WITH BANDAR'S RETURN, SAUDI ARABIA MOVES TO CAPITALIZE ON ARAB SPRING
By Catherine Cheney, on 31 Jul 2012, Trend Lines
Not even two weeks after being appointed as the new head of Saudi Arabia's foreign intelligence agency, Prince Bandar bin Sultan is again in the news, this time because of unconfirmed rumors that he has been assassinated.
Bandar, who served as the Saudi ambassador to the United States from 1983 to 2005, largely disappeared from the world stage since being recalled from that post.
His return to the spotlight through his promotion this month is seen as part of a shift toward a more hawkish Saudi Arabian foreign policy as the kingdom faces major challenges in the region, including but not limited to Syria and Iran.
"Bandar's appointment represented a retreat into old-fashioned, autocratic, security-based politics," Toby C. Jones, director of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Rutgers University and a nonresident scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told Trend Lines.
By shuffling his intelligence command, Saudi Arabian King Abdullah was able to "put people in positions of responsibility who have an intense focus on preserving the status quo through the use of security forces."
Jones, who called Bandar a "hardliner" and a "hawk" both in terms of his domestic and regional policy, said his return to Saudi Arabian politics represented an attempt by the king to protect the royal family and its interests, particularly given what is happening in the region.
Saudi Arabia's initial response to the Arab Spring was one of panic, Jones said, explaining that the kingdom was uncertain, watchful and wary.
"But a year and a half into the Arab uprisings, things have stabilized in various ways in Egypt and Tunisia and even in Bahrain," he said.
He explained that the kingdom, which is now working to "manage transformation," is no longer as nervous.
Rather, Jones said, Saudi Arabia has come to embrace the Arab Spring because of a sense that these political crises, if managed, can in fact serve its interests.
"If they can point to the possibility of unrest, but believe they can control it, that becomes useful," Jones said, explaining that, among other benefits, it allows the country to "play the 'iron fist' approach."
In Syria, for example, the ideal outcome for Saudi Arabia may not be a stable democracy, but rather a managed crisis, Jones said. He noted that this might seem contrary to the Saudis' long-standing claims that they want stability and security for the region. But he explained that a divided Syria where the kingdom can "maneuver certain pieces of the chess board against others" offers potential advantages.
Enter Bandar, an "experienced international troubleshooter" who had previously negotiated with both Iran and Syria.
But Bandar's return, combined with the recent succession uncertainty following the death of Crown Prince Nayef last month, raises the question of stability within the kingdom itself, Jones said. He particularly emphasized the ongoing Shiite protests in eastern Saudi Arabia.
"It is part of a conventional wisdom and in fact pretty much unchallenged that Saudi Arabia is a stable place," he said. "But I think this is a place that shows significant fault lines and potential for fracture."
The fact that there was no outbreak of sustained popular unrest in Saudi Arabia even in the midst of the Arab Spring uprisings sweeping the region has to do in part with support for the king. But another major reason, Jones said, is the "coercive apparatus" of Saudi Arabia, which he called "a police state."
"People don't protest because they are scared," he said. "There is a significant foundation of criticism and widespread potential for dissent. The fact that it has not materialized yet does not have to do with its absence."
As if to confirm the fears of potential protesters, Riyadh is now cracking down on peaceful demonstrations in the Shiite-majority east.
"[Saudi authorities] have also attempted to manufacture a connection between Saudi Shiites and Iran, which doesn't exist in any meaningful way, but they exploit or manipulate that for political purposes," Jones explained.
Saudi Arabia, Jones said, does not want to see sweeping democratic change throughout the region, and it also does not want to see Iran being empowered. These fears are mostly separate, but linked in one way, Jones said.
"If you can undermine protesters as being agents of Iran, then you can undermine the democratic claims of those protesters in the eastern province of Saudi Arabia or in Bahrain or elsewhere," he said. "So those two things are linked in the way the Saudis play politics."
Photo: Prince Bandar bin Sultan (Russian Presidential Press and Information Office photo).
