President Bush visits Saudi Arabia this week to commemorate 75 years of relations between the United States and world’s biggest oil supplier.
High oil prices are also on Mr. Bush’s agenda when he meets with Saudi King Abdullah and other top officials.
Within the desert kingdom itself, a recent weeklong and unscheduled stay in a Geneva hospital by Saudi Crown Prince Sultan bin Abdul Aziz has refocused attention on the broader issue of succession to the Saudi throne.
Prince Sultan was flown to the hospital in late April, prompting a spate of false reports that he was in a coma or had died — rumors circulated by a London-based Saudi opposition group and the Jerusalem-based Debka Web site.
The official Saudi Press Agency quickly published photographs of the crown prince, who is in his early 80s, in apparent good health.
In a brief accompanying statement, it said his hospitalization was merely for regular medical tests.
However, the hospital visit cut short Prince Sultan’s vacation in Morocco and he has not been seen in public since returning to the kingdom.
The crown prince had an intestinal cyst removed in Saudi Arabia in 2005 and is thought to be in much weaker health than King Abdullah, his half-brother.
Simon Henderson, a scholar at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and author of the book, After King Fahd: Succession in Saudi Arabia, described the latest incident as certainly very interesting and possibly very serious.
The question of the future leadership of the world’s most important oil exporter is in the hands of a newly appointed Allegiance Council, a totally untested body whose deliberations are secret, Mr. Henderson said.
The Allegiance Council was set up by King Abdullah after he came to power in 2005 following the death of King Fahd.
King Fahd was one of a powerful group of full brothers known as the Sudairys, who are historic rivals to their half-brother, King Abdullah, considered by some to be more reform-minded and less corrupt.
In addition to Prince Sultan, who is also the kingdom’s defense minister, the Sudairys include the governor of Riyadh, Prince Salman, and the interior minister, Prince Naif.
The Allegiance Council allows the sons and grandsons of the kingdom’s founder, King Abdul Aziz, to choose the successors to the king and crown prince in a secret ballot.
While interpreted in the West as an admirable attempt to avoid destabilizing power struggles, some Saudi royal watchers argue that it may in fact exacerbate them.
The Allegiance Council was created by King Abdullah to serve his own goals and might actually increase instability and uncertainty, said Ali Al-Ahmed, the director of the Washington-based Institute for Gulf Affairs.
Prince Sultan opposed the creation of the commission from the start and refused to lend his name to it, Mr. Al-Ahmed said, because it undercut the power of the Sudairys.
King Abdullah lined up his own brothers against the Sudairys. The competing interests will divide the brothers and ultimately lead to a confrontation, he predicted.
One prince often referred to by outsiders as King Abdullah’s preferred heir is the head of the intelligence service, Prince Muqrin bin Abdul Aziz. At 63, he is the youngest son of the kingdom’s founder, and is a close ally of the present king.
Mr. Al-Ahmed said Prince Muqrin is educated, well-liked, liberal and enjoys the approval of the American administration. He also has a track record of being a modernizer, a leader who will give his people more rights and shares more of the wealth.
The death of Prince Sultan before the king would potentially deal a severe blow to the Sudairy brothers, who could then be expected to use their power within the government and control of the security forces to thwart any attempt to push them further away from the throne.
Not that the crown prince’s brothers are in perfect health or the prime of life.
Prince Naif, powerful, unpopular and ambitious, is supposedly dying of cancer, Mr. Henderson said. While respected, Prince Salman is no spring chicken either, he added.
Saudi Arabia is a geronto-monarchy, he said. It’s like choosing a nation’s political leadership by visiting an old-age home, albeit a nicely appointed one.
Mr. Bush is to visit Saudi Arabia on Friday, after a visit to Israel today to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the Jewish state.
The president then stops in Egypt for a summit with Arab leaders before returning to Washington.
Mr. Bush hopes to re-energize stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, which have made little progress since a November summit in Annapolis, in which participants stated a goal of reaching a peace deal before the president leaves office.
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