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"Game of Thrones": Why Does Saudi Arabia Exacerbate Regional Tension?

Reuters

The arrest of 40 high-ranking officials in Saudi Arabia, including 11 prince and 4 ministers, speaks about the problems that Al-Saudi royal house face. These problems were even more aggravated, when the 81-year-old King Salman, breaking down the royal family tradition, appointed 31-years-old Muhammad Bin Salman, his younger son, as a crown prince. It should be noted that in Saudi Arabia so far the sons (45) of Abdul Aziz al-Saud, the founder of the kingdom, has inherited the crown, that is, the crown passed not from father to son, but from brother to brother.

Salman first broke this tradition, depriving his brother of the right to inherit the crown, and then deprived his elder cousin of the title of crown prince, giving that title to his younger son. This, of course, caused some tension in the royal family, which has about 5-6 thousand princes: the king can actually become anyone and there is no need to be the elder.

Under such conditions, Muhammad bin Salman is "forced" to neutralize the threats to his authority. For this purpose, the Crown Prince at the beginning was practicing home arrest without any official charges. Now, the prince seems to have gone through a harsher way, proposing corruption charges which is quite acceptable for the world and Saudi society.

It should be noted that a number of members of the royal family have a negative attitude toward the Crown Prince not only because of the violation of the traditions, but also because of his policies (especially domestic). Thus, the 31-year-old Prince has begun the modernization process (Saudi Vision 2030), which refers not only to the country's economy but also to the value system. Muhammad bin Salman has stated that the kingdom should return to moderate Islam as soon as possible. Perhaps the factor of the Crown Prince was that women in Saudi Arabia were eventually allowed to drive, and women were entitled to go to the stadium for participating in sporting events. Such reforms are not well accepted particularly by the senior generation representatives, who also try to form an opposition against the prince.

In order to overcome possible threats to his government, Muhammad bin Salman also uses foreign policy. It is worth mentioning that on the day of the Prince's arrest, Yemen rebels fired a ballistic missile towards one of Saudi Arabia's major international airports on the outskirts of the capital - a fact, which Riyadh used to toughen its rhetoric against Iran.

This definitely undermines Saudi society's attention from domestic political issues. The crisis around Qatar, because of its relations with Iran, coincided with appointing Mohammed bin Salman as Crown Prince, which we believe is not a coincidence either.

Thus, we can say that Saudi Arabia today stands at the threshold of major changes since the day of its foundation in 1932, which also has a certain impact on the regional situation.

 

 


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