This is big, folks

Saudi Arabian King Salman is going to step down next week and hand his throne over to his son, Crown Prince Muhammed bin Salman.

That would be the son who had several relatives, influential figures in business, government and the royal family, arrested. The son who has instigated a loosening of longstanding strictures on Saudi society, most notably letting women drive cars.

But it's his agenda for the region in which his country is situated that ought to get our attention:

The high level source said once crowned king, the prince will shift his focus to Iran, a long standing rival oil empire to Saudi Arabia in the Middle East, with fears military action is possible.

He will also enlist the help of the Israeli military to crush Hezbollah, the Lebanese militia supported by Iran, according to the source. 

'MBS is convinced that he has to hit Iran and Hezbollah,' he said. 'Contrary to the advice of the royal family elders, that's MBS's next target. Hence why the ruler of Kuwait privately calls him "The raging Bull". 

'MBS's plan is to start the fire in Lebanon, but he's hoping to count on Israeli military backing. He has already promised Israel billions of dollars in direct financial aid if they agree. 

'MBS can not confront Hezbollah in Lebanon without Israel. Plan B is to fight Hezbollah in Syria,' said the source. 

Saudi Arabia has heretofore not really been at the forefront of the shaping of Middle Eastern dynamics - not in the way that Syria, Iraq, Turkey, Yemen, the Kurds, and, of course, the above-mentioned Iran, have.

And a development like this is going to have implications for outside players with a stake in how things go down there. Think Russia. Think the United States.

In our modern world, nuance is in short supply, and that's going to be a danger here. While the most obvious level of what's unfolding - Saudi Arabia leaning more toward the West, reaching out to Israel for a deepened alliance, and going nose-to-nose with Iran - might make it a no-brainer as to what US policy should be, there are secondary considerations that must be dealt with. For instance, Trump, per his "haters-and-fools" tweet, thinks it's possible to basically wipe the slate clean with Russia and, by golly, solve problems like Ukraine and North Korea. But there's that nagging strong alliance Russia has with Iran. It has been a principle shaper of developments in Syria, and would surely be so in any conflagration - proxy or direct - between Iran and Saudi Arabia.

In fact, Trump has already taken to Twitter to express what sure looks like an unequivocal position, saying he has "great confidence in King Salman and the Crown Prince . . . they know exactly what they are doing." Did he run this by his foreign-policy advisors first?

I'm not saying that one can't size up the situation on a moral level. In a fallen world, it's all going to be relative in a certain sense, but there are clear good guys and bad guys in this. But there are also delicate arrangements that have prevented the always-volatile nature of mideast affairs from reaching cataclysmic proportions.

This is going to require a degree of finesse that I'm not at all sure the present US chief executive is capable of.  I pray that I'm underestimating him.


What I would say at this stage is, easy does it on tweets about this, Mr. President.