[Washington Institute for Near East Policy] Simon Henderson - On March 27, the official Saudi Press Agency announced that Interior Minister Prince Nayef had been appointed second deputy prime minister. If Nayef eventually becomes king, Saudi Arabia's hesitant steps toward reform will likely stop, and Washington's relations with Riyadh would most likely be rockier than those with the current King Abdullah. Prince Nayef, who controls the kingdom's huge internal security apparatus, most famously suggested that Israel's intelligence service was behind the September 11 attacks on the U.S. in which fifteen of the nineteen hijackers were Saudis. Just last week, a month after King Abdullah announced a series of reforms including the appointment of the first female deputy minister, Nayef publicly stated that he saw no need for either elections or women members of parliament.
2009-04-03 06:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive