In article on Saturday, Britain’s Independent newspaper said the Deputy Prince who is also the Second Deputy Prime Minister was aggressive and ambitious.
Author Bill Law began his article with a biography on the Prince who was only 12 when he began attending his father’s meetings (the then governor of Saudi Arabia’s Riyadh Province) and trading in shares and property. The author slammed Bin Salman for plunging the country ‘in to a brutal war in Yemen with no end in sight,’ describing him as power-lover.
“Now the kingdom of Saudi Arabia is jousting dangerously with its regional foe Iran, led by a man seemingly in a big hurry to become the Middle East’s most powerful leader,” the writer said.
“Critics claim he has amassed a vast fortune, but it is power, not money, that drives the prince. When Salman ascended the Saudi throne in January 2015, he was already ailing and relying heavily on his son. Aged 79, the King is reported to be suffering from dementia and able to concentrate for only a few hours in a day. As his father’s gatekeeper, Bin Salman is the real power in the kingdom,” the Independent notes.
The newspaper point out that power was dramatically increased in the first few months of Salman’s rule. “Prince Mohammed was appointed Defense Minister; put in charge of Aramco, the national energy company. He was named deputy Crown Prince but ensured ascendancy over his rival Mohammed bin Nayef, the Crown Prince and Interior Minister, by absorbing the latter’s royal court in to that of the King’s.”
The author, Bill Law, mocked Bin Salman’s zeal which led Saudi Arabia in to a messy war in neighboring Yemen. “Decades of Saudi caution were thrown to the wind as Bin Salman presided over Operation Decisive Storm. It must have seemed a very good idea at the time: the young, ambitious son of an aged king leading a war against a rebellion in a troubled southern neighbor. Bin Salman had a powerful older rival in the Interior Minister and wanted to prove his mettle both to his rival and his own supporters. The plan was to win a quick, decisive victory to confirm his stature as a military leader, placing him in the same league as his grandfather Ibn Saud, the great warrior king and founder of modern Saudi Arabia.” “Thus far Operation Decisive Storm has proved anything but. The war has dragged on for close to a year, causing infinite misery to the people of Yemen. In intense aerial bombardments, much of the country’s infrastructure has been destroyed.
The writer said enemies within the ruling family decried the arrogance of the young prince, even going so far as to call for his ousting along with his father and Mohammed bin Nayef.
At the end of last year the BND, the German intelligence agency, published a one-and-a-half-page memo saying that Saudi Arabia had adopted “an impulsive policy of intervention”. It portrayed Saudi defense minister and Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman as a political gambler who is destabilizing the Arab world through proxy wars in Yemen and Syria.
