Word: fahd
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Last week Yamani's legendary power came to an end. In a royal decree, Saudi Arabia's King Fahd ibn Abdul Aziz dismissed Yamani, 56, as his Petroleum and Mineral Resources Minister, a post he had held since 1962. Planning Minister Hisham Nazer, a longtime Yamani rival, was named to take his place until a permanent new oil minister is named. Nazer's first official act was to call for an emergency meeting of the pricing committee of OPEC, whose 13 members include Nigeria, Venezuela and Indonesia, as well as seven Arab countries. The avowed purpose of the meeting, which...
Experts say Yamani clung to his strategy despite growing opposition from King Fahd, who has called for a price of at least $18 per bbl. to boost Saudi oil earnings. Yamani countered that producers could control either prices or output, but not both at once. During OPEC's 17-day meeting in Geneva last month, Fahd repeatedly intervened from Riyadh on several key issues. The Geneva session wound up endorsing price-raising production limits, which Yamani initially opposed, through...
...vote, a very large loser would be Israel." His rationale was that over the long term, Israel benefits from a close U.S. relationship with some Arab states. Lugar also noted that when the U.S. backed away from a sale of advanced military aircraft to the Saudi government of King Fahd last year, the Saudis simply shopped elsewhere, striking a deal that may eventually be worth $20 billion to Britain's defense industry...
...issue is not Saudi Arabia's access to weapons, since King Fahd's regime can buy all the arms it wants from other nations. Rather, the problem for Reagan is political. He promised the missiles partly as a token of the special relationship that has existed between Washington and Riyadh since World War II, and partly as a warning to Iran against carrying its gulf war with Iraq any closer to Saudi Arabia. Said the White House: "Congress has endangered our long-standing security ties to Saudi Arabia, called into question the validity of U.S. commitments to its friends...
Despite its myriad problems, the House of Saud remains firmly entrenched and popular. In a kingdom in which 5,000 princes have a vested interest in preserving the political system, the chances of major change seem remote. Nonetheless, Fahd is sometimes criticized as indecisive and too subservient to religious authorities. The health of the 64-year-old King, a diabetic who craves sweets, smokes cigarettes and is overweight, is a matter of concern. So is the condition of Crown Prince Abdullah, 62, the first in line of succession, who is reportedly scheduled to have coronary-bypass surgery...