Who Runs Saudi Foreign Policy?
A Much-Needed Shift in Sino-Indian Foreign Policy
Dangerous times for dangerous U.S. Foreign Policy
EU foreign policy in relation of EC selections
US foreign policy shift: The naughty won't be rewarded anymore!
Saudi Censorship
Saudi Arabia has no clear order of royal succession or promotion - at any level. The House of Saud is dominated by competing families each seeking to advance their power, wealth and patronage; and undercut rivals.
This often means that Saudi policy is idiosyncratic - with multiple "official" and contradicting statements being issued. The Saudi King and the Saudi foreign minister cannot dictate foreign policy exclusively, since other prominent Saudi royals are too powerful to be silenced if they disagree and have enough wealth that they can use to hinder or promote a cause. For instance, the resurgent Taliban in Afghanistan are being funded by many Saudi royals although the Saudi King has no official statement on the matter and the Saudi government officially ended relations with the Taliban after September 11, 2001. Those royals cannot be intimidated by the Saudi King who lacks any popular mandate and thus cannot alienate powerful families.
The case of Yemen is more illuminating since the divisions between the royals are public (we do not know who funds the Taliban, in contrast). Saudi Arabia has joined the war against northern Yemen's Houti rebels at the behest of the Yemeni government - which has failed to subdue a separatist insurgency for years - and the U.S. government. The Saudi army is pitiful against the Houtis - and predictable so since the battle-hardened and larger Yemeni army could not do the job either. Many Saudis are enthusiastic and think their nation is in some heroic cause against the tyranny of child soldiers trying to defend their rights against a central government in Sana that has neglected the Yemeni north. But not all.
Some royals publicly oppose King Abduallah's decision. The Saudi Crown Prince (and heir to the throne) Sultan has written an editorial arguing precisely such. Prince Sultan probably did not write it himself since he is believed to be gravely ill, instead another prominent official close to him and speaking with his approval wrote it on his behalf. In any case, the editorial published in Sultan's own al-Sharq al-Ouset deviates from the position of his own half-brother King and calls for the Yemenis to fire their weapons at "our enemies". Which enemies? Certainly not fellow Muslims (i.e. Israel).
But in that Kingdom, every prince has his news paper and every one promotes an agenda. So while the Crown Prince wants an end to Saudi fighting in Yemen, the Saudi prince at the helm of al-Riyadh (the largest circulating Saudi daily) portrays Iran as the enemy of stability in the Middle East and being the cause of the fighting in Yemen, which Saudi Arabia eagerly entered into:
This stupid cartoon reads: "Sana Clinic" (top building writing) and then shows an man walking in labeled "the Middle East" and "Iran" being the cause of his sore and visit. Obviously, trying to lay the blame on the carnage on Iran which has nothing to do with Yemen.
Consider this a lesson in royal politics: one side supports the war, the other opposes and extols Yemenis to fight against "our enemies", and another supports the war and blames it on a innocent nation for the purposes of laying the ground for an attack on that nation for unrelated reasons. Got that?
