشيعة. ولما عاتب رفسنجاني الملك، قال له عبد الله: هذا البيان ضدي أكثر مما هو ضدكم. يريدون تخريب مبادرتي».
وتستطرد المصادر أن «كل ما يفعله التكفيريون في العراق، إنما يقومون به رغماً عن عبد الله. لدينا معلومات دقيقة عن كيف طلب هؤلاء الدعم المالي والسلاح من الملك الذي رفض تزويدهم به. الدعم الرئيسي يتلقونه من نايف وبندر الذي يبدو كأنه يجلس على قلب عبد الله». وتضيف إنه «لا شك في أن ملك السعودية صادق في مبادرته العراقية. هو يتمنى من كل جوارحه أن ينتهي من هذه المشكلة. يأمل بطائف عراقي، يرفضه أبناء فهد الذين يتحملون مسؤولية تفجيرات العراق التي تحمل بصمات بندرية». وتتابع «لكن عبد الله محاط بذئاب، لعل أشرسهم نايف الذي يمكن وصفه بأنه المصيبة الكبرى. الأنكى أنه الخليفة المحتمل لعبد الله، الذي يُعدّ العنصر الأضعف في هذه المعادلة، وخصوصاً مع الحال الصحية التي تزداد تدهوراً لسلطان»، موضحةً أن «بندر معاد شرس لإيران والشيعة. معاد لأي تفاهم معهم. غير قادر حتى على تحمل اتفاق أمني على مكافحة المخدرات وقّعه مع طهران ويرفض تنفيذه».
وتقول المصادر إن «الوضع عينه ينطبق على لبنان، وهو ما يفسر حال التخبط التي يعيش بها (رئيس الحكومة سعد) الحريري. رزقه وغطاؤه السياسيان عند عبد الله الذي صالحه مع دمشق ويحاول دائماً إفهامه بأنه رئيس وزراء لكل اللبنانيين. أما سره، فعند أبناء فهد، أصحاب خطة التجييش المذهبي، الذين يمتلكون قدرة تقطيع أوصاله المالية. يعيش في حيرة: هل يتلقى أمر اليوم بحسب فهم عبد الله الذي يمسك بزمام الحكم في المملكة، أم يأخذه من الآخرين الذين يتحكمون في «مصارينه»؟».
مصادر عليمة بشؤون علاقة السعودية بالحريري تؤكد أنه «لا يزال، كما والده، عند عبد العزيز بن فهد، لكن الملك عبد الله يمسك بخناقه. جمّد له نحو أربعة مليارات دولار من أمواله ولا يدفع له إلا بالقطّارة».
من غير الوارد لأي محلل أن يتناول وضعاً سعودياً بمعزل عن السياسة الأمريكية التي ورثت أو ربما اغتصبت رعاية المملكة من البريطانيين، الذين يعود لهم الفضل الأول في قيام السعودية.. كما لا يجوز الدخول على الخط الأمريكي السعودي من دون إطلالة، ولو خاطفة، على لحظة نشوء العلاقة بين واشنطن والرياض، تلك العلاقة التي بدأت بالتبلور في ثلاثينيات القرن العشرين، لكنها وُضعت على سكتها في منتصف الأربعينيات، وبالتحديد في أول لقاء قمة سعودي أمريكي بين فرنكلين روزفلت والملك عبد العزيز، حيث اتفق الطرفان على أن تقوم السعودية بإمداد أمريكا بما تحتاجه من النفط، مقابل أن توفر الأخيرة الدعم والحماية للمملكة.
وإذا كان في مقدور المراقب أن يرصد فريقين أمريكيين أساسيين يطالب أحدهما بالكف عن الاستهزاء بالسعوديين، ويحذر من اللحظة التي يقوم فيها في السعودية نظام حكم يتمكن من إدراك حقيقة أن الرياض تملك أوراقاً للعب ضد واشنطن أهم وأكثر مما تملكه أمريكا ضد الرياض. فيما يرى فريق آخر (أمثال ريتشارد بريل)، أن السعودية ليست جزءاً من المشاريع أو الحلول الأمريكية للمنطقة، لكنها جزء من المشكلة، فإن الفريقين يُقرّان في نهاية المطاف بأن معادلة الحماية في مقابل النفط هي نفسها القانون الحاكم للعلاقات السعودية الأمريكية، ومن هنا يلتقي الجميع في الولايات المتحدة على استمرار تدفق النفط من دون تعثر، وإقدام المملكة على تقديم يد المساعدة للاقتصاد الأمريكي، من خلال ضخ عشرات مليارات الدولارات المستترة تحت غطاء شراء أسلحة لا تحوّل السعودية إلى دولة قوية، ولا تشكل أي تهديد لأمريكا أو إسرائيل. وما دامت المملكة حاضرة لتكييف مواقفها، بل وحتى معتقداتها الدينية لإرضاء أمريكا (قبول فكرة التطبيع مع إسرائيل، ومعاداة المقاومة، وإسقاط فريضة الجهاد، والتوقف عن رعاية أسر الاستشهاديين الفلسطينيين، والإقرار بأن الإرهاب مرادف لحالات إسلامية حصراً)، فليس من داع لإرهاق الذات الأمريكية بالتكشير عن أنيابها، لاسيما أن القاصي والداني يعرف مدى قسوة هذه الأنياب وتعدد خياراتها، سواء كانت الخيارات صعبة مثل ضرب الكعبة بقنبلة نووية، كما طالبت في آذار 2002 (ناشيونال ريفيو)، وهي أكبر صحيفة يمينية أمريكية، أو كان الخيار صعباً لكنه منطقي، مثل تقسيم السعودية إلى عدة دول.
الفتك بالسعودية من المسلمات الأميركية
إذاً، وتأسيساً على المصرح به أمريكياً، فإن الفتك بالسعودية من المسلمات الأمريكية، وإذا كان الخلاف ينحصر فقط في التوقيتات، فإن الواقع الأمريكي لم يش على الأقل حتى هذه اللحظة بأن هناك من يختلف على أن مرض الملك عبد الله والمجهول الذي يمكن أن يصبغ المشهد السعودي، وما قد يستتبعه من مخاطر عرقلة وصول النفط يعد توقيتاً ملائماً للجميع لإخراج الخيارات القاسية.
الملك عبد الله بن عبد العزيز من الملمين تماماً بما يحاك لبلاده، وقد فعل المستطاع والممكن في ظل واقع سعودي لم يعرف شداً وجذباً في علاقات مكونات الإدارة السعودية، كما هو حاصل اليوم، لذلك وقبيل سفره لتلقي العلاج في الولايات المتحدة الأمريكية، فاجأ الملك عبد الله الجميع بقرار يقضي بتعيين الأمير متعب بن عبد الله بن عبد العزيز (نجل الملك) رئيساً لقوات الحرس الوطني.
قرار الملك كان في حقيقة الأمر عبارة عن مزيج من ثلاث مفاجآت: أولها أن القرار باغت كل من تصوروا أن الملك سيغادر البلاد من دون أن يولد أية انطباعات تزيد من تأزيم الأوضاع أثناء مرضه ووجوده خارج البلاد، وثانيها هو إسناده منصب رئاسة قوات الحرس الوطني لابنه بعد 48 سنة احتفظ فيها عبد الله بهذا المنصب لنفسه، الأمر الذي أثار التساؤلات حول حقيقة مرض الملك، كما أثار تساؤلات أكثر إلحاحاً عن الترتيبات التي يمكن أن يكون الملك مشغولاً بصياغتها في الوقت الحالي في حال أمد الله في عمره وأعاده سالما إلى بلاده، وهي ترتيبات متعمقة في بحر من اللوغاريتمات، ومنها المفاجأة الثالثة في قرار الملك، وهي إعفاء شقيقه الأمير بدر بن عبد العزيز، خصوصاً أن الحديث عن أن الإعفاء جاء استجابة لطلب الأمير بدر لم يكن مقنعاً لكثير من المحللين، الذين يبذلون أصلاً جهوداً مضنية لفك طلاسم عودة الأمير سلطان (86 عاماً) ولي العهد والنائب الأول لرئيس الوزراء ووزير الدفاع من المغرب، التي اختار الإقامة فيها للنقاهة، بعد مشوار طويل مع سرطان الأمعاء الذي أصابه في 2005، وأجرى بسببه ثلاث عمليات جراحية كبرى في 2005 و2008 و2009.
عودة سلطان القوية خلطة الأوراق
فعودة الأمير سلطان أعادت خلط أوراق كان من المفترض أنها رُتبت بعناية دقيقة في27 آذار 2009، حين بدا أن الملك عبد الله حسم أمر الملك القادم بتعيينه لشقيقه (وزير الداخلية منذ 1975) الأمير نايف بن عبد العزيز (77عاماً) نائباً ثانياً لرئيس مجلس الوزراء، وهو المنصب الذي يحتله ولي العهد عادة، فانطباع الحسم تولد من كون الأميران سلطان ونايف أخوين شقيقين من فرع السديري (السديريون هو الفرع الأكثر قوة ونفوذاً في أبناء الملك عبد العزيز، ومنهم الملك السابق فهد، والأمراء نايف وسلطان وسلمان)، أي إنهما أخوان غير شقيقين للملك عبد الله. أما معاودة خلط الأوراق فقد تأتت ليس فقط من تزكية احتمالات الصدام، لكن لأن الملك الذي اتخذ هذه الإجراءات هو نفسه من أدخل في سنة 2006 تحديثاً لآلية اختيار الملك، من خلال (هيئة البيعة) التي تُعنى باختيار الملك وولي العهد. وعلى الرغم من أن نافذين سعوديين يعتبرون أن السديريين استهانوا بالهيئة، حتى كادوا يجعلونها مجرد حبر على ورق، وهو ما اعتبره جناح الملك عبد الله وخصومه على حد سواء أنه إعلان بأن صوتاً أو ربما أصواتاً في المملكة أعلى وأمضى من صوت الملك. لكن المثير هنا هو أن من بين السديريين من يحتفظ بورقة (هيئة البيعة) لاستخدامها في حال تأزمت الأوضاع أكثر بين سلطان ونايف، وسيكون على الهيئة حينئذ المفاضلة بين أمير على شفا الموت منذ 2005، وآخر على أعتابه منذ 2009، وذلك حسب تقارير أمريكية تتحدث عن اعتلال صحة الأمير نايف بشدة منذ ما يقارب العام. والخلاصة هنا أن مآل الأمر في نهاية المطاف إلى هيئة البيعة تتطلب من الجميع حشداً بدا أننا نراه بقوة منذ فترة قريبة، فالأميران سلطان ونايف لم يعودا وحدهما إلى البلاد، إنما عاد أيضاً من أبناء الملك عبد العزيز الآخرين وأحفاده في الأسابيع الأخيرة. الأمير سلمان أمير منطقة الرياض وشقيق الأميرين نايف وسلطان كما عاد الأمير تركي بن عبد العزيز. وعاد الأمير بندر بن سلطان؛ السفير السابق لدى واشنطن، ما استدعى تعليقاً دبلوماسياً أمريكياً اعتبر "أنهم لا يعودون بلا سبب.. لكن الفروع المختلفة للعائلة تتجمع عسى أن ينجحوا في الاتفاق على أمر جلل".. وهو بالفعل جلل، لأن نظام البيعة، وعلى الرغم من كونه يوفر حداً من الأمان، لكنه قد لا يكون صماماً محكم الإغلاق بحيث يمنع تسرب عوامل التفجير، وذلك ببساطة لأن توقيت العمل بها مرسوم الهيئة وآلية عملها تبدأ بعد ولاية الملك وولي العهد الموجودين حالياً، بمعنى أن الأمير سلطان ليس من حقه فقط أن يصبح ملك البلاد مباشرة بعد عبد الله، لكنه وبموجب هيئة البيعة غير ملزم تجاه الأمير نايف بأي شيء، ومن واجبه كملك للبلاد، وعملاً بنصوص هيئة البيعة، أن يقوم بالتشاور مع أعضائها لاختيار من يراهم مناسبين لولاية العهد، ثم تعرض اختيارات الملك على الهيئة لترجح واحداً منهم، وفي حال عدم ترجيحها لأي منهم، تتولى هي ترشيح من تراه مناسباً لولاية للعهد، وفي حال عدم موافقة الملك على ترشيح الهيئة، تقوم الأخيرة بعملية تصويت بين من رشحته ومن اختاره الملك لتعيين ولي العهد.
أزمة الصراع على السلطة
وفي خضم تلك الترتيبات التي تعصفها خلافات التفسير والتأويل ونزاعات الرافضين مع المؤيدين، يرجح كثير من المحللين الغربيين حدوث اضطرابات شديدة أو حرب عشائرية أو صراعات قبائلية.. وهذه الترجيحات وإن كانت في بعض جوانبها التحليلية والاستقرائية تعكس أمنيات بعض الغرب، فإنها في جوانب أخرى تثير قلقاً حقيقياً سرعان ما يدخل الجميع إلى أتون دائرة الرعب على مستقبل السعودية، خصوصاً إذا ما أخذت بعين الاعتبار تحليلات سعودية لوحظ أن منها ما يصدر من داخل المملكة نفسها، في ظاهرة غير معتادة ولا مألوفة في دولة حرص نظامها عبر عقود توليه زمام الأمور فيها على التكتم على خبايا علاقات آل عبد العزيز، وأتقن كل فنون ترهيب الكتاب والصحافيين من عواقب الخوض في هذه العلاقة أو نشر أو توظيف ما يمكن أن يتسرب عنها. وعلى سبيل المثال، أطلق الشيخ الدكتور محمد العبد الكريم؛ أستاذ أصول الفقه بكلية الشريعة بجامعة الإمام محمد بن سعود الإسلامية بالرياض، وابلاً من التساؤلات في مقاله (أزمة الصراع السياسي بين الأجنحة الحاكمة في السعودية.. محاولة للبحث عن مصير الشعب السعودي)، ومن جملة هذه الأسئلة: هل سيبقى مصير الوحدة ومصير الشعب معلقاً بالصراعات الداخلية والخارجية وبوجود العائلة أو ذهابها؟ كيف نضمن وطناً موحداً بعيداً عن الصراعات بعيداً عن هيئة البيعة واتفاقها أو اختلافها على من سيحكم؟ كيف نضمن سلامة الشعب من التفكك والانهيار؟ ماذا لو حدث صراع عائلي مسلح؟ هل تكون مهمتنا الاصطفاف مع أحد الأجنحة؟ ثم لماذا لا تدخل هيئة البيعة الشعب في اختيار الحاكم؟ هل الشعب مجموعة قطيع ينتظر من يرعاه ويعطيه الراتب آخر الشهر؟ ويضيف العبد الكريم قائلاً في مجلة (رؤية): أعيدوا الاعتبار للشعب بالمساواة بينه وبقوامته الحقيقية على الدولة وبشورى حقيقية لشعب حقيقي وليس شعباً صورياً في توحيد صوري شكلي قابل للتفكك لمجرد اختلافات داخلية داخل النظام.
والخطير هو أن كل الإجابات الممكنة على الأسئلة السابقة لا تستبعد تدخلاً خارجياً للحسم ليعود من جديد شبح التقسيم، فانجرار البلاد بفعل الخلافات وعمليات الاستقطاب الشديدة التي سيكون مجالها بين 7000 إلى 8000 أمير سعودي ينذر بحدوث فراغ في السلطة، حسبما تحذر مؤسسة كارنيغي، لأن هذا الفراغ في رأي المراقبين سيكون الاستدعاء العاجل لتدخلات خارجية من أطراف لا يمكن لأوضاعها الاقتصادية أن تحتمل أي تباطؤ! وهنا لن يكون لدى المتدخلين أي مساحة للترف، وأياً ما تكون الصعاب فإنها، وفقاً لما يقتنع به الأمريكيون، أسهل بكثير فيما لو تم تفتيت السعودية.
خيار التقسيم هو الأكثر قبولاً في أميركا
وقد يكون من المفيد أن نعرف أن هناك أكثر من خيار تقسيمي، لكن المشروع الحائز على قبول الأكثرية السياسية والعسكرية والاستراتيجية في الولايات المتحدة، هو ذلك الذي صاغه الخبير رالف بيتر؛ الكولونيل المتقاعد من الجيش الأمريكي، لأن بيتر يتبنى فكرة صهيونية جذرية، تنطلق من حتمية تفتيت محيط إسرائيل القريب والمتوسط إلى كيانات متناحرة ومتصارعة، حتى تبقى إسرائيل هي الأقوى، وعليه تقسم السعودية إلى دولة نفطية ودولة دينية ودولة ثالثة مستقلة ودولة شيعية، شريطة أن تكون ضد إيران، على أن يسند للعائلة المالكة مهمة التنسيق بين الدول، أو إقامة دولة خاصة بهم في نجد، وفي حين يساعده فريق يسعى لترويج مشروع إخافة العرب من إيران والخطر الشيعي يمضي العمل على قدم وساق استغلال هذا الإلهاء للمضي في مشروع لا يقتصر على السعودية فحسب، بل يضم أيضاً العبث بجغرافية إيران وسوريا والعراق وباكستان والإمارات العربية المتحدة وتركيا.. كما يضم عبثا من نوع آخر، حيث سيتم تكبير دول أخرى، مثل الأردن واليمن وأفغانستان... أما مصر الموصوفة بالجائزة الكبرى، فيتم إعدادها بتؤدة، حيث من الوارد تأجيل العبث بها حتى تنجز إسرائيل كامل مشروع التهويد، ويصبح في إمكانها استقبال مهاجرين جدد، وهنا يبدأ العمل الجاد لتقسيم مصر إلى دويلة قبطية، ممتدة من جنوب بني سويف في جنوب أسيوط بامتداد غربي يضم الفيوم، وبخط صحراوي يصل إلى الإسكندرية، التي يعتبرها المخطط عاصمة للدويلة القبطية، ودويلة النوبة: من صعيد مصر حتى دنقلة من شمال السودان وعاصمتها أسوان. دويلة إسلامية: تضم المنطقة من ترعة الإسماعيلية والدلتا حتى حدودها الدويلة القبطية غرباً ودويلة النوبة جنوباً، ومن ثم يمتد النفوذ الإسرائيلي عبر سيناء ليستوعب شرق الدلتا بحيث تتقلص حدود مصر تماما من الجهة الشرقية، ليصير فرع دمياط وترعة الإسماعيلية حدها الشرقي، وتحقق الغاية الإسرائيلية النهاية من النيل إلى الفرات.
الأمير متعب بن عبد الله بن عبد العزيز
الأمير متعب بن عبد الله بن عبد العزيز آل سعود (1953)هو ثالث أبناء الملك السعودي عبد الله بن عبد العزيز من زوجته منيرة بنت محمد العطيشان. وُلد في الرياض بعد متعب الأول، الذي توفي صغيراً، وخالد. ويخطئ ويخلط الكثيرون من عامة الناس في الاعتقاد بأنه أكبر أبناء الملك عبد الله بن عبد العزيز، كون الملك يكنى بـ"أبو متعب".
متزوج من الأميرة جواهر بنت عبد الله بن محمد آل سعود
أبناؤه
الأمير الفارس عبد الله بن متعب بن عبد الله بن عبد العزيز آل سعود (متزوج من الأميرة سارة بنت عبد الله بن مساعد بن عبد العزيز آل سعود).
الأمير سعد بن متعب بن عبد الله بن عبد العزيز آل سعود.
الأمير خالد بن متعب بن عبد الله بن عبد العزيز آل سعود.
الأميرة صبا بنت متعب بن عبد الله بن عبد العزيز آل سعود.
الأميرة نوف بنت متعب بن عبد الله بن عبد العزيز آل سعود.
الأميرة زينة بنت متعب بن عبد الله بن عبد العزيز آل سعود.
الأميرة صيته بنت متعب بن عبد الله بن عبد العزيز آل سعود.
تلقى تعليمه الابتدائي والمتوسط والثانوي في الرياض وجدة، والتحق بجامعة الملك سعود بالرياض لمدة عام دراسي واحد، ثم قرر دخول المجال العسكري.
التحق بأكاديمية ساندهيرست العسكرية في بريطانيا، وتخرج منها برتبة ملازم، وعُيِّن فيما بعد في مدارس الحرس الوطني العسكرية بالرياض.
تدرج الأمير متعب بن عبد الله في الرتب العسكرية حتى حصل على رتبة عميد، ثم التحق بكلية القيادة والأركان في الرياض، وحصل على درجة الماجستير في العلوم العسكرية، ثم ترقى إلى رتبة لواء. وفي عام 1990 جرى تعيينه نائباً لرئيس الجهاز العسكري في رئاسة الحرس الوطني السعودي، إضافة إلى عمله قائداً لكلية الملك خالد العسكرية.
في 21 ديسمبر 2000 ترقى لرتبة فريق أول، وجرى تعيينه نائباً لرئيس الحرس الوطني المساعد للشؤون العسكرية، وفي 21 يونيو 2009 صدر أمرين ملكيين، قضى الأول منهما بتعيينه نائباً لرئيس الحرس الوطني للشؤون التنفيذية بمرتبة وزير، وقضى الأمر الملكي الثاني بإنهاء خدمات سموه العسكرية.
صدر أمر ملكي من قبل والده عبد الله بتعينه قائداً للحرس الوطني في 16/11/2010، بعد أن اشتدت الآلام عليه مؤخراً، وقبل أن يغادر المملكة للعلاج في الولايات المتحدة الأميركية.
الأمير محمد بن نايف بن عبد العزيز
وُلد في 25 صفر 1379 هـ/ 30 آب 1959 في جدة بالمملكة العربية السعودية.
المهنة: مساعد وزير الداخلية للشؤون الأمنية.
الأب: الأمير نايف بن عبد العزيز آل سعود.
الأمير محمد بن نايف بن عبد العزيز آل سعود مساعد وزير الداخلية للشؤون الأمنية في المملكة العربية السعودية. هو أحد أبناء النائب الثاني لرئيس مجلس الوزراء ووزير الداخلية في السعودية الأمير نايف بن عبد العزيز آل سعود من الأميرة الجوهرة بنت عبد العزيز بن مساعد آل سعود. يشغل عضوية الهيئة العليا لجائزة نايف بن عبد العزيز آل سعود العالمية للسنة النبوية والدراسات الإسلامية المعاصرة.
سيرته
• ولد بجدة في 25 صفر 1379 هـ.
• درس مراحل التعليم الابتدائية والمتوسطة والثانوية بمعهد العاصمة في الرياض، ثم درس المرحلة الجامعية بالولايات المتحدة الأمريكية وحصل على بكالوريوس في العلوم السياسية عام 1401 هـ الموافق عام 1981، كما خاض عدة دورات عسكرية متقدمة داخل وخارج المملكة تتعلق بمكافحة الإرهاب.
• عمل في القطاع الخاص إلى أن صدر الأمر الملكي في 27 محرم 1420 هـ الموافق 13 مايو 1999 بتعيينه مساعداً لوزير الداخلية للشؤون الأمنية بالمرتبة الممتازة.
• في 7 رجب 1420 هـ الموافق 16 أكتوبر 1999 صدرت الموافقة من ولي العهد نائب رئيس مجلس الوزراء رئيس الحرس الوطني الأمير عبد الله بن عبد العزيز بضمه إلى عضوية المجلس الأعلى للإعلام.
• مددت خدماته لمدة أربع سنوات اعتباراً من 27 محرم 1424 هـ بموجب الأمر الملكي الصادر في 27 ذو الحجة 1423 هـ.
• في 4 جمادى الأولى 1425 هـ صدر الأمر الملكي بتعيينه مساعداً لوزير الداخلية للشؤون الأمنية بمرتبة وزير، وفي سبتمبر 2008 صدر أمر ملكي بالتمديد له.
محاولة اغتياله
تعرض في 6 رمضان 1430 هـ الموافق 27 آب 2009 لمحاولة اغتيال من قبل مطلوب زعم إنه يرغب بتسليم نفسه، حيث دخل إلى مكتبه الكائن في منزله بجدة، وقام بعد دخوله بتفجير نفسه بواسطة هاتف جوال وتناثر جسد المنتحر إلى أشلاء، وأصيب الأمير بجروح طفيفة. وقد أعلن تنظيم القاعدة في جزيرة العرب مسؤوليته عن الهجوم في رسالة بثتها منتديات إرهابية على الإنترنت.
وقد تعرض من قبل هذه الحادثة لعدة محاولات اغتيال كان من بينها محاولة بمكتبه بوزارة الداخلية بالرياض، ومحاولة أخرى من خلال إحدى الجماعات الإرهابية بإحدى الدول المجاورة للسعودية حيث أمسك بهم وقد أعدوا صواريخ لإطلاقها على طائرته الخاصة عند إقلاعها. ويعود السبب لكثرة محاولات الاغتيال بسبب مواقفه الكثيرة ضد الجماعات المتطرفة بشكل خاص وتحمله موضوعهم والتعامل معه شخصياً، ولمواقفه أيضاً ضد تجار ومهربي المخدرات.
أسرته
متزوج من الأميرة ريما بنت سلطان بن عبد العزيز آل سعود.، ولديه من الأبناء: • الأميرة سارة. • الأميرة لؤلؤة.
It is remarkable that any "scholar" or "author" raises the concern of Arab leaders with Iran as evidence that Iran actually poses a threat in the Middle East....
Saudi Arabia is a monarchy where no leader has ever been chosen in an election, rigged or otherwise. Same for Jordan, Qatar, Bahrain - the list is endless. Egypt is a puppet regime that has been upheld by the U.S. for no reason other than the fact that Mubarak says "how high" when he's told to jump. None of the leaders of these countries are interested in anything except maintainin
The only problem with Iran is that years of American operations have not so much as given America a foothold in the country to affect it the way it wishes.
We ignore Saudi Arabia because they fund presidenti
Iran isn't the problem; it never has been....
Unfortunat
Everybody knows about this but it cannot be mentioned in polite D.C. society for fear that the dreaded "anti-s---
Thus, with regards to anything touching upon Israel- however tangential or remote, American politician
Iran's nuclear program is, to all accounts, for peaceful civilian purposes; it's foreign policy is merely the aspiration to regional prominence of a great nation which - in culture, history, creativity
The Palestinia
America is doomed to see its role diminish in the Middle East until it shakes the albatross from around its neck and assumes, once again, a policy of sanity and true pursuit of its own national interests.....
Saudis have become aware of their rights, and they started demanding them long time ago. Their demands have significantly multiplied since nearly two decades ago. Since that date, however, nothing has changed as far as the structure of the state. The status quo has been maintained, where a small group of despots remain in complete control of all the state apparatus. They continue to brutally suppress, deliberately marginalize citizens, and ignore the country's exacerbated problems without providing worthy-of-mention solutions.
When the citizens' awareness increased through the information and cultural revolution that swept the world, the pace of repression and human rights violation has intensified. It was accompanied by an increase in the proportion of deprivation, poverty and oppression; then people vociferously defended their rights by attempting to lift injustice inflicted upon them. They demanded adhering to the most important source of legitimacy, the allegiance conditions: Justice, democracy, and nation's stewardship over rulers. However, the Ministry of Interior (MOI) insisted to rob people's legitimate rights as prescribed in the Islamic Jurisprudence.
MOI grew less tolerant with all those who want to exercise their legitimate rights to resist political injustice, public-fund embezzlement, and tyranny. Even if their objection takes the form of writing a newspaper article, publishing an opinion in a internet blog, or a spoken word in a public-discussion forum or in a television channel. MOI drove young and old men to prisons, and confiscated their rights in a blatant violation of the principle of the nation's stewardship over rulers as guaranteed by Islamic jurisprudence, and as supported by international conventions signed and ratified by the Saudi government.
MOI has used reprehensible methods to suppress and intimidate people through arbitrary detentions, tortures, ill-treatments, and secret court trials. These methods are the most important weapons of authoritarian regimes that systematically violate human rights.
What helped MOI achieved theses diabolic goals are its dominance over the state kernels in general, and its control of the judiciary in particular. For instance, the president of the Investigation and Public Prosecution Bureau falls under the authority of the Interior Minister, and the Directorate of the General Investigations (DGI) continues to operate outside rule of law through arbitrarily detaining and interrogating suspects illicitly. Prisons are subject to neither judicial supervision, inspection, nor monitoring by independent human rights organizations. Moreover, the judiciary is not independent; in fact to the contrary, it became vulnerable to frequent MOI interventions which flagrantly violate fundamental principles of justice.
These dire circumstances make repression, torture, and human rights violations the bases of state's dealings with the citizens and expatriates, which caused people to lose confidence in the justice system that failed to stop MOI's systematic human rights violations. This congested atmosphere turned prisons from the goal of restricting criminals' mobility to the goals of harassments and tortures, which make prisons incubators for breeding violence, rebellion, and terrorism. Consequentially, it stifled peaceful expression venues, exacerbated social problems, resulted in a confused tense generation that holds deep grudge not only against repression, but also against the community that has failed to redress injustice.
Thus, the Ministry of Interior adopted the "police-state" form that controls all the government apparatus, such as leadership positions in universities, press and media outlets, education and mosques. DGI, however, has the upper hand in oppressing people arbitrarily detaining, solitarily confining, and brutally torturing suspects. Physical and psychological torture and cruelty are widely practiced by despotic regimes in order to extract confessions through coercion, where the Saudi judiciary is quick in accepting certifying them.
The court then issues harsh judgments against people, sentencing them to long prison terms, thousands flogs, degrading people's dignity, and breaking activists' wills. Especially, Saudi intellectuals, university professors, and concerned citizens who want to publically object political wrongdoings because they are worried about the country's future.
MOI delusively thought that it had succeeded in eradicating terrorism and extremism through police and military solutions: increasing arrests, tortures, and harassments. The increase in MOI control, has increased tension and rebellion. MOI, however, isn't aware that its repressive policy that confiscates freedoms and stifles peaceful expressions. This policy has led not only to domestic violence, but also to global terrorism phenomenon.
The proof of this is that more Saudis are involved in global terror. For instance, most of those who involved in the events of September 11, 2001 are Saudis (15 out of 19 individuals).
This is a direct result of absence of justice, suppression of civil society peaceful movement, and the horrors of torture in prisons. The glaring example for this ill treatment is the severe tortures inflicted upon young men who have returned from Afghanistan in the 1980s, who were received by arrest, detention, and torture; and the result has been disastrous.
MOI counts upon the triology of despotism: oppression, injustice and corruption; which has not only led to formation of public discontent, but also led to its spread and accumulation. MOI, unfortunately, failed to realize that violence however serious, it's merely a direct consequence of public discontent, but there are more negative impacts of the triology, like corruption, immorality, drugs, thefts, bribery, physical and psychological illness, and suicide.
MOI ignored laws of nature as confirmed by the facts of political sociology. Namely, that injustice even if accompanied by strong muscles would undermine security, lead to nations failure, and result in the collapse of civilizations. Ignoring these facts resulted in limiting the solution in an organized police repression - overt and covert - which poured oil on the fire, and watered violence and extremism grass that produces injustice instead of obliterating them.
The Ministry of Interior Policy is A Sole Producer of- Local and Global- Violence and Extremism, For the Following Reasons:
1. For a couple of decades, the interior minister has refused repeated requests from keen human rights activists to establish a fact-finding committee to investigate violations. The minister, however, continued repression, arrests and imprisonment of people in general; targeting political activists in particular.
2. MOI's dominance over the judiciary contributed to the methodology breaches of court independence through dozens of methods (as explained by human rights organizations).
3. MOI is responsible for humiliating the nation's dignity through dozens repressive tactics to tame people before arrest and imprisonment. Most notably, travel bans imposed by MOI without court orders (referred to by human rights advocates in their published statements).
4. MOI made arbitrary detention the norm; and through various forms of torture, harassment, and horror, MOI has turned prisons into incubators that produce violence, rebellion, depression, madness. These torturous detention centers have become the main recruiters of followers and supporters to terrorist groups.
5. MOI policy is the largest contributor to the protection of tribal police-state pattern, which violates political and civil rights.
6. Violence and extremism produced by MOI is the output of a breach of legitimate constituency (i.e. the social contract). Violence is one of scores of symptoms of the disease and its complications. It isn't the source of the disease.
7. While the minister of interior striped the judiciary of its independence, he pressured the judiciary and insisted on secret trials in order to cover up his ministry role in causing violence and extremism. Hence, the Saudi judiciary has intensified its human rights violations through exaggerating the application of "discretionary sentencing" that reached execution punishments in minor offences, that don't deserve long-term prison penalty. For example, the public execution of the political activist: Abdullah Al-Hadheef.
8. In order to deflect blame, cover up violence, and obscure extremism, the minister of interior continues to fabricate charges of supporting, financing terrorism, and overthrowing the government against activists, reformists, religious leaders, scholars, academics, and others. Furthermore, the minister of interior told a group of activists, who demanded the adherence to the constitutional allegiance condition, that: "You are the other face of terror." The most prominent example is Jeddah political prisoners (Al-Reshoudi, Al-Qarni, Al-Shamiri, Al-Hashimi, Sayfaldin Al-Sharif Al-Ghalib, and the rest of their colleagues), which manifests the exploitation of the global war on terror to eradicate peaceful opposition, advocates of political rights, and to mislead local and international opinions.
9. MOI policies have deliberately eliminate all manifestations of civil society through dozens of ways.
10. MOI has worked in producing and disseminating a corrupt religious discourse that seriously impairs citizenship, pluralism and tolerance. Furthermore, MOI has fueled intolerance, isolationism, and extremism.
11. MOI has destroyed the concept of the ‘civil state' which is based on dialogue and differences, and turned it into a ‘police state'. Which is natural producer of violence and extremism. MOI has reinforced the police-state model via systematic oppression of civil society movements and stifling peaceful protest, which produced tension and that is the greatest causes of violence and terror.
12. In addition, rampant looting and pillaging have led to thwarting political-reform initiatives. To maintain the regime's status quo, MOI implemented policies aimed at silencing political opponents through fear, arbitrary arrests, solitary confinements, and tortures. These systematic abuses amounted to ‘crimes against humanity'.
First: ACPRA Calls For Sacking Nayef Bin Abdulaziz Al-Saud, The Minister of Interior:
You, the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques - today - you have the treatment, and you are the last resort to save the country. People expect you to start the reform program that redresses corruption. For that we present before you these specific charges against the minister of interior, otherwise you will be liable before God, the people, present, and future generations.
In light of these charges laid out before you, we ask you to dismiss Prince Nayef Bin Abdulaziz (the interior minister), strip him of all his posts, and lift his immunity to appear before an inquiry commission to face the charges against him.
You, the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, are responsible before God and before the people since assuming responsibility for all the poor persons who sleep hungry, every destitute individuals deprived of shelters, and for each family begging in the streets because the Minister of Interior imprisoned their breadwinners. Moreover, you are responsible for everything that happens in the country and its people. Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, you're personally responsible for the crimes of those who devour the wealth of the poor, vulnerable, and the needy. You are responsible for the work of all those who tortured activists, scholars, and advocates of reform. You are responsible for all the fabricated charges, and responsible for all degrading treatments.
There is a rule in political science, followed throughout the world, which is that charges against state officials must be taken seriously, though not proven conclusively, because they differ from charges against ordinary individuals. Similar practices have been followed by your father vis-à-vis provincial governors to prevent the abuse of power.
The Interior Minister, if there were no one to monitor his actions and hold him accountable, will drive the country into further collapses. His backward dinosaurian mentality is a serious stumbling block to any institutional reform. As long as his authority unchecked, he will continue to employ his 30-year experience to continue oppression and domination through penetration arteries of the State.
Second: ACPRA Calls For Prosecuting The Minister of Interior, His Accomplices: DGI Officers, Interrogators, Prison Wardens, and Judges For Their Involvements in Systematic Human Rights violations:
In order to ensure the non-recurrence of these human rights violations, it isn't enough to sack the minister of interior, but we must tackle our political corruption before we become vulnerable to foreign interventions: what do those who nurture violence and extremism grass do when the global and local masks of terrorism theatrical play fall apart?
It is not enough to sack the interior minister, but we demand him to stand trial for the following ten charges:
1. The MOI Policy is a fundamental cause of violence and extremism that exploded after the accumulation of congestion in the society that took place over the past thirty years. Hence, oppression is the greatest cause of violence that shocked the country and the people.
2. MOI deviated the prison goals from discipline to torture and harassments, and it continues to practice physical and psychological tortures in prisons despite repeated warning by human rights advocates.
3. Violation of the judicial systems that protect the rights of the accused promulgated by the State (the Law of the Criminal Procedure). MOI continues to violate its own laws in spite of human rights advocates repeated letters and official reports.
4. MOI continues to cover up its employees' wrongdoings who have violated human rights. MOI uses the work of sovereignty cloak to protect those who violate the citizens' rights, particularly corrupt DGI detectives.
5. Depriving political prisoners' families of their livelihoods: MOI illicitly fired activists and dissidents, judges, college professors, and scholars.
6. The Saudi judiciary usually rubberstamps MOI-fabricated charges against activists because the judiciary becomes an instrument at the MOI's disposal.
7. MOI deliberately and systematically detains suspects arbitrarily in violation of the provisions of Islamic law, which prohibits criminalizing and arresting suspects before proven guilty in a fair and public court trial. MOI repeatedly violates Saudi Penal Law (the Law of the Criminal Procedure).
8. MOI established and continues to support a corrupt religious discourse that entrenches injustice and reinforces backwardness through recruiting credulous clerics. These "scholars" are employed by MOI at the Ministry of Islamic Affairs, Information, or education to spread prejudice and intolerance especially among Sunni and Shiite.
9. MOI conditions political prisoners' release on signing statements and pledges renouncing their activities. These practices violate local, international law, and international human rights conventions signed and ratified by the Saudi government.
10. MOI Neglects public security, the minister of interior - as focused the role of the his ministry in monitoring personal peaceful expressions and spy on them- looters thieves, and criminals are left free. The Saudi security conditions deteriorated precipitously a few years ago, people now feel worried about their children in the street, women at home, their parked cars, and became afraid of abduction themselves.
We are sending you this petition and we do not underestimate MOI's retaliations, but we are willing to pay any cost in resisting tyranny and combating injustice inflicted on our country and our people.
The Saudi Civil Rights and Political Rights(ACPRA).
If the Egyptian mobs harbor enough anti-American hostility to do the following to South African reporter Lara Logan, because they thought that she was an American and a Jew, then there is very little chance that an American-picked "unity government" acceptable to the masses, can be put together. This is brutal testimony that Egyptians think that they have overthrown the Americans, as well as CIA Mubarak.....
Prepare to be disgusted...this woman is extremely lucky to be alive.!!!
Karen Elliott House writes in the Wall Street Journal that the consequences could be quite serious and the chances of the House of Saud falling are increasing....
In any authoritarian regime, instability seems unthinkable up to the moment of upheaval, and that is true now for Crypto-Zionist Saudi Arabia. But even as American influence recedes across the Middle East, the U.S. soon may face the staggering consequences of instability here, in its most important remaining Arab ally. While a radical regime in Egypt would threaten Israel directly but not America, a radical anti-Western regime in Saudi Arabia—which produces one of every four barrels of oil world-wide—clearly would endanger America as leader of the world economy.
Thirty years of visiting Saudi Arabia, including intensive reporting over the past four years, convinces me that unless the regime rapidly and radically reforms itself—or is pushed to do so by the U.S.—it will remain vulnerable to upheaval. Despite the conventional wisdom that Saudi Arabia is unique, and that billions in oil revenue and an omnipresent intelligence system allow the regime to maintain power by buying loyalty or intimidating its passive populace, it can happen here.
The many risks to the al Saud family's rule can be summed up in one sentence: The gap between aged rulers and youthful subjects grows dramatically as the information gap between rulers and ruled shrinks. The average age of the kingdom's trio of ruling princes is 83, yet 60% of Saudis are under 18 years of age. Thanks to satellite television, the Internet and social media, the young now are well aware of government corruption—and that 40% of Saudis live in poverty and nearly 70% can't afford a home. These Saudis are living Third World lives, suffering from poor education and unable to find jobs in a private sector where 90% of all employees are imported non-Saudis. Through new media the young compare their circumstances unfavorably with those in nearby Gulf sheikhdoms and the West.
...
What these reform-minded princes fail to understand—or at least acknowledge to foreigners—is the degree to which many young Saudis no longer respect or fear the royal family. Rather, they increasingly resent the indignity inherent in having to beg princes for favors that should be a public right.
Frustrated by these daily indignities, young Saudis experiment with drugs, steal cars and vandalize government property. Saudis at all levels of society are becoming increasingly lawless, emulating their leaders in doing whatever they can get away with. A recent target of youthful ire is a new camera system that tickets speeders. The system has been repeatedly vandalized by youth who claim that their fines enrich the Minister of the Interior, who is also responsible for the kingdom's invasive intelligence agencies. In choosing this target, young Saudis protest both royal corruption and state intrusion into their lives.
Still, most ordinary Saudis do not crave democracy. They fear that traditional tribal divisions, coupled with a lack of social and political organizations, would lead to mayhem—or to even greater domination by the conservative religious establishment that is well-organized through the kingdom's 70,000 mosques. If in Egypt the Muslim Brotherhood is considered a potential threat, its Saudi equivalent already dominates Saudi society.
What Saudis hunger for are standard services provided by far less wealthy governments: good education, jobs, decent health care. They also want to be able to speak honestly about the political and economic issues that affect their lives. Yet when a professor of religion at Imam University dared in November to suggest on the Internet that Saudis be permitted to take public their private discussions on succession, he was jailed.
"The gap between reform here and the demands of our young is widening," warns a senior prince. "It is a race against time because the young are tired of the status quo, tired of talk." Saudi Arabia is not Egypt. But even in this most shrouded and supposedly most stable of Arab societies, time is running out....
In Saudi Arabia, Reformers Intensify Calls For Change --
King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz is due to return tomorrow after three months away to a country where reformers inspired by Egypt are calling for greater transparency and equality.
When his royal jet lands here in the Saudi capital on Wednesday, ending a three-month absence, King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz will find a nation seemingly moored in the eye of the epic storm howling around it.
But it is also clear that the octogenarian king, who went to New York in late November for back surgery and then to Morocco to convalesce, is returning to a realm touched in significant ways by the youth rebellions roiling the Middle East.
Read more ....
Comment: To placate opponents, bribes and gifts are now being made. But even with these efforts, unease and uncertainty is the rule and not the exception.
In addition .... what everyone is really afraid of .... is that unrest in Saudi Arabia will not only spike oil prices to unheard levels ($200/barrel and up), but it would also kill any hopes of a decent economic recovery in the West or elsewhere....Of the new revolutionary eruptions, post-Egypt, perhaps the most problematic for Washington is the upsurge in Bahrain, where a Sunni king has long ruled over his predominantly Shi’ite subjects. King Hamad is a corrupt tyrant whose disregard for basic human rights was underscored by the actions of his security forces in storming a protest encampment in the capital city’s main square, murdering 5 protesters in a surprise assault in the dead of night, and wounding over 200. There are indications that at least some of the assailants were Saudis. Bahrain, a small island kingdom in the Persian Gulf, is connected to Saudi Arabia by a causeway.
In recent years, the government has bowed to American pressure to at least put on a façade of "democratic" reform, but the changes Hillary Clinton praised in her visit to Bahrain a few months ago were merely cosmetic: theelected parliament is still an advisory body, corruption is pandemic, and citizens have no say in how they are governed or by whom. Indeed, it seems that the much-touted "reform" supposedly undertaken in the country at Washington’s request is merely a façade for political manipulation and high-end thievery. In Bahrain, torture of political dissidents is routine.
The protesters aren’t seeking the overthrow of the al-Khalifa monarchy, as far as I can tell: their demands are limited to the firing of King Hamad’s uncle, Sheikh Khalifa bin Salman al-Khalifa, whose term of office as prime minister has dragged on now for 40 years. Sheikh Khalifa, a major landowner, has come to symbolize the ill-gotten gains of the royal family, which virtually owns the entire country outright. As in Tunisia, where the weight of dictator Ben Ali’s family laid heavily on the country’s sinking fortunes – and as in Egypt, too, where the Mubarak clan had some $70 billion socked away in Swiss bank accounts – resentment over this massive thievery has boiled over into revolution.
However, few premonitions of trouble seem to have ever penetrated the walls of our embassy in Manama, the capital, where our diplomats, as recently as December, 2009, reported that everything was coming up roses. One diplomatic cable, brought to us by Wikileaks, tells us the king is "personable and engaging," and has "overseen the development of strong institutions" — although I doubt the diplomat who wrote that had this in mind. "I’ve just been beaten by a gang of thugs," said ABC reporter Miguel Marquez as he was assaulted by Bahrain government forces — which just about sums up our position in the region, where we are invariably on the side of the thugs.
Bahrain is a key element of the administration’s strategy against Iran: it is the headquarters of the Fifth Fleet, and will be the linchpin of any future military action in the Gulf by US forces. Simply put, the Empire cannot afford to lose Bahrain. "Bahrain is a friend and an ally and has been for many years," intones our Secretary of State: "We call on restraint from the government, (and) to keep its commitment to hold accountable those who have utilized excessive force." The King has promised to investigate the killings – which is like Mubarak promising to investigate the killings committed by pro-government thugs in Egypt. Good luck with that, Hillary.
Go here for an overview of the political landscape in Bahrain: in short, the terrain is characterized by a great sectarian divide between the Sunni elite and the Shi’ite majority. Shi’ites claim that the government discriminates against them in public sector employment, business regulation, and the granting of housing subsidies. The opposition demands a revised constitution, to be written and voted on by a body of elected delegates.
They also claim the government is bringing in Sunnis from outside Bahrain and granting them citizenship in order to bolster the ruling elite’s political base: the country is less than 30 percent Sunni.
Bahrain has been a more compliant puppet than even Mubarak’s Egypt: while Wikileaks cables from Cairo complained that the Egyptian military still seems to consider Israel its principal enemy, US diplomats in Manama report no such ambiguity in Bahrain’s ruling circles. The Bahraini government was the first Arab country to send an ambassador to "liberated" Iraq, and US officials have praised them for cuuddling up to the Israelis. King Hamad has been agitating for a US attack on Iran almost as strenuously as the Israelis, albeit less publicly. On a visit to the country, General David Petraeus met with the King, who, according to a US diplomatic cable,
"Pointed to Iran as the source of much of the trouble in both Iraq and Afghanistan. He argued forcefully for taking action to terminate their nuclear program, by whatever means necessary. ‘That program must be stopped,’ he said. ‘The danger of letting it go on is greater than the danger of stopping it.’ King Hamad added that in light of these regional developments, Bahrain was working to strengthen GCC coordination and its relations with allies and international organizations. He specifically mentioned NATO and confirmed that Bahrain had agreed to the Alliance’s request to use Isa Airbase for AWACS missions, although the detail on numbers and timing have yet to be discussed."
The US is going to need this kind of political support, as well as the strategic military advantage afforded by Bahrain in any future conflict with Iran. Yet in the wake of the Pearl Square massacre, and the continuing crackdown, the price for that support is going to be rather high – so high that it hardly seems worth paying. On another visit by Petraeus, in which he met with the king, Hamad is reported to have said:
"Bahrain had received a message from Iranian FM Mottaki, urging regional governments to support the efforts of Iran, Iraqi insurgents, Hamas, Hezbollah, Taliban and Syria to drive American forces from the Gulf. The King commented: &With friends like these, who needs enemies?"
US diplomats might now turn the king’s question back on him, and ask: with friends like you, who needs enemies?
Perhaps anticipating this, it looks like the King had his alibi ready as far back as 2008, when the meeting took place:
"King Hamad related the report that Bahrainis were receiving training from Hezbollah in Lebanon, but admitted he had no definitive proof. He also speculated that the Syrian government was complicit, and must be helping these Bahrainis travel without passport verification as tourists."
Expect any day now to hear that Hezbollah – Bahrain’s stand-in for the Muslim Brotherhood — is behind what’s happening in the country. In that case, refer to the appended comment in the WikiLeaked diplomatic cable, which reads:
"Post has heard versions of this theory from Bahraini officials in the past, but despite our requests the GOB has been unable to provide convincing evidence."
The rebellion in Bahrain is a dagger pointed at the heart of the War Party’s campaign against Iran, and more: it is a sword of Damocles hanging over the heads of the House of Saud. Right across the King Fahd causeway,in the oil-rich Eastern province, are as many as two million Shi’ites, who live and work atop the world’s greatest concentration of oil reserves and around 90 percent of Saudi oil production. The predominantly Shi’ite workers who work those oil fields are the key to the Kingdom’s wealth and future stability, and the Saudi kleptocrats cannot afford to let a Shi’ite uprising in Bahrain succeed.
Bahrain – and Saudi Arabia – are the weak underbelly of the elaborate US security structure in the region. In place since Franklin Delano Roosevelt cemented the US alliance with the House of Saud, in 1943, it may all be coming undone – and in very short order....
Saudi Interior Minister Crown Prince Naif bin Abdulaziz
Saudi Crown Prince Nayef bin Abdul-aziz arrived in Cleveland for medical tests March 10 amid rumors he had suffered a stroke. This development comes a week after the kingdom’s official news agency, SPA, said the crown prince, who has long been the country’s interior minister, was seen off at an airbase by a large royal entourage as he was leaving for a vacation to an undisclosed destination. The 80-year-old Prince Nayef became crown prince in October 2011 after the death of his elder brother, Sultan bin Abdul-Aziz. His health reportedly has deteriorated in recent years, along with that of his half-brother, King Abdullah bin Abdul-Aziz.
Since 2005, when Abdullah ascended to the throne after the death of his predecessor, King Fahd, the Saudi kingdom has been engaged in a slow transition of power. Besides King Abdullah, there are some 18 surviving sons of the founder of the modern kingdom, King Abdul-aziz bin Abdel-Rehman al-Saud, of whom only three can be considered likely successors to the throne given their current positions and influence. This means the grandsons of the founder, a much larger group, will very soon dominate the hierarchy of the Saudi state. So long as power was in the hands of the second generation, succession was not such a difficult issue and was dealt with informally. However, due to the massive changes occurring both within Saudi Arabia and in the wider Middle East, this transition will come at a particularly difficult time for the next-generation leadership that, despite the formal processes for succession instituted by Abdullah, will likely be far less unified than the current one.
The Saudi royalty's health problems come at a time of great uncertainty for Riyadh. On the home front, the Saudis are trying to ensure that the regional Arab unrest does not spill into its borders. At the same time, they are trying to counter an increasingly aggressive Iran. That said, the al-Saud regime has proved to be remarkably resilient over the course of its history, remaining in power despite the forced abdication of the founder’s successor, King Saud, in 1964; the assassination of King Faisal in 1975; and the stroke-induced incapacitation of King Fahd for nearly a decade until his death in 2005, when King Abdullah took the throne.
Analysis
The stability of the second generation’s leadership can be attributed, at least in part, to three key clans of the royal family acting as checks on one another. These include the Faisal clan, named for the successor to King Saud, who succeeded the founder, King Abdul-Aziz; the Abdullah faction, named for the current king; and the Sudairi clan, named for the founder’s eighth wife, Princess Hassa bint Ahmad al-Sudairi. While Byzantine in its complexity, this balance has prevented incessant power grabs by King Abdul-Aziz’s hundreds of descendants.
The clan of former King Faisal includes Prince Saud, the current foreign minister, and Faisal’s other two sons, Prince Khalid, governor of Mecca, and Prince Turki, who served as the kingdom’s intelligence chief from 1977 to 2001. The Faisal clan has somewhat weakened in recent years. Prince Turki, after briefly serving as ambassador to the United States and the United Kingdom from 2003 to 2006, currently holds no official position, though he remains influential. His older full brother, Prince Saud, who has been foreign minister since 1975, is 70 years old and ailing, and could step down soon.
Despite his influence over the years as head of the Saudi Arabian National Guard (SANG) from 1962 to 2010, crown prince from 1982 to 2005, and de factor ruler since 1995, King Abdullah’s faction is numerically small; he has no full brothers who hold key posts, and thus his clan is made up of his sons. King Abdullah’s most prominent son, Mitab bin Abdullah, recently took over the SANG, and the king’s oldest son, Khalid bin Abdullah, is a member of the newly formed Allegiance Council, set up to govern the succession process. Mishal bin Abdullah assumed the post of governor of the southern province of Najran, while another son, Abdul-Aziz bin Abdullah, has been an adviser in his father’s royal court since 1989.
The Sudairis have held a disproportionate amount of power, due in part to the fact that their leader, the late King Fahd, was the longest-reigning monarch of the kingdom, ruling from 1982 to 2005. The Sudairi faction includes many powerful princes, such as the clan’s one-time patriarch, former Crown Prince Sultan, who served as minister of defense and aviation and as inspector general; Interior Minister and Crown Prince Naif; Defense Minister Prince Salman; Deputy Minister of Interior Prince Ahmed, and the former vice minister of defense and aviation, Prince Abdul Rahman.
Even though the crown prince’s clan is bigger and more prominent than the king’s, the two clans remain the principal stakeholders in the Saudi ruling family because they control the two parallel military forces of the kingdom. This has been the case since the early 1960s when then-Crown Prince Faisal -- as part of his efforts to take power from his half brother, King Saud -- appointed Crown Prince Sultan as minister of defense and aviation and King Abdullah as head of the SANG. The two men controlled the two separate forces for many decades.
King Abdullah’s move to appoint his son, Mitab, to head the SANG shows that control over the force will remain with his clan. The situation with the defense ministry is somewhat different. Sultan’s son Khalid, the assistant defense minister, did not take over the regular armed forces after his father’s death despite his background as an army general. The king, opposed to the move, instead appointed Sultan’s full brother Salman, who had been governor of Riyadh until then. In a sense, the position remains within the clan.
Further complicating the situation is that, thus far, clans have been composed of the various sons of the founder from different mothers. Now, many of these second-generation princes have multiple wives, who have produced many sons all seeking their share of power, adding to the factionalism.
Setting Up a Succession Plan
Sensing that the power-sharing method within the family had become untenable due to the sheer number of descendants seeking power and influence within the regime, King Abdullah in 2007 moved to enact the Allegiance Institution Law, which created a leadership council and a formal mechanism to guide future transitions of power.
This new, 35-member body, called the Allegiance Council, is made up of the 15 surviving sons of the founder and 19 of his grandsons -- a disparity that will grow as the sons begin to die. Its purpose is to choose the new king and crown prince when they die or are permanently incapacitated, but the new institution remains an untested body. Perhaps most problematic, the processes the council is set to govern are being implemented at a time when the second generation is on its way out. Had this formal process of succession been initiated earlier, it would have been institutionalized during the era of the sons of the founder. They were far fewer in number and worked directly with their father to build the kingdom, giving them a stronger claim to authority than anyone in the subsequent generation. An earlier start would have allowed the second generation to deal with the many problems that inevitably crop up with any new system.
The composition of the Allegiance Council is such that it gives representation to all the sons of the founder. This is done through either their direct membership on the council or via the grandsons whose fathers are deceased, incapacitated, or otherwise unwilling to assume the throne. The reigning king and his crown prince are not members but each has a son on the council. The council is chaired by the eldest son of the founder, with his second-oldest brother as his deputy. Should there be no one left from the second generation, the leadership of the council falls to the eldest grandson. Any time there is a vacancy, the king is responsible for appointing a replacement, though it is not known if King Abdullah has filled the vacancy created by the death of Prince Fawaz bin Abdul-Aziz, who died in July 2008, some six months after the establishment of the council.
When King Abdullah dies, the council will pledge allegiance to the crown prince, currently Prince Nayef, though given his declining health it is questionable whether he will outlive the king. But the issue of the next crown prince is mired in a potential contradiction. According to the new law, after consultation with the Allegiance Council, the king can submit up to three candidates to the council for approval. The council can reject all of them and name a fourth candidate. But if the king rejects the council’s nominee then the council will vote between its own candidate and the one preferred by the king, and the candidate who gets the most votes becomes the crown prince. There is also the option that the king may ask the council to nominate a candidate. In any case, a new crown prince must be appointed within a month of the new king’s accession.
This new procedure, however, conflicts with the established practice in which the second deputy prime minister takes over as crown prince, a policy that has been followed since King Faisal appointed Fahd to the post. In fact, the current king, after not naming a second deputy prime minister (essentially a crown prince-in-waiting) for four years, appointed Interior Minister Prince Naif to the post in March 2009. But since Naif became crown prince (and thus deputy prime minister), the post of second deputy prime minister remains vacant. Salman, next in the line of succession, should have been given this post, but this has not yet happened. Regardless, however, the post of second deputy prime minister after the establishment of the Allegiance Council raises the question of whether established tradition will be replaced by the new formal procedure.
The law also addresses the potential scenario in which both the king and crown prince fall ill such that they cannot fulfill their duties, which could transpire in the current situation given the health issues of both King Abdullah and Crown Prince Naif. In such a situation, the Allegiance Council would set up a five-member Transitory Ruling Council that would take over the affairs of the state until at least one of the leaders regained his health. If, however, it is determined by a special medical board that both leaders are permanently incapacitated, the Allegiance Council must appoint a new king within seven days.
In the event that both the king and crown prince die simultaneously, the Allegiance Council would appoint a new king. The Transitory Ruling Council would govern until the new king was appointed. While it has been made clear that the Transitory Ruling Council will not be allowed to amend a number of state laws, its precise powers and composition have not been defined.
What Lies Ahead
The kingdom has little precedent in terms of constitutionalism. It was only in 1992 that the first constitution was developed, and even then the country has been largely governed via consensus obtained through informal means involving tribal and familial ties. Therefore, when this new formal mechanism for succession is put into practice, the House of Saud is bound to run into problems not only in implementation, but also competing interpretations.
To make matters worse, the Saudis are in the midst of this succession dilemma -- and will be for many years to come given the advanced ages of many senior princes -- at a time of massive change within the kingdom and a shifting regional landscape.
Saudi Arabia is perhaps at the most important historical impasse since the founding of its first incarnation in 1744. A number of internal and external events are occurring simultaneously and subjecting the Saudi state to extreme strain. On the external front there are a number of challenges, the most significant of which is the regional rise of Iran, catalyzed by the Shia-dominated government in Baghdad and the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq. The Saudis also do not wish to see a U.S.-Iranian conflict in the Persian Gulf, which would have destabilizing effects on the kingdom. While Riyadh was struggling with the challenge from Iran, the Arab unrest erupted in early 2011, which has created two major hot spots on the eastern and southern borders of the kingdom.
On the southern flank, Yemen was grappling with three different insurrections challenging the regime of aging Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh even before the Arab unrest. A year later, Yemen is now in a post-Saleh period with a new president and various others jockeying for power. The Saudis are concerned about the Yemeni state and whether it will be able to hold together given that various forces are pulling Sanaa in different directions and jihadists are taking over significant swaths of territory.
On Saudi Arabia's east coast, Bahrain's Shia majority rose up against the minority Sunni monarchy. Bahrain is a bridge away from Saudi Arabia’s Eastern Province, which houses the largest concentration of Shia and represents a huge potential for Iran to gain a foothold on the Arabian Peninsula. This is why we saw Riyadh team up with its Gulf Cooperation Council allies to engage in its first-ever foreign military deployment to assist Manama’s security forces. Through this action, Saudi Arabia was able to contain the agitation, at least for the time being.
The empowerment of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt -- following the ouster of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak -- and like-minded Islamist forces elsewhere in North Africa poses another major challenge for the Saudis. The meltdown of decades-old autocratic regimes together with the electoral successes of Islamists has implications for the stability of Saudi Arabia’s Islamic monarchical model of governance. Concerns about the Muslim Brotherhood being a beneficiary of the uprising in Syria has the Saudi kingdom proceeding cautiously in supporting the rebels there, even though the ouster of the Syrian regime represents the single best option to weaken the threat from Iran.
Furthermore, the Syrian unrest has implications for Lebanon, Jordan and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict -- all key areas of interest for the Saudis on their northern flank.
Turkey’s bid for leadership in the Middle East is a new variable the kingdom has not had to deal with since the close of World War I and the demise of the Ottoman Empire. In the near term, the Saudis take comfort in the idea that Turkey can serve as a counter to Iran, but the long-term challenge posed by Turkey’s rise is a worrying development, especially since the Saudi leaders’ predecessors lost control of the Arabian Peninsula twice to the Ottomans -- once in 1818 and then again in 1891.
Even in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the Saudis are caught between two unappealing options: side with the Taliban, as they did during the Taliban’s rule in the 1990s, and risk empowering al Qaeda-led jihadists, or oppose the Taliban and thus help Iran expand its influence in the area.
While the Saudis have time to deal with a number of these external challenges, they do not enjoy that same luxury in their domestic affairs. The Saudis have been largely successful in containing the threat from al Qaeda, but they have had to engage in radical reforms, spearheaded by King Abdullah, in order to do so. These include scaling back the powers of the religious establishment, expanding the public space for women, changing the educational sector and undertaking other social reforms.
These moves have led to a growing moderate-conservative divide at both the level of state and society and have galvanized those calling for further socio-political reforms as well as the significant Shia minority that seeks to exploit the opening provided by the reform process. These domestic issues have been magnified exponentially given the Arab unrest. In addition to the growing Shia protests in parts of the Eastern Province, there are reports of student unrest in the southwestern province of Asir.
There are also early signs of mainstream Saudis trying to mobilize in other parts of the kingdom -- at least over the Internet. It is difficult for the Saudi authorities to prevent a large university-educated youth population -- a large segment of which is unemployed -- from being affected by the new protest norm in the region.
Complicating this situation are fears of the religious establishment that the new regional climate is weakening its influence, especially if the government moves to engage in additional reforms. While thus far the Saudis have been able to control prominent Muslim scholars, known as the ulema class, especially with the limits on who can issue fatwas, the potential for backlash from the ulema remains. At the very least, the ulema will support more conservative factions in any power struggle.
All of these issues further complicate the Saudis’ venture into uncharted territory insofar as leadership changes are concerned. There are several princes who have already distinguished themselves as likely key players in a future Saudi regime. These include intelligence chief Prince Muqrin, the youngest living son of the founder and a member of the Allegiance Council; Prince Khalid bin Faisal, the governor of Mecca province; Prince Mitab bin Abdullah, the new commander of SANG; and Assistant Interior Minister Prince Mohammed bin Naif, the kingdom’s counterterrorism chief and head of the de-radicalization program designed to reintegrate repentant jihadists.
Thus watching this issue very closely for any movement on the part of the untested Allegiance Council, which is expected to choose a crown prince and king as per the new succession law in the event of the death of the incumbents. Salman could take over as Crown Prince, but he is seen as the last of the major princes, which means it will be important to see who among the grandsons of the founder of the modern kingdom will emerge as key stakeholders in the Saudi system. But in the end, the real issue is whether the historically resilient Saudi monarchy will be able to continue to demonstrate resilience moving forward....
Western arms makers eye lucrative Mideast market -- AFP
Defense firms eye billion dollar Mideast deals -- Reuters
As protests crackdowns continue, West lines up to sell arms -- The Telegraph
$7 bn UAE missile deal expected this spring -- AFP
U.K. Liam Fox defends Mideast arms sales -- The Independent
17 Chinese exhibitors at Abu Dhabi International Defense -- China.org
Chinese defense products debut at Abu Dhabi exhibition -- People's Daily Online
Analysis: Unrest clouds outlook for arms sales to Mideast -- Reuters
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