Le même article du WSJ est également l’un des rares que l’on pourra lire aujourd’hui rappelant le rôle de Sultan dans la guerre contre l’Irak de 1991, et l’implication séoudienne au Yémen.
Three years after al-Yamama, Sultan was instrumental in agreeing to use the kingdom as a launch pad for Western forces in the 1991 Gulf War. That decision cemented the strongest ever period of Saudi-U.S. relations. But the presence of foreign troops in the Arabian Peninsula – the cradle of Islam – was later cited by al-Qaeda as the basis for its quarrel with both Washington and the Al Saud.
The defense ministry has since come to be seen as Sultan’s personal fiefdom. It looks likely to be inherited by his son, Prince Khaled bin Sultan, a long-time deputy defense minister and commander of Saudi forces during the 1991 hostilities.
Another son, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, was Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to the U.S. for 22 years, forging close relations with both President George H.W. Bush and President George W. Bush.
As minister, Sultan oversaw the kingdom’s participation in North Yemen’s bloody civil war of the 1960s that pitted Saudi-backed monarchists against a new military regime supported by revolutionary Egypt.
He maintained a strong relationship with powerful Yemeni figures, and dominated the kingdom’s Yemen policy, until his illness. Sultan’s temper was sometimes fiery, said foreign officials of the 1960s, but his habit of working long into the night earned him the nickname “bulbul” or “nightingale”. It was during this period that he acquired a reputation for acquiring the latest in military technology for the kingdom.