At the Washington Post Marc Lynch, né “Abu Aardvark”, gazes into his crystal ball to discern the significance of the recent Saudi purge:
While the full scope and ultimate outcome of the weekend’s arrests remain unclear, the new developments should be understood in the context of interaction between Mohammed bin Salman’s short window for domestic power consolidation and Saudi Arabia’s unsettled regional position. Mohammed bin Salman’s domestic political ambitions and foreign policy moves have unfolded in a deeply uncertain environment, with both domestic power and regional order in an unprecedented state of flux.
The Yemeni missile attack, Hariri’s resignation, and the Saudi arrests would ordinarily be viewed as events of primarily local significance. In today’s context, however, they have sparked fears of a dangerous and unpredictable regional escalation against Iran. Since the Arab uprisings of 2011, Gulf regimes such as Saudi Arabia have lived in existential fear of the sudden eruption of popular mobilization, while pursuing unusually interventionist foreign policies across the region. The extended Saudi power transition at home and its erratic pattern of failed foreign policy interventions must be understood within this wider regional context.
I’m somewhat surprised that Syria scholar Lynch doesn’t mention Saudi support for Islamists in Syria in his account.
IMO if these steps mark an advance to war with Iran on the part of the Saudis, it won’t be a debacle or a quagmire. It will be the end of the House of Saud.
SA is the last domino in the so-called Arab Spring. I don’t know enough about the country to make any predictions but do think they are much weaker than is generally believed.