The Saudi Trillions -- The London Review Of Books -- September 11, 2017

Updates

September 14, 2017: from The Wall Street Journal, Saudi Arabia clamps down as crown prince consolidates power.

Saudi Arabia is stamping out traces of internal dissent in a far-reaching campaign targeting influential clerics, liberal thinkers and even princes as Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman moves to consolidate power ahead of his expected accession to the throne.

In the past week, Saudi authorities have detained more than 30 people, roughly half of them clerics, according to activists and people close to those who have been detained. The campaign goes beyond many of the government’s past clampdowns, both in the scope of those targeted and the intense monitoring of social media posts by prominent figures. It is not known if any charges have been filed.

“This is unlike anything Saudis have experienced before,” says Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi political commentator who left the kingdom recently and now lives in self-imposed exile in the U.S.

Original Post

 

From The London Review of Books, September 7, 2017, "The Saudi Trillions," page 13:

The Al Saud are a royal family like no other: there are thousands of them, descending from the 22 wives Ibn Saud had while technically observing the Sharia requirement of four wives – max – at any one time.

He was ‘father to the nation’ in more than a metaphorical sense. In the context of a tribal society, these prudential intermarriages had the benefit of binding together a number of different groups at a time when Ibn Saud was merely the head of a coalition of tribes who founded the modern kingdom of Saudi Arabia in 1932 after he invaded the Hejaz, with its holy cities, Mecca and Medina.

The trouble, presently, is that his descendants all expect their emoluments.

The scale of this burden can be gauged from a classified cable sent by Wyche Fowler, then US ambassador to Saudi Arabia, to his government in November 1996, exposed by WikiLeaks, in which he reports that members of the Al Saud family receive stipends ranging from $270,000 a month for more senior princes to $8000 ‘for the lowliest member of the most remote branch of the family’. The system is calibrated by generation, with surviving sons and daughters of Ibn Saud receiving between $200,000 and $270,000, grandchildren around $27,000, great-grandchildren around $13,000 and great-great-grandchildren the minimum $8000 per month.

According to the US embassy’s calculations, in 1996 the budget for around sixty surviving sons and daughters, 420 grandchildren, 2900 great-grandchildren and ‘probably only about 2000 great-great-grandchildren at this point’ amounted to more than $2 billion, with the stipends providing ‘a substantial incentive for royals to procreate’ since – in addition to bonuses received on marriage for palace construction – a royal stipend begins at birth. One minor prince, according to a Saudi source, had persuaded a community college in the state of Oregon to enrol him even though he had no intention of attending classes: his principal goal in life was to have more children so he could increase his monthly allowance.

So, let's break that out so it's easier to read:

• senior princes: $270,000 / month
• lowliest family members of most remote branches: $8,000 / month
• calibrated by generation
• surviving sons and daughters of Ibn Saud: $200,000 to $270,000 (sons probably get more than daughters; otherwise, why would there be a range?)
• grandchildren: $27,000 / month
• great-grandchildren: $13,000 / month
• great-great-grandchildren: a minimum of $8,000 / month
• data from 1996 (hard to believe that's the most current data available)
• sixty surviving sons and daughters
• 420 grandchildren
• 2,900 great-grandchildren
• 2,000 great-great-grandchildren (and the number has to be growing)
• $2 billion per year

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The article certainly suggests that intra-family rivalry between MBS and MBN has not completely resolved.

At 81 Salman is in fragile health: he has had two strokes and suffers from Alzheimer’s.

On 21 June the doting king promoted his favourite son, the 31-year-old Prince Mohammed bin Salman (widely known by the initials MBS), to the position of crown prince, putting him in line to be the first of the third generation – Ibn Saud’s grandsons – to occupy the throne.

According to the New York Times, MBS’s elevation at the expense of his older cousin, Crown Prince Muhammad bin Nayef (known as MBN), was the result of a well-executed plot.

MBN had been highly regarded by the US and its allies: as head of the interior ministry and chief of Saudi intelligence he presided over operations against al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP); he had attended training sessions with the FBI and was a powerful advocate of continued close relations with the Americans. In February the CIA honoured him with the George Tenet medal, in recognition of his ‘excellent intelligence performance in the domain of counterterrorism and his unbounded contribution to realise world security and peace’.

On the night of 20 June, the eve of the Eid al-Fitr festival that ends the holy month of Ramadan, MBN was summoned along with other senior princes for an audience with the king. Shortly before midnight courtiers answering to MBS – who was already chief of the royal court as well as the world’s youngest minister of defence – removed his phones and pressured him to relinquish his posts. MBN at first refused but eventually gave in and is now said to be under palace arrest.

Afterwards clips of MBN paying allegiance to his younger cousin were shown on Saudi media, to demonstrate a smooth transition, and it was put about – this time by US as well as Saudi officials – that MBN had been suffering from the effects of the ‘arsehole bomb’ attack in 2009, when an al-Qaida operative masquerading as a petitioner approached him and blew himself up with an IED hidden in his rectum. MBN survived the attack but was said to have become addicted to medication he had been taking to mitigate the effects of the trauma.

Members of the Allegiance Council, a body of 34 senior princes established by King Abdullah in 2006 to resolve disputes by approving changes in the line of succession, were told that MBN had a drug problem and was unfit to be king. Despite private reservations, the council deferred to King Salman and rubber-stamped its approval, in a vote of 31 to three.

Of course, the article goes on to tie Trump with MBS, the latter being portrayed as the "useful idiot." But that's an entirely different story but it did remind me to take any "political" essay in the LRB with a grain of salt.