Thomas Lippman Inteview - Leadership Transitions in the Middle East

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King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia. EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW
January 9, 2009

Leadership Transitions
A Conversation With Thomas Lippman

Editor's Note:

This week speculation was rife about the medical condition of Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Sultan bin Abdulaziz, the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defense. SUSRIS Special Reports provided updates on the developing story and the Crown Prince's progress will continue to be followed here.

As the story plays out we thought it a good time to check in with Thomas Lippman for his perspective on these issues. Mr. Lippman is an adjunct scholar at the Middle East Institute, author and veteran newspaperman. Among his books on U.S. foreign policy and international affairs are "Inside the Mirage: America's Fragile Partnership with Saudi Arabia," and "Arabian Knight: Colonel Bill Eddy USMC and the Rise of American Power in the Middle East." Mr. Lippman's journalistic career at the Washington Post included four years as the Middle East Bureau Chief, three years as the Post's oil and energy reporter and a decade as the newspaper's national security and diplomatic correspondent. He has traveled extensively throughout the Middle East and Saudi Arabia.

This SUSRIS Exclusive conversation with Mr. Lippman is accompanied by a separate e-mailing of his essay, "Solving the Saudi Succession Puzzle," written on the occasion of the issuance of the "Allegiance Institution Law" in 2006 to address questions of leadership transitions in the Kingdom. You can find more interviews and articles featuring Mr. Lippman among the links below.

SUSRIS interviewed Mr. Lippman by telephone from his home in Washington, DC earlier today.

<< SUSRIS SPECIAL REPORT -- Crown Prince Sultan Health Report Questioned: Condition Said Not to be Grave - SUSRIS Special Report - Jan 8, 2009 >>

Leadership Transitions
A Conversation With Thomas Lippman

SUSRIS: There were conflicting reports this week about the health of Crown Prince Sultan of Saudi Arabia who has been receiving medical care in the United States. Based on your experiences following Middle East leaders' personal issues, especially questions that arise when they are in ill health, what are your thoughts, in a general sense, about how episodes like this play out?

Thomas Lippman: In a general sense I would say everyone outside the immediate circle of the ruler in question is advised to proceed very cautiously about these things because there�s only a handful of people who really know what is going on and they�re not telling.

I go back to the mid-1970s and I think of President Anwar Sadat and King Faisal who were assassinated. Ask yourself other than them when was there a case where a leader was ill, was known to be ill, and was relatively forthcoming about it. Other than King Hussein of Jordan I can�t think of one.

SUSRIS: It�s not just the Middle East, right? The White House didn�t let on about the extent of Ronald Reagan�s conditions after he was shot in 1983, and there have been other cases.

Lippman: Right, there are many examples such as Castro�s illness. But in the Middle East, in particular, there�s a pattern of this. Partly because these guys are not accustomed to having to answer to people. Partly because there are often difficult succession questions. Partly because the press in that part of the world is discouraged from going after stories like this. It can be off limits, out of bounds.

We�ve seen patterns with rulers in all the Gulf States, I would say, except Oman, in Morocco and elsewhere, of rulers who were known to be, or thought to be, having some health issue or age related problems, or whatever. You would never get a handle on it until the official state radio made an announcement.

You always have to be very careful in adding up two and two and getting five in a situation like this.

SUSRIS. In the case of Saudi Arabia, a subject where you have special insights, what should people be thinking about in terms of leadership there?

Lippman: What they should be thinking about, the real issue, the place where we might look for cracks in the fa�ade of al-Saud unity, you might say, and the potential for troublemaking or opportunism, is not in the succession to the monarchy itself. That new system, the so-called Allegiance Council system, that King Abdullah and the senior princes have put in place will probably work. It seems to me to be a wise system, a good idea in the first place. But the departure from the scene of any of the senior princes opens up a whole bunch of questions about the musical chairs.

If, for example, Prince Sultan were to die or become incapacitated, who would become the Minister of Defense? There's not an automatic answer to that question. There�s an obvious candidate in Khaled bin Sultan but there are people who don�t want him to have that job. The same is true at the Ministry of Interior if Prince Nayef moved. Muhammed bin Nayef, I understand, is running the Interior Ministry on a day to day basis. But what would be his role without Prince Nayef?

These are the questions that we really don�t have the answers to.

SUSRIS: Thank you, Mr. Lippman, for putting these issues in context.

ABOUT THOMAS LIPPMAN

Thomas W. Lippman is an adjunct scholar at the Middle East Institute in Washington. In four years as the Washington Post's Middle East bureau chief, three years as the Post's oil and energy reporter and a decade as the newspaper's national security and diplomatic correspondent, he traveled extensively to Saudi Arabia. He is the author of "Arabian Knight: Colonel Bill Eddy USMC and the Rise of American Power in the Middle East," "Inside the Mirage: America's Fragile Partnership with Saudi Arabia," " Madeleine Albright and the New American Diplomacy," " Understanding Islam, and Egypt After Nasser". A writer and journalist specializing in U.S. foreign policy and Middle Eastern affairs, he lives in Washington, DC.

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