© Hamad I Mohammed / ReutersSaudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman at the Future Investment Initiative conference in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia October 24, 2017
May 20: Despite his extremely negative opinion of Saudi Arabia, declared repeatedly while campaigning, this is the place Trump decides to make his first foreign visit to as president. He 'makes deals', lectures about the evils of Iran, and does the sword dance. About two weeks later:
June 5: Saudi Arabia severs ties with Qatar, accuses them of supporting terrorism, gives a list of demands and an ultimatum. (Near the end of October, Bannon credited Trump's influence not only with the blockade against Qatar but also the recent changes we're seeing within the Kingdom itself. Others think Trump prevented a war between Saudi Arabia and Qatar.) About two weeks after that:
June 21: In a "bloodless coup" of sorts, King Salman makes his son Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) heir to the throne, replacing Prince Mohammed bin Nayef and purging the Interior Ministry of Nayef supporters. Nayef was a veteran security chief and was highly regarded by the Washington/CIA crowd. The CIA reportedly weren't very pleased by this turn of events.
September 26: King Salman issues a decree ordering that women (finally) be permitted to drive in Saudi Arabia.
October 5: King Salman makes an historic visit to Moscow (the first of any Saudi king) and signs multiple deals with Russia. Even mainstream sources call it a major geopolitical shift. Pepe Escobar reckons Saudi Arabia has embraced Russia as a strategic ally.
October 17: King Salman issues a decree to establish the "King Salman Complex" to counter extremist interpretations of Islam. The country also announces that women will (finally) be able to attend sports stadiums. (See also: How the Saudi Crown Prince is 'fundamentally changing' kingdom)
October 21: Secretary of State Tillerson visits Saudi Arabia, from where he urged Iraq to send "Iranian militias" home. (Iraq was confused: there are no Iranian militias in Iraq.)
October 24: Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman vows to "restore moderate Islam" in his country, vowing to "destroy" "destructive ideas" and extremism.
October 28: Jared Kushner returns from a secretive, unannounced trip to Saudi Arabia (joined by deputy national security adviser Dina Powell and Middle East envoy Jason Greenblatt). No details were released, but "a friend of Kushner's" said it had to do with the Israel-Palestine peace process. Kushner traveled separately from Treasury Secretary Mnuchin, who visited Riyadh around the same time to discuss shutting down terrorist funding.
November 4: King Salman issues a decree to establish an anti-corruption committee with sweeping powers. Lebanese PM (and dual Saudi citizen) Saad Hariri resigns while in Saudi Arabia, on Saudi Arabian TV, reading a Saudi-produced script. The newly created committee gets to work, immediately targeting 11 princes and 4 ministers, including Prince Mutaib bin Abdullah, commander of the National Guard. Also arrested: billionaire Waleed "Dopey Prince" bin Talal, who had deep ties to Obama and Clinton.
November 5: The Houthis fire a ballistic missile toward Riyadh's international airport, which the Saudis intercept. They call it an act of war ... by Iran - and close all border crossings with Yemen. A Saudi prince (Mansour bin Muqrin) is killed along with several other officials in a helicopter crash near the border with Yemen.
November 6: Another Saudi Prince (Abdul Aziz) is killed in a gunfight with Saudi security forces attempting to arrest him. Aziz had business ties with Hariri. The Saudis also call for the arrest of two leaders of their proxy "Syrian opposition", for money-laundering and smuggling.
Some argue that all this is just a Crown Prince MBS power-grab. It certainly is at least that: he now controls the Armed Forces, the Interior Ministry, and the National Guard, and has removed some top-level rivals. But others argue that he is also making real efforts at reform. Maybe both are true. As Adam Garrie put it in The Duran:
While the MBS purges are self-serving first and foremost, they are also part of his desired pivot away from over-dependency on the US. By publicly attacking its former political proxies for Syria, Riyadh is clearly showing that its internal matters now take precedent over directly meddling in the wider Arab world.A pivot "away" from something is also a pivot "towards" something else. Towards where or what? His anti-Iranian stance notwithstanding, towards Russia and China, perhaps.
But perhaps that's reading too far ahead. For now, this reads like one more country learning to stand on its own two feet by exercising its national sovereignty in the long-term interest of its people rather than the short-term interest of globalist capital.
See also:
- Lebanese PM Hariri's resignation is the Saudis' opening shot against Hezbollah
- Hezbollah leader Nasrallah gives first address to public since PM Hariri's resignation, provides calm rational analysis
- A Saudi 'Night of the Long Knives'? Prince Salman's crackdown signals significant shifts in the kingdom
- Royal coup: What happened in Saudi Arabia last night - and how Washington corruption enabled it
- Saudi attorney general: Phase 1 of anti-corruption push complete, "a great deal of evidence" has been gathered
- Saudi Crown Prince's purge consolidates control, eliminates rivals, but puts govt at risk
- Political upheaval in progress: Saudi Royalty arrests threaten to rock Clinton-Obama cabal
Reader Comments
Whatever transpires, some big changes on the geopolitical front are unfolding.
I don't know if the Saudi's realize it or not, but this is a religious war that DC has become entangled in, and the people pushing for a global war are those whom have reasons for creating the pretext for such a war. All of whom are religious leaders that are not Islamic. This push for war with Iran has nothing to do with Iran having nuclear weapons. Israel has them and everyone knows they have them. India has them, Pakistan has them. A nuclear Islam is already a reality so why is Iran such a big deal? Well it's not because of nuclear power/weapons. It's because of the demographics of who's religions have the most breeders breeding right now, and that's the problem, it's not Jews, It's not Catholics, it's Islamic believers. That's the rub don't ya see.
China and Russia have large Islamic populations already. They can expect some reasonable protection and support from those nations as a consequence, but from Europe, from DC, from the West it cannot and the problem is that the people running the western nations see a demographic problem with an increasing Islamic population, but they cannot go off and nuke Russia or China can they? So they have to cull the Islamic population by attack those nations which can be gotten too, and that's Iran, Iraq, and so on and so forth.
I wonder if Israel's attitude towards Saudi Arabia is going to change within the next two years? They could just become a new threat, if the US has no more 'influence' there.