Prince Mohammed bin Naif
Royal shake-up in Saudi Arabia
00:54 - Source: CNN

Editor’s Note: David A. Andelman, member of the board of contributors of USA Today, is the author of “A Shattered Peace: Versailles 1919 and the Price We Pay Today.” He formerly served as a foreign correspondent for The New York Times and CBS News. Follow him on Twitter @DavidAndelman. The opinions in this article belong to the author.

CNN  — 

The timing was most fortuitous. Three weeks after Saudi Arabia’s 81-year-old King Salman welcomed America’s 71-year-old President Trump to considerable fanfare, then watched as the latter stumbled his way across Europe – notably being successfully hand-wrestled by the 39-year-old President of France – the Saudi King has elevated his 31-year-old son, Mohammed bin Salman Al-Saud to the position of crown prince and heir to the throne.

Crown Prince Mohammed will be not only the youngest heir ever to the Saudi throne, but the first ruler from the third generation after the kingdom’s founder, King Abdulaziz Al-Saud.

Such a generational shift has been long desired by the nation’s increasingly young population that has watched with growing dismay as one elderly monarch after another has made his way to power.

So this unprecedented – though among Saudi-watchers not entirely unanticipated – move has critical implications internally, regionally and globally.

What is not only a dynastic but generational shift in leadership comes at a time when the lines of power throughout the region are being swiftly and dangerously redrawn. The new crown prince is uniquely poised to maintain Saudi leadership in all the kingdom’s challenges at home and abroad.

Most of the truly existential challenges to the Kingdom come from other countries – but especially from the immediate region and most specifically from Iran, where a succession of aging leaders of the Shiite brand of Islam is becoming increasingly confrontational to the Sunni world, led by Saudi Arabia and its Arabic partners.

The new Saudi crown prince has made it his mission to cement ties with surrounding Sunni leaders, particularly the leaders of nearby United Arab Emirates, whose potential successors are each in their 50s, but who have exhibited enormous respect for the new Crown Prince.

Prince Mohammed bin Naif 2
Saudi king appoints son as heir
00:49 - Source: CNN

As defense minister – a title he will retain while ascending to the role of heir-apparent – he has cemented relations with the Emirates, leading to the recent confrontation with Qatar, whose ruling family is seen as seeking to accumulate entirely too much power and influence to Saudi tastes, not to mention cozying up to the newly reelected, moderate President of Iran.

At the same time, he has led Saudi support for anti-Shiite forces in the civil war in neighboring Yemen. Saudi Arabia would see a Huthi-led Shiite nation of Yemen with its 1,100-mile, largely unpatrolled desert border with Saudi Arabia as another existential challenge.

The agreement by Trump during his recent visit to sell more than $110 billion worth of arms to Saudi Arabia now and some $350 billion over the next decade was largely a tribute to the Crown Prince and his unheralded March visit to Washington.

There, he also struck up a relationship with Trump’s 36-year-old son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who appears to have a comparable relationship to power as Prince Mohammed.

This decision to elevate Prince Mohammed to crown prince was no cloak-and-dagger move by the Allegiance Council, the 34-member group of Saudi royals –sons or grandsons of the King – that ratifies the choice of the nation’s ruler.

One member of this body told me not long ago that there is rarely any major dissent – that extensive discussions before the full group convenes inevitably leads to a consensus that the reigning monarch has sought all along. The process is a contemporary tribute to the ancient tribal past of the Saudis, as the leaders would gather around a desert campfire to reach an agreement, avoiding any swords being unsheathed, except in ceremonial tribute.

And it will doubtless be welcomed by many young Saudis, particularly women, who have long seen themselves a disenfranchised and ignored minority.

While the new crown prince is said to understand the need to go slow on truly revolutionary initiatives like allowing women to drive, he has expressed a desire to bring more women into the work force, even in leadership positions. “Society is still not convinced of women driving and believes it has very negative consequences if women were allowed to drive,” he said in April 2016. “This is up to Saudi society. We can’t force something it doesn’t want.”

The crown prince is deeply aware of the financial as well as social challenges that face him and his kingdom. It is Prince Mohammed who pushed for a public offering of shares of Aramco, the state oil company, to assure itself of a capital base just as oil prices continue to plummet.

What Saudi Arabia and the region does appear to want is someone who can assure the future of this linchpin nation in an ever more volatile region – and cement relations with the Western power that it most needs in its corner, namely the United States, especially with it vast offering of armaments.

Now it appears with its heir apparent to have both. It is now up to the United States and Trump to understand how best to deal with a ruler less than half his age.