Article points to moribund state of Saudi ruling structure

Evidence suggests that Saudi Arabia’s current ruling structure is on its last legs and that the leading configuration in the kingdom will undergo two changes in the course of the next year.

The senior members of the Saudi royal family are looking increasingly frail, read an article run by the Foreign Policy magazine on Tuesday.

This week, 89-year-old King Abdullah presided over the council of ministers’ meeting from his own palace in the capital Riyadh instead of traveling to the council’s building.

According to speculations, nearly-78-year-old Crown Prince Nayef bin Abdel Aziz’s cancer, probably leukemia, has also returned after a respite of several years.

Nayef left the country one month ago for Morocco, but ended up in the US for “routine” medical tests. The state news agency said on Wednesday that he has returned to the kingdom.

According to the article, in the current situation, 76-year-old Prince Salman bin Abdel Aziz, who was appointed minister of defense in November after the death of the then Crown Prince Sultan bin Abdel Aziz Al Saud, has assumed the role of leadership.

Saudi newspapers have been filled, over the recent weeks, by reports and photos of Salman visiting military units across the country.

Even if Salman becomes the king, there is no certainty that he will reign for long given his old age and evidence pointing to his poor health condition. He has had at least one stroke and photographs suggest that his left arm does not function as well as his right one.

It seems that the world’s largest oil exporter and a leader in the Arab world might still be a long way from political stability, said the piece.

The prospect of Salman’s succession to the crown is vague and the question of who should accede to the throne after him, even more so, it added. In the interim, it is easy to predict an increasingly open rivalry between the sons of Abdullah, Nayef, and Salman.

The piece concluded that, given the unrest in Syria, chaos in Yemen, and diplomatic pressures on Iran, the uncertainty regarding Saudi Arabia’s immediate future is deteriorating the situation in the Middle East.

The current monarch is, meanwhile, infuriated over Washington’s refusal to share with him its views on Iran.