What a Saudi civil war would look like


Under the kingship of Mohammed Bin Salman, Saudi Arabia is very likely to implode and land itself in civil war. However, sizable friction within the royal family means the civil war would not be between the Saudi people and the royal family, but rather a result of an intra-Saudi rift within the royal family.

Ever since ISIS invaded Iraq in 2014, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has been in identity crisis.

ISIS' invasion of Iraq detonated a time bomb within the conservative kingdom of Saudi Arabia. This time bomb is well understood by the Al-Saud royal family as the largest existential threat to the kingdom. Should the Al-Saud royal family fail to cling to power, it is entirely possible that ISIS would land itself in power through a coup on the royal family:

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/isis-aim-saudi-arabia_b_5748744

This goes a long way to explain Mohammed Bin Salman's controversial rise to power. Strongly backed by the United States and Israel, MBS continued to ratchet up tensions against Iran and assist President Trump's maximum pressure campaign. The most noteworthy ways MBS has confronted Iran is in solidifying relations with Iraq, military intervention in Yemen and giving tacit approval for the UAE and Bahrain to establish open ties with Israel.

Simultaneously, MBS has also been engaging in social reforms. His ambitious 2030 vision has resulted in the dismantling of Islamist gains in the kingdom, which occurred after the 1979 seizure of the Grand Holy Mosque in Mecca by rebels. Through the use of brute force and suppression, MBS has checked the Sunni extremist influence on Saudi Arabia and is trying to open up the kingdom to be more palatable to the United States, which is reducing its footprint in the Middle-East to confront China in the Pacific.

However, Mohammed Bin Salman's solution to the kingdom's identity crisis is not the only alternative. Faisal Bin Abdul Aziz, king of Saudi Arabia from 1964 - 1975, believed that the priority for Saudi Arabia should not be sectarianism or racism, but a pan-Islamic coalition whose sole goal was to liberate the lost lands of Palestine from Israel. This view is particularly surprising, because king Faisal's mother was a descendant of Ibn Abdul Wahhab, the founder of Saudi Arabia's Salafi ideology, and Al-Wahhab viewed Shi'ite Muslims as infidels.

King Faisal's view is shared today by Iran, Pakistan, Al-Qaeda and the Taliban, which signals that it is possible within certain interpretations of Salafi Islam - and within certain segmants of the Saudi royal family - to set aside traditional rivalry with Shi'ite Muslims and come together in a pan-Islamic coalition against Israel. This is crucial, because it gives an alternate viewpoint for Saudis to rally to that does not involve compromise with Israel, as Mohammed Bin Salman has done, nor does it involve siding with ISIS. For China and Iran, this presents a clear opening.

In the coming Cold War between China and the United States, in the Middle-East the clear advantage is China's. Should President Trump be reelected, there is a very good chance that China and Iran will implement a comprehensive strategic partnership and focus their efforts on destabilizing Saudi Arabia from within, with the goal of moving the kingdom to the Iran-China block. One way China and Iran would seek to do this is by putting pressure on Pakistan, a close military ally of the kingdom, to remain neutral in an intra-Saudi civil war until Mohammed Bin Salman is forced to abdicate.

Should the Saudi royal family become divided between those loyal to Mohammed Bin Salman and those who receive Iranian and Chinese support, there is a very good chance the United States would lose the kingdom entirely. President Trump was elected in part because of public exasperation with US interventions in the Middle-East, and President Trump is beholden to that national mood. Recent Israeli ties with Bahrain and the UAE only increases the frustration and anger directed towards Mohammed Bin Salman by the Muslim world, which would give more international legitimacy to the segment of the royal family fighting to remove him.

With Mohammed Bin Salman removed from power, a Saudi king backed by Iran and China would have no interest whatsoever in rapprochement with Israel and would instead make rapprochement with Pakistan and Iran his most urgent priority. After this, the king would turn the kingdom's efforts against Israel and the United States. In turn, this would mean the deadly Salafi ideology would be no longer focused on Shi'ite Islam, as it has been since 2014, but instead turned towards the United States, as in the days of Bin Laden and 9-11.

For the Second Cold War, this would be a huge strategic victory for China and Iran and a huge loss for the United States and Israel. With China dominating both sides of the Arabian Gulf, there is a good chance that other gulf kingdoms would also fall, either to pro-Palestinian Salafi Islam or to Chinese Communism, and the US would feel substantial pressure in Iraq, Afghanistan and Jordan from the Chinese-backed Middle-East. With Iraq, Afghanistan and Jordan as exceptions, there is a very good chance that, through pro-Palestinian Islamism and Communism, China would dominate the remainder of the Middle-East and win the first major strategic victory of the Second Cold War.

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