The Reality of Riyadh (WINEP, very informative.)

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Unsurprisingly such changes have policy implications. King Abdullah is remembered for his contempt for Iran (as in the great line from a WikiLeaked State Department cable "cut off the head of the snake&quot , his disdain for Hamas in the Palestinian arena, and his weakness in allowing the young Emir Tamim of Qatar to irritate him. King Salman, or rather his son, MbS, has evolved a different policy. Though still contemptuous towards Iran, much effort has gone to keeping as many Arab leaders inside the proverbial tent as possible. Hence an early reaching out to Hamas although matched by closer ties with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Sisi, whose own views of the Muslim Brotherhood are considerably less charitable. Emir Tamim of Qatar has been gracious enough not to publicly clash with King Salman. Now the only outliers are President Bashar Assad of Syria, with whom no compromise seems possible, and Sultan Qaboos of Oman, who seems to enjoy his geographical status on Arabia's periphery and what appears to be his good fortune of surviving what everyone else thought was a terminal case of colon cancer.

The style of Saudi policy is to keep King Salman almost constantly in the public gaze. There seem few foreign, especially Arab, dignitaries whom he doesn't appear ready to meet amid much pomp and ceremony, almost daily. The commander of U.S. CentCom, President Erdogan of Turkey, Mahmoud Abbas, President Essebsi of Tunisia, okay. But the presidents of Tajikistan and Uganda? However, what counts more is the modus operandi of MbS, who is used as a special envoy for his father, when occasions (like meeting President Putin) demand more diplomatic heft than can be provided by the foreign minister, the smooth former ambassador to Washington, Adel al-Jubeir. So what sort of man is MbS?

According to one niche follower of the Saudi royals, MbS is "unsophisticated." This is meant as a compliment, reflecting MbS's non-western education and preference for wearing sandals rather than Gucci shoes along with his Arab robes. But MbS appears to lack social graces as well. Family lore has it that King Abdullah once threw MbS out of his majlis, the semi-formal royal occasion notionally open to all. On another occasion MbS asked a favor of the now dead, long-serving interior minister Prince Nayef, who told him to go away and clean up his style of doing business. That style, according to ambassadors in Riyadh who can't confirm the anecdote but nevertheless believe it to be true, included on one occasion leaving a live bullet on the desk of a rival for a deal.

So Saudi Arabia today is trying to unite the Arab world, while countering Iran in Yemen, Syria and elsewhere, and also coping with an oil price which remains stubbornly weak. And the key individual, Deputy Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman, when he is not espousing technocratic visions to the likes of Thomas Friedman in the New York Times or the editorial leadership of The Economist, appears to operate as if he is a character in The Sopranos. In fairness to Saudi Arabia, several other Middle East states (and others elsewhere in the world) may deserve to be similarly type-cast. Today's Middle East may be free (or not) of the prospect of Iranian nuclear weapons but worryingly still functions at a level of intimate rivalry which challenges high-minded notions of regional stability and prosperity. For the U.S. the policy challenge is to develop a partnership which can function in such circumstances.

http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/view/the-reality-of-riyadh

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1. Preparing for the Collapse of the Saudi Kingdom

For half a century, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has been the linchpin of U.S. Mideast policy. A guaranteed supply of oil has bought a guaranteed supply of security. Ignoring autocratic practices and the export of Wahhabi extremism, Washington stubbornly dubs its ally “moderate.” So tight is the trust that U.S. special operators dip into Saudi petrodollars as a counterterrorism slush fund without a second thought. In a sea of chaos, goes the refrain, the kingdom is one state that’s stable.

But is it?

In fact, Saudi Arabia is no state at all. There are two ways to describe it: as a political enterprise with a clever but ultimately unsustainable business model, or as an entity so corrupt as to resemble a vertically and horizontally integrated criminal organization. Either way, it can’t last. It’s past time U.S. decision-makers began planning for the collapse of the Saudi kingdom.

In recent conversations with military and other government personnel, we were startled at how startled they seemed at this prospect. Here’s the analysis they should be working through.

http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2016/02/saudi-arabia-collapse/463212/