El encabezado de
la imagen de arriba es viejo (el Rey Abdullah murió en el 2015) pero lo que
importa es la figura, ya que permite aventurarse un poco en el laberinto de
nombres y caras que es la familia real saudita. Con frecuencia creciente leemos
notas que advierten sobre la difícil situación económica y social en este país,
las frecuentes disputas familiares por el poder y, más recientemente, sobre la
posibilidad de una guerra civil que termine dividiendo al reino en varias
regiones. A los efectos de entender mejor la nota que sigue, hemos agregado un
mapa con las regiones de Arabia Saudita y otro que muestra dónde están los
yacimientos petrolíferos y los oleoductos:
La nota que sigue
es de Wayne Madsen y apareció en el sitio web Strategic Culture Foundation
(http://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2016/12/11/coming-fracture-saudi-arabia.html):
Título: The
Coming Fracture of Saudi Arabia
Texto: The
Bible’s book of Galatians, VI teaches, «as you sow, so shall you reap». And for
Saudi Arabia, which has overtly and covertly supported rebellions in Libya,
Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Ethiopia, Philippines, and Lebanon that have led to civil
wars and inter-religious strife, the day of reckoning may soon be at hand. The
present Saudi king, Salman bin Abdul Aziz, is the last of the sons of the first
Saudi king, Abdul Aziz al Saud, who will ever sit on the Saudi throne. After
Salman dies, Saudi leadership will pass to a new generation of Saudi royals.
But not all the descendants of the first Saudi king are happy about how the
future succession may turn out.
Salman named his
nephew, Mohammed bin Nayef, as crown prince after firing his half-brother,
Mugrin bin Abdul Aziz, as crown prince after the death of King Abdullah in
2015. For good measure, Salman also named his son, Mohammad bin Salman, who is
little-known outside the kingdom, as deputy prime minister. The 30-year old
Mohammad bin Salman is seen by some as the eventual crown prince after King
Salman figures out some way to ease Mohammad bin Nayef, the Interior Minister
and close friend of the United States, out of the position of heir apparent to
the throne.
More and more
power has been concentrated into Mohammad bin Salman’s hands, including control
over the Defense Ministry, the Council of Economy and Development, and the
Saudi government-owned Arabian-American oil company (ARAMCO). The deputy crown
prince and defense minister is the architect of Saudi Arabia’s genocidal
military campaign against the Houthi rebels in Yemen and continued Saudi
support for jihadist guerrillas in Syria and Iraq, as well as military support
for the Wahhabist royal regime in Bahrain in its bloody suppression of the
Shi’a Muslim majority population. Mohammad bin Salman is also the major force
in Saudi Arabia seeking a military confrontation with Iran.
There is a schism
within the Saudi royal family that has created a real-life «Game of Thrones»
within the kingdom. The first Saudi king had between 37 and 44 sons from a
harem of 22 wives. One of these sons, 85-year old Prince Talal bin Abdul Aziz,
also known as the «Red Prince» for his support for a national constitution and
Western-style rule of law separated from Muslim sharia law, is suspicious about
the concentration of power in the hands of Salman’s family, which comes at the
expense of the other princes with a political claim inside the monarchy. Prince
Talal is not alone.
Power in Saudi
Arabia has generally resided with the seven sons of King Abdulaziz and Hassa
bin Ahmed, which include present King Salman. These sons are commonly known as
the «Sudairi Seven». They included the late King Fahd; the late Crown Princes
Sultan and Nayef; the former deputy defense ministers Abdul Rahman and Turki
and Interior Minister Ahmed, all removed from succession; and King Salman. In addition
to the families of the other sons of the Saudi founder, the families of the
«Sudairi Six», minus Salman’s family, are intensely jealous of the power being
conveyed to deputy Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman. When Salman dies, many
observers of secretive Saudi royal politics expect to see a succession battle
that might even result in a royal civil war.
And a civil war
among competing Saudi royals can easily become one between various Saudi
regions. Thus, the fracturing of Libya, Syria, Iraq, and Yemen brought about by
Saudi adventurism may come back to haunt the Saudis in a major way.
The first Saudi
region that can be expected to take advantage of a Saudi royal family split is
the Eastern Region, which is known formally as the Eastern Province and is
ruled by Saud bin Nayef, a son of the late Crown Prince Nayef from the
provincial capital of Dammam. When King Abdullah died in 2015, Saud bin Nayef
was passed over for Crown Prince by his younger brother, Mohammad bin Nayef.
Although both brothers are nephews of King Salman, Saud may still harbor a
resentment against his uncle for stripping him of the chance to become king. A
full-blown Saudi civil war may begin in the Eastern Region, which is not only
the center of Saudi Arabia’s oil industry with thousands of expatriate workers,
but also the home to what may be either a slim majority or very significant
minority of Shi’a Muslims.
The Saudi
government has never wanted to conduct a religious census of the country
because it might not like the results, especially in the Eastern Province. In
2009, popular Shi’a leader Nimr Baqir al-Nimr was arrested by Saudi authorities
for advancing the idea that the Eastern Region should secede from Saudi Arabia.
In 2015, amid an international outcry of condemnation for its action, Saudi
Arabia executed al-Nimr. Expect the Eastern Region to the first to openly
revolt against the Saudi government in the event the current «Game of Thrones»
turns into a «War of Thrones».
The next region
to revolt against the monarchy would be Asir, the southwest area that borders
northern Yemen, in addition to two neighboring Saudi regions. Asir is the home
to a significant minority of Zaidi Muslims. The Saudi regime has been waging a
genocidal campaign against the Asir Zaidis’ cousins on the Yemeni side of the
border, the Houthi rebels, who are also Zaidis.
Houthi rebels
have launched several military attacks, including missile barrages, on Saudi
targets in Asir, as well as the Saudi border regions of Jizan and Najran, in
the hope that they might ignite a Zaidi uprising in the southern Saudi regions.
There have been reports during the Yemeni civil war that Houthi forces seized,
at least temporarily, a few Saudi villages in Asir, Najran, and Jizan. Open
rebellions by Zaidis in Asir, Najran, and Jizan, along with a Shi’a rebellion
in the Eastern region, may be too much for the Saudi armed forces to handle,
especially if it is split along competing allegiances to rival princes and
throne claimants.
Intervention in a
Saudi civil war by the United States and NATO would be guaranteed to result in
a costly outcome for the West in terms of body bags, sabotage of oil
installations, and a multi-billion-dollar financial drain. The probability that
Yemen would see the restoral of an independent South Yemen and a battle for
control of northern Yemen between Houthis and remnants of the Saudi-backed
Yemeni government would entail Western troops also engaging in a protracted
civil war in another huge chunk of the Arabian Peninsula. Even the most-warlike
members of the Donald Trump administration would likely not want to become
mired in a major Arabian imbroglio.
Widespread
conflict in Saudi Arabia might also result in the regions of Mecca and Medina
becoming an independent entity with the primary responsibility of protecting
the Islamic holy places and ensuring safe access for Muslim pilgrims. The
Organization of Islamic Conference and other non-Wahhabi influenced Islamic
organizations may become vehicles by which the two holy cities are governed as
a «neutral zone» unaffected by Saudi turmoil and Wahhabist religious
radicalism.
Other regions of
Saudi Arabia that would likely spin off include the Northern Borders region
adjacent to Iraq and Tabuk, which lies along the southern Jordanian border and
the Gulf of Aqaba. Tabuk might seek some form of security protection from both
Jordan and Israel to remain aloof from armed confrontation between Saudi
factions. The Northern Borders region might seek a similar accommodation with
Iraq.
The real battle
for control of Saudi Arabia would be mostly centered in Riyadh province, for
the keys to the kingdom, or what remains of it, would be found in control of
the Saudi capital city of Riyadh. In any event, a Saudi civil war would be best
left to the regional actors to sort things out. Any outside intervention would
certainly make matters much worse and could develop into a wider regional or
world war.
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