4 Predictions for Saudi Arabia

In this article I will be outlying a series of predictions for Saudi Arabia over the next 5 years:

1) Mohammed Bin Salman will be forced to abdicate from ruling Saudi Arabia.

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman is next in line for the throne after his father, King Salman. However, unlike his father, Mohammed Bin Salman is reforming the country at too fast a rate for the kingdom to cope with.

Not to mention: Bin Salman's foreign policy blunders have been exceptional: from Yemen, to Qatar, to Lebanon - he has shown himself to be too reckless and not measured enough to rule a kingdom as dynamic and conservative as Saudi Arabia.

2) Mohammed Bin Nayef will be made king of Saudi Arabia.

Unlike Mohammed Bin Salman, Mohammed Bin Nayef is the Al Saud family favourite for the throne. Though he has been currently forced to abdicate by his cousin and uncle, the Saudi establishment will look to him to lead the country after the folly of bin Salman's policies has been fully revealed.

3) ISIS will come to Saudi Arabia.

Scarily, Mohammed Bin Salman's push for modernization makes ISIS coming to Saudi Arabia all the more likely. What is even worse is his desire to push for public ties with Israel.

This has happened before: in the 1970's the Shah of Iran pushed for public ties with Israel. That, along with economic instability, led to his downfall in 1979, when Ayatollah Khomeini took over the country in the Iranian revolution.

A Saudi revolution benefits ISIS, and ISIS only. ISIS is a neo-Ikhwani expansionist project in the tradition of Ibn Abdul Wahhab and, according to Alistair Crooke, after invading Iraq, ISIS inserted a time bomb into the heart of the Middle-East, into Saudi Arabia. Alistair Crooke maintains that the kingdom is more vulnerable to ISIS under a modernizing ruler like Mohammed Bin Salman than under a more conservative ruler like Mohammed Bin Nayef.

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/alastair-crooke/isis-aim-saudi-arabia_b_5748744.html

4) With ISIS will come war to Saudi Arabia

Whether the Al-Saud royal family will be eventually forced out by ISIS is difficult to assess, but what is likely is that, like Syria, Iraq, Libya and Yemen in recent years, different Arab tribes will pick different sides. Some will remain loyal to the Saud royal family - some will join with ISIS.

Unlike the Iranian Revolution in 1979, the Saudi revolution will quickly turn into a civil war, one in which millions of Muslims will fight, either for or against ISIS. What the Trump Administration does in such a scenario is difficult to assess - American airstrikes on Islamic holy land will further exacerbate such a conflict.