Monday, August 01, 2005
Saudi Arabia: Who comes next?
What's an octogenarian crown prince's chance of succeeding an octogenarian king? About fifty-fifty. But neither of them have much left to give. That is why the death of King Fahd of Saudi Arabia marks the beginning of the end of the hierarchical order of the desert country. The newly-crowned King Abdullah is said to be about 82 years old and his appointed successor is Crown Prince Sultan, said to be 81 years old.
"The biggest issue for Saudi Arabia and its neighbors is what happens after Abdullah and Sultan," said Thomas Lippman, a scholar at Middle East Institute, and the former Middle East correspondent of The Washington Post. "They are the Yuri Andropov and Konstantin Chernenko of Saudi Arabia, and we don't know who's Gorbachev."
Read the whole thing.
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