Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Isn't Indispensable - Bloomberg

Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Isn't Indispensable - Bloomberg:

Since the controversy surrounding the murder of critic Jamal Khashoggi, Saudi Arabia has been able to count on the support of most Arab states. Even as officials privately expressed the hope that the international condemnation of the Washington Post columnist’s killing would curb the powers of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the kingdom’s de-facto ruler, their public statements have been unequivocal.

Now, with prince politically weakened by the controversy, some of the region’s most powerful leaders – Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Egypt’s President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi – are quietly lobbying the Trump Administration to support him. Their argument: the survival of MBS, as the crown prince is widely known, is essential to the kingdom’s stability, and to the containment of Iran, the main American and Israeli goal in the region.

There are reasons for the U.S. and others to support MBS, especially if he opens up the Khashoggi investigation, embarks on reform, and stops the war in Yemen. But stability is not one of them. It's an old, thoroughly discredited trope deployed in the support of Middle Eastern tyrants for decades. It has rarely been used to defend a Saud