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The Saudis Are Stumbling (And They May Take The Middle-East Down With Them)
Submitted by Conn Hallina via AntiWar.com,
For the past eight decades Saudi Arabia has been careful.
Using its vast oil wealth, it’s quietly spread its ultra-conservative brand of Islam throughout the Muslim world, secretly undermined secular regimes in its region, and prudently kept to the shadows while others did the fighting and dying. It was Saudi money that fueled the Mujahedeen in Afghanistan, underwrote Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Iran, and bankrolled Islamic movements and terrorist groups from the Caucasus to the Hindu Kush.
It wasn’t a modest foreign policy, but it was a discreet one.
Today that circumspect diplomacy is in ruins, and the House of Saud looks more vulnerable than it has since the country was founded in 1926. Unraveling the reasons for the current train wreck is a study in how easily hubris, delusion, and old-fashioned ineptness can trump even bottomless wealth.
Oil Slick
The kingdom’s first stumble was a strategic decision last fall to undermine competitors by scaling up its oil production and thus lowering the global price.
They figured that if the price of a barrel of oil dropped from over $100 to around $80, it would strangle competitors that relied on more expensive sources and new technologies, including the U.S. fracking industry, companies exploring the Arctic, and emergent producers like Brazil. That, in turn, would allow Riyadh to reclaim its shrinking share of the energy market. There was also the added benefit that lower oil prices would damage oil-reliant countries that the Saudis didn’t like – including Russia, Venezuela, Ecuador, and Iran.
In one sense it worked. The American fracking industry is scaling back, the exploitation of Canada’s tar sands has slowed, and many Arctic drillers have closed up shop. And indeed, countries like Venezuela, Ecuador, and Russia have taken serious economic hits.
But it may have worked a little too well, particularly with China’s economic slowdown reducing demand and further depressing the price – a result that should have been entirely foreseeable but that the Saudis somehow missed.
The price of oil dropped from $115 a barrel in June 2014 to around $44 today. While it costs less than $10 to produce a barrel of Saudi oil, the Saudis need a price between $95 and $105 to balance their budget. The country’s leaders, who figured that oil wouldn’t fall below $80 a barrel – and then only for a few months – are now burning through their foreign reserves to make up the difference.
While oil prices will likely rise over the next five years, projections are that the price per barrel won’t top $65 for the foreseeable future. Saudi debt is on schedule to rise from 6.7 percent of GDP this year to 17.3 percent next year, and its 2015 budget deficit is $130 billion.
The country is now spending $10 billion a month in foreign exchange reserves to pay the bills and has been forced to borrow money on the international financial market. Recently the International Monetary Fund’s regional director, Masood Ahmed, warned Riyadh that the country would deplete its financial reserves in five years unless it drastically cut its budget.
Buying the Peace (While Funding War)
But the kingdom can’t do that.
When the Arab Spring broke out in 2011, Saudi Arabia headed it off by pumping $130 billion into the economy, raising wages, improving services, and providing jobs for its growing population. Saudi Arabia has one of the youngest populations in the Middle East, many of whom are unemployed and poorly educated. Some 25 percent of the population lives in poverty. Money keeps the lid on, but – even with the heavy-handed repression that characterizes Saudi political life – for how long?
Meanwhile they’re racking up bills with ill-advised foreign interventions. In March, the kingdom intervened in Yemen’s civil conflict, launching an air war, a naval blockade, and partial ground campaign on the pretense that Iran was behind one of the war’s factions – a conclusion not even the Americans agree with.
Again, the Saudis miscalculated, even though one of their major allies, Pakistan, warned them they were headed for trouble. In part, the kingdom’s hubris was fed by the illusion that US support would make it a short war. The Americans are arming the Saudis, supplying them with bombing targets, backing up the naval blockade, and refueling their warplanes in midair.
But six months down the line the conflict has turned into a stalemate. The war has killed 5,000 people (including over 500 children), flattened cities, and alienated much of the local population. It’s also generated a horrendous food and medical crisis and created opportunities for the Islamic State and al-Qaeda to seize territory in southern Yemen. Efforts by the UN to investigate the possibility of war crimes were blocked by Saudi Arabia and the US
As the Saudis are finding out, war is a very expensive business – a burden they could meet under normal circumstances, but not when the price of the kingdom’s only commodity, oil, is plummeting.
Nor is Yemen the only war that the Saudis are involved in. Riyadh, along with Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, are underwriting many of the groups trying to overthrow Syrian president Bashar al-Assad. When antigovernment demonstrations broke out there in 2011, the Saudis – along with the Americans and the Turks – calculated that Assad could be toppled in a few months.
But that was magical thinking. As bad as Assad is, a lot of Syrians – particularly minorities like Shiites, Christians, and Druze – were far more afraid of the Islamists from al-Qaeda and the Islamic State than they were of their own government. So the war has dragged on for four years and has now killed close to 250,000 people.
Once again, the Saudis miscalculated, though in this case they were hardly alone. The Syrian government turned out to be more resilient than it appeared. And Riyadh’s bottom line that Assad had to go just ended up bringing Iran and Russia into the picture, checkmating any direct intervention by the anti-Assad coalition. Any attempt to establish a no-fly zone against Assad will now have to confront the Russian air force – not something that anyone other than certain US presidential aspirants are eager to do.
The war has also generated a flood of refugees, deeply alarming the European Union, which finally seems to be listening to Moscow’s point about the consequences of overthrowing governments without a plan for who takes over. There’s nothing like millions of refugees headed in your direction to cause some serious rethinking of strategic goals.
The Saudis goal of isolating Iran, meanwhile, is rapidly collapsing. The P5+1 – the US, China, Russia, Great Britain, France, and Germany – successfully completed a nuclear agreement with Tehran, despite every effort by the Saudis and Israel to torpedo it. And at Moscow’s insistence, Washington has reversed its opposition to Iran being included in peace talks around Syria.
Bills Coming Due
Stymied in Syria, mired down in Yemen, and its finances increasingly fragile, the kingdom also faces internal unrest from its long marginalized Shia minority in the country’s east and south. To top it off, the Islamic State has called for the “liberation” of Mecca from the House of Saud and launched a bombing campaign aimed at the Kingdom’s Shiites.
This fall’s Hajj disaster – a stampede that killed more than 2,100 pilgrims and provoked anger at the Saudi authorities for their foot dragging on investigating it – have added to the royal family’s woes. The Saudis claim just 769 people were killed, a figure that no other country in the world accepts. And there are persistent rumors that the deadly stampede was caused when police blocked off an area in order to allow high-ranking Saudis special access to the holy sites.
Some of these missteps can be laid at the feet of the new king, Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, and of a younger, more aggressive generation of Saudis he’s appointed to key positions. But Saudi Arabia’s troubles are also a reflection of a Middle East in transition. Exactly where it’s headed is by no means clear, but change is in the wind.
Iran is breaking out of its isolation. With its large, well-educated population, strong industrial base, and plentiful energy resources, it’s poised to play a major regional, if not international, role. Turkey is in the midst of a political upheaval, and there’s growing opposition among Turks to Ankara’s meddling in the Syrian civil war.
Saudi Arabia, on the other hand, is impaled on its own policies, both foreign and domestic. “The expensive social contract between the Royal family and Saudi citizens will get more difficult, and eventually impossible to sustain if oil prices don’t recover,” Meghan L. O’Sullivan, director of the Geopolitics of Energy project at Harvard, told the New York Times.
However, the House of Saud has little choice but to keep pumping oil to pay for its wars and keep the internal peace. Yet more production drives down prices even further. And once the sanctions come off Iran, the oil glut will become worse.
While it’s still immensely wealthy, there are lots of bills coming due. It’s not clear the kingdom has the capital or the ability to meet them.
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Re " Saudi Arabia is impaled ... " :
If only.
It is coming soon. Today France president Hollande did a shit in Saudi punchbowl when he told the parliament "Assad is not our enemy".
http://sputniknews.com/politics/20151116/1030206647/holland-isil-france-...
It's always Sunni in Saudi
Saudi. The house of whores and horrors. And they got the Human Rights seat at the Un-United Nations of the NWO.
but they're our allies
"As bad as Assad is"...????
WTF? More apologist bullshit.
More jingoist, ideology posing as "analysis"....
Its all about money and gas or oil...all the time, everywhere.
In Syria, its about a Saudi pipeline that Assad won't allow, which would also kill Putin's monopoly over Europe who buys almost all of their gas from Russia.
No "good guys" or "bad guys" here...just greedy, murdering fuckers...the lot of 'em...as in "both sides".
Amen. Keep praying to them, and they will keep being your "God".
I guess our presidents won't have to bow to those mutherfuckers
Oh wait..
Sometimes I wonder about the guy. That bow set a tone. Then he did the deal with Iran and did not, repeat did not, uphold the redline. One might wonder if Obama has slyly hoisted the Saudis on their on petard. I still think he's a puppet. Don't know if this possible clever play would be scripted or taking advantage of wiggle room. Either way, if it distances me from the Saudis and did keep us out of a war with Russia (one time) then so be it.
Perhaps we're about to see blowback of epic proportions. The Saudi's threatened Russia directly. They dragged the U.S. (most likely willingly) into Syria, while intentionally hurting U.S. economic interests. Maybe, just maybe, the Banksters have decided that the house of Saud, being unable to complete the tasks it was set, is no longer a family worth propping up.
It's all speculation here, of course. But perhaps Putin's absence from Syria for so long was the banksters giving Saudi Arabia the time it needed to oust Assad. And when they failed to do so, Putin was given the green light to go support his Ally.
Next up, the exposure of Saudi financing of ISIS and, as the ultimate propaganda piece, the declassification of the report which lays the blame of 9/11 squarely on the shoulders of Saudi Arabia.
Perhaps that little kingdom is going to find itself "liberated".
They got oil? Sounds like they need some freedom!
yea, for 2 trillion one would think ussa would have a dark pool under its' investment...
>> But perhaps Putin's absence from Syria for so long was the banksters giving Saudi Arabia the time it needed to oust Assad
More like Russia biding time building miltary strength.
It has barely been two years since Russia transitioned from a mostly conscript to a mostly volunteer army.
you mean Assad wont allow the USA to build a monopoly of pipelines. THAT is why they want rid of him...Go back to preschool
We are thier allies, Every Bank, business and government official panders for a piece of action from Saudis. Without Saudis there is no Petrodollar, no reserve currency and no United States of Saudi Arabia. We are merely an arms supplier to Saudis in order to keep Middle East in chaos and Russia from becoming a larger energy supplier. The chess game continues, but Saudis are losing grip on ME, and financially weaker.
So France is turning to Russia.
Can't blame them.
politician say a lot these days. have trouble to believe his voice of reason
it gets quite crowded down there in syria lately and one can smell the lust to enforce unintended consequences there
all the mccains who ever said it waiting for something to happen
hollande is dumb to send a carrier to fight a guerilla army
it cannot be won, it can only go wrong sooner or later
murica will not cooperate with russia. all said. in case anything happens to france military down there nato is trapped in a game of treaties that have to be followed.
same as when ww1 started
stupido.
and only now the oil smuggling is stopped? dishonest scumbags selling war to the world with years of preparation
All the plans of closet Muslms Obama and CIA director Brennan (working for their Saudi overlords) was dependent on Assad's Syrian army folding under pressure from jihadist mercenaries armed by CIA traitors. Trouble is, Assad's army did not fold. Instead of cluster bombs and phosphorous bombs, like the USA and Israel use, the Assad regime used barrel bombs. Instead of running as ISIS members in their Hillary Clinton supplied Toyota HiLux pickups approached, Syrian army troops fought on. Now, with the Paris attacks, Obama and Brennan have to stop overtly supplying weapons to ISIS rape murderers. But Saudi pressure will eventually force Brennam to again use American resources to aid ISIS. After all, hardline Muslims terrorists have to stick together.
"Hoisted with their own petard" is the phrase that comes to mind. That and "Blowed up real good" :)
Saudi Arabia has gotten off lightly for all the wars and mayhem it has caused in this world. 100 attacks on hospitals in Yemen by Saudi Arabia and the free and fair Western press is too busy covering the Kardashians. Time to face your karma.
Yemen hospitals ‘deliberately’ targeted in 100 attacks since March – ICRC
Medical facilities in war-torn Yemen are being ‘deliberately’ attacked, with some 100 incidents reported since the Saudi-led coalition began airstrikes in March, the International Committee of the Red Cross said, calling on all sides to cease hostilities.
https://www.rt.com/news/321522-yemen-hospitals-deliberately-targeted/ …
Here is a partial list of Saudi Arabia's other crimes in Yemen:
At least 3,500 have been killed as a result of the Saudi-led war, launched on March 26 of this year. Some 1,700 of these have been confirmed as civilians, according to the UN, with some 3,800 more civilians confirmed wounded.
Nearly 80 percent of the Yemeni population faces conditions of starvation, near starvation, and/or lack of reliable access to drinking water.
More than 1.2 million Yemenis have been forced to flee their homes by the war. At least 50,000 of the displaced have fled the country entirely, seeking refuge in neighboring countries of Oman, Djibouti, Somalia and Sudan.
Responsibility for the bloodshed and humanitarian disaster in Yemen lies squarely with Saudi Arabia, the other Gulf monarchies and their backers in Washington. While technically headed by the Saudi monarchy, the military onslaught against Yemen is a direct outgrowth of US imperial policy in the Middle East.
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2015/07/20/yeme-j20.html
Saudi's Day Of Recknoning is Near. It will be a bitch of a day. Just wait.
The world's going to shit faster than I can make popcorn.
Gonna need a bigger microwave.
I was thinking of moving to Chicago and buying a lot of popcorn.
+1
In these times there's only one choice:
The Presto Stirring Popper:
http://www.myhardwaresupply.com/store/p/61881-Stirring-Popper-By-Presto....
Trust me on this...like gold for your kernels!
Just make sure you don't mix your metaphors.
I got confused, I thought i was reading Saudi foreign policy.. That looked alot like American Foreign Policy ( and blunders of course )
saudi, u.s., israeli. like the fingers on mickey mouse's hand.
The really fucked up faction of the death cult (called Islam) are the Sunni. Saudi Arabia should be bombed. Their oil should be co-opted or their oil fields should be torched.
19 of the 20 hijackers from Sept 11 were from Saudi Arabia and Sunni. ISIS is Sunni. The people who attacked Paris were Sunni. It's Saudi Arabia that's beheading people, what other country does that? Than they come over here and shit on us.
"US Allows Saudi Prince to Flee After He Beat and Raped 3 Women in Beverly Hills Mansion for Days"http://thefreethoughtproject.com/saudi-prince-sexually-assaults-3-women-...
It's time to put this dealth cult to bed. That fight starts in Saudi Arabia (which is Sunni).
there is something to what you say but imo the saudi role in 9-11 particularly is exaggerated.
i think it unlikely that the wtc or the pentagon were attacked by passenger planes. the pentagon particularly didn't have any airplane jet engines in the rubble, the hole in the building wouldn't fit a plane of that size and the agreed on flight path was too extreme to be flown by such a plane and especially by such utterly inexperienced pilots.
so kind of like building seven, once one planned demolition is admitted, more seem likely. ditto on missiles or drone planes mocked up to look (only somewhat like) passenger jets.
also a number of the supposed hijackers were still alive somewhere else months after the event.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OsoY3AIRUGA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YW6mJOqRDI4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhROd7Jt3-w
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dgM6hjNedE0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rj_AL4OlmHc&feature=iv&src_vid=rnbMjAN7B...
http://www.luogocomune.net/site/modules/sections/index.php?op=viewarticl...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVHstSrC1CQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gORu-68SHpE.
Bush's fault. I get it.
Moving on we need to wipe Saudi Arabia off the fucking map.
and Israel
No kidding. The game is too complex for human minds AND no one can see the future? Who could have guessed?
https://thinkpatriot.wordpress.com/2015/02/06/high-dimensioned-games/
https://thinkpatriot.wordpress.com/2015/09/28/important-things-are-not-f...
https://thinkpatriot.wordpress.com/2015/10/02/warning-ideas-are-dangerous/
"Using its vast oil wealth, it’s quietly spread its ultra-conservative brand of Islam throughout the Muslim world..."
Hugh? WTF, over?
Wahhabism = Ultra-Conservative?
I wonder what radical Islam is to them.......what the hell do they do for an encore after this shit show?
And SA also very soon has to make the important strategic decision whether or not to allow China, its largest customer, to pay for its oil in RMB. Getting interesting.
I should have gotten that Rosetta stone program for farsi
your regular average modern-age saudi family is scared shitless by the SAUDI 'Religious Police' as the people in Nazi Germany had been, if not for having the correct race, color, religion, creed, or wealth status.
your children [and/or your lover/wife/husband] in SA will turn on you? indeed, they are all programmed when attending mandatory segregated wahhabi madrasses...
true story
That would be reverse-blowback of sorts...
Meet Zbigniew Brzezinski: The “Intellectual” Godfather Of Furthering The Development Of Terrorism Used As A Tool
http://thenewsdoctors.com/?p=542014
The end of the modern world begins with the fall of the House of Saud.
Everything we know as familiar will be gone in a blink. Everything.
Hey cougar, was hoping you'd pop up again. Got a vid for you. Enjoy:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_RwcGzGurc#t=446
The sooner we're rid of the House of Saud, the sooner we can get on with the Great Reset, because it won't be possible to pay a fair price for Russian, Canadian or American oil and half your pay in taxes and usury at the same time and still have a viable economy.
Yes, there's many things in this world that are only still possible because of cheap Saudi oil. Most of those things won't be missed when they're gone. If we manage to see them off, we might just have a chance of surviving as a species.
iThings will cost more. I can live with that. So can you.
.
Though I dislike the house if Saud, we cannot go around destroying other countries just to improve our economy.
Niall
Figure out the per barrel cost of all the protection and adventures by America to keep the House of Saud supplied with blonde slaves, and you will find it is the most expensive oil in the world.
And then will come the Days of High Adventure.
I just shook hands with with a Saudi aquaintence like 45 minutes ago. Male of course. The Saudi govt pays for their kids to come to Merica to go to university. In St. Cloud, MN we have many universities. We have many different cultures and I meet many different people from various parts of the world on my own turf. There is a group of four brothers who where hanging out in my garage this summer and they drink and they smoke dope. I thought that was against their religion? Yet they practiced Ramadan very strictly. They have three sisters and I never seen them so these guys were fascinated that my Russian wife has her own Harley.;-)
All that aside, we got to talking and they don't care about school. Their government pays for it and you should see the cars they drive. These are nice cars and are better than any of the five shitmobiles I own. These cars are 60 to 70 K on average USED and there are some who buy much more expensive stuff. You should see how they drive them. They just don't care. They are so spoiled rotten. That is fine but it creates a problem with the Somalians who are also starting to drive some better cars but those cars are on OUR tab. Not suprisingly, the two muslim factions don't get along. You would never see a Saudi with a Somalian...ever.
Now Syrians might come here? Let's reveiw: I have Russians that hate all muslims no matter what, I have a Bulgarian who only like Russians to some extent. I have a Chinese, Japanese and three Korean friends but you would be an idiot if you sat them all down for dinner together. That wouldn't end well either.
There is just too much hate in the world. Too much stupidity.
http://freedomoutpost.com/2015/10/minnesota-governor-find-another-state-...
I found Montana and Idaho you asshole Governor Dayton.
I, for one, am rather looking forward to the day when most Saudis are back to driving camels... Thanks for the story.
It’s not clear the kingdom has the capital or the ability to meet them.
Of course it doesn't. They're a pack of low-IQ savages overdue for the tender mercies of natural selection who won the natural resource lotto and couldn't handle their new wealth.
Nauru is best known today as Australia's dumping ground for bogus asylum seekers. Time was their resource wealth (phosphates, in the form of guano) made them the richest country in the Pacific per capita, if not the world.
Today they're broke. The savages pissed the guano money up the wall (they liked sports cars, even though there's nowhere to drive to) and by 2000 the phosphates were gone. Today Nauru lives on whatever it's worth to Canberra to house "refugees" for as long as it takes them to get the message that they're not getting into Australia and to kindly go back to the cesspit they came from.
At least the Nauruans wasted their money on dodgy real estate deals and not funding terrorism.
This too shall pass. In 15 years, max, Saudi will run out of oil, and they have essentially no other way of raising money even for food. By then even Uncle Sugar will no longer be interested in protecting the House of Saud from its long-overdue and well-deserved fate at the hands of their now-starving people.
It's just possible Saudi has a bright future as the reservation to which a world that had had enough of Islam to last till the heat-death of the universe can dump its surplus Muslims right next door to their beloved Mecca and leave them to the tender mercies of natural selection. Failing that, the most the next wave of refugees (this time from Saudi itself) can hope for from the free and prosperous Eurasian Union is ONE warning shot.
I can't wait, can you?
Low IQ savages? You disgusting jews who are not jews want to censor the whole world, but your sort use the most vile 'hate speech' which you label others who say much less than your sort.
Do me a favour: stay in Israhell, the rich man Rothschild's servant, fiefdom.
U.S. taxpayers just cut you a check for $40 billion after Nuttyyahoo whined and complained. Don't spend it all at once. You might not be so lucky next time.
Your sort are uppity little freaks.
I don't have a drop of Jewish blood.
Anti-semitism is one of the oldest disinformation campaigns our masters have going. Amazing how many ZHers with the sense to know better fall for it.
Most of the bad guys have no Jewish ancestry at all, and none of them consider the Bible to be anything more than a source of fairy tales and slave morality.
Israhell? Israel is the only country in the Middle East anybody but a lunatic or a jihadi would want to live in.
word
The Muzzie rape apes will just move to Sweden or Norway or Germany or France or England - plenty of welfare and freebies for this brown shitbag race in Eurabia.
Finaly the spoiled Sunni Thugs are gonna have to learn something,and realise they might not be Allah`s favorite pets after all.
I have a feeling that the house of Saud will be grabbing their gold toilets and heading for the hills before too long and it will be excellent except what happens after. This oil stunt was so stupid and not going to work by all appearances. They are the embodyment of some twisted Callugula-Nero evil demented lunacy who probably actually believe that they are invulnerable. They cannot do this forever.
What happens after is the US helps Iran overrun SA.
The House of Saud can live with their big bucks in London, NY or Vegas.
I bet they get Platinum Players' cards free on the strip.
As long as SA only accepts Dollars for it's oil they have nothing to fear. This is a unholy union between the PetroDollar/Reserve Currency known as the Dollar and the Devil known as the House of Saud. SA falls, USA hegemony falls with it. Unfortuantely, we the USA, will prop up, defend and protect the House of Saud.
Currency Wars everywhere and the USA MIC out defending the PetroDollar. Will future historians see this? I like to think they will. Unfortunately the average American can't hope to wrap their puny minds around this and thus the sheep will be played.
I submit Iran is the Future: the future of covert activity to pry Iran away from the BRIC orbit. Why else would the US offer nuclear tech assistance to Iran? Drop sanctions?
No, the Atlanticists think they can weasel their way into Teheran; it won't be easy, but the PetroDollar is at stake. It needs a new home, associated to some degree with Iranian Oil.
It is a necessity! With the Yuan joining the SDR, Iran represents a tempting prize for dollar-denominated investment, in oil tech, nuclear tech, and arms.
"SO, we have the usual deal, right?"
"Uhh, sorry Vlad, we must consider the American offer. Just good business to look at the competition's proposal. Hey, The Bath House' Top Advisor is Iranian-born, she's one of us. We have to give it some thought."
The House of Saud and its totalitarian form of Islam known as Wahhabi was founded by the Ratchild City of London, its Mi6 and the Crown. Why? Because it is supposed to be a pet of Zionism, and it is.
That is all you need to know about that, and then the close relationship between Rothschild rich man's pet Israhell and Saud becomes obvious. All for the Internationale, and the ISIS; war profits.
Having read Lawrence' works, I am not sure the Saudis needed any help in their interpretation of the Prophet and his Book or the actions they take in response to the same.
Now, was that manipulated by TPTB? Quite possibly.
Lawrence was Mi6, by the way.
Yes, but he supported Arab Nationalism, which is why he was knocked off his Triumph, literally.
Seen any hot Saudi chicks at the bar lately? No????
The Wahhabi "interpretation" of Islam was a flat out rejection of a thousand years of Islamic scholarship which they saw as too gentle and merciful. The initial Saudi state in the 19th century was destroyed by the Ottoman Turks, the champions of normative Sunni Islam, who sought to end this fanatical cult. But the Saudis were given a second life by British colonialists in the 20th century, to the loss of the whole planet.
This is a good thing.
Like any basic ME potentates, they will have to preserve power at home by cutting back on external expenditures.
If they want to stay in power, they have to keep the Peace at home.
The US had a natural ally in Iran with the western-educated and oriented Mossadegh, who Allen Dulles carelessly overthrew (it was bad for his legal firm's and his own personal business connections).
So, no, they had to toss out the elected leader and install the Shah.
In exchange for Dulles' Law firm to maintain their cash flow from Iran, he sacrificed what could have been 50 + years of stable relations with Iran, a democratic government, and a better cut of oil revenue to Iran. The British were blown off with the revenues after the Shah was restored to the throne and the monies went to dominant US Oil barons.
Iran is the future, not the Saudis. When the time comes, the PTB will dump the House of Saud for Iran. There will be War.
Stay tuned.
And the whole point of modern media and propaganda is to protect the most guilty, and make profitable war, for some.
Different day. Same old shit.
Yes; Dulles led a tour de force with the US media after the restoration of the Peacock Throne; no major US media source at the time described the overthrow of an elected Nationalist a bad thing. Instead, it was billed as a Block to the USSR.
Stalin, however, had no real designs on Iran; he was too afraid of British-US retaliation.
Dulles, there's an infamous name for many reasons.
Also, I like your humorous comments too. Keep on keeping on ;-)
Every day is a good day for truth, imo.
Allen had Luce and Time, etc in his back pocket.
In fact, while he was banging Luce's wife in Rome, Luce was banging Allen's old flame, Mary Bancroft, in NYC.
Or so they say...
Of all the whirlwinds that Obama has sown, the looming rehabilitation of Iran may well be the biggest.
The truth is that there is only enough demand for two of these big petro-kleptocracies to make a comfortable living. With fracking on IR for the moment, that leaves three players in the ring-- Russia, Iran, and Saudi.
One of them will have to be destroyed. One is a nuiclear power, one is a proto-nuclear power, and you can bet your ass that the third one is about to suddenly become a customer of the Pakistani dial-a-nuke program-- which was financed by Saudi in the first place.
The Sauds undermine any government in the region more modern than theirs....ie Medieval by divine right monarchy because they make them look bad... and they are bad bad bad.
A century ago, any man who could scratch a living out of the Arabian desert could marry and have children. Though legal, polygamy was kept in check by the fact that few men could afford more than one wife.
Not anymore. Oil wealth has created tens of thousands of princes who hoover up all the young girls into their rotating harems. OBL's father had twenty-two wives, though never more than four at the same time. What then becomes of the lesser sons, who cannot hope to ever touch a woman in this life?
The Saudis have only one solution to this problem: fire up those young horndogs by promising them a paradise of free pussy, send them off to wage jihad somewhere else, and pray that they never come back.
If America had decided in 1940 to treat the Saudis as it treated the Plains Indians a century earlier, Islam would still be a little-known religion practiced by a few desert nomads.
Islam would be a little known religion today? By 1940, Islam had over 500 million followers and dominated the entire stretch from Morocco to indonesia. You are confusing the Gulf bedouins with a global Muslim culture. The Arabian desert was considered an unimportant backwater for Muslims except for the holy cities of Mecca and Medina. If it had not been for oil, Arabia would have remained an insignificant part of an otherwise vast Islamic civilization, as it had been for most of Muslim history.
Great stuff Dave. Islam would still be around. Think Indian sub-continent, Indonesia, Turkey.
Tyler Durden
You missed one point
Its official that Saudi Arabia financed the naPakistani nuclear bomb development.
naPakistanis have more than 100 now, and probably naPakis might have gifted them some too.
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Give a fool enough rope, he will hang himself dead
The oil & money Saudis got, will become its own noose around their necks
They will hang themselves with their policies ,
Days are not far when Saudi Arabia will explode & taken over
Good times always come to an end , towel heads , if you have brain left in your skulls
but alas camel milk prevails
Hooo hut hut
As the blood-smeared Al CIAduh I$I$ terror "backed" Saudi Mercan petroscrip free loading free lunch toilet paper dollah gets flushed from the global Ponzi sewer, not only will the Great Satan and the Crypt of Saud get buried under the fast mounting tsunami of filth for which they are responsible but also "tiny democratic" Israhell will finally be "driven into the sea".
Gee who could have foreseen this trriple axis of evil finally getting its KARMA!
As a student I had a couple of arab colleagues. Not bright at all. Their studies were paid by their goverments. They drove fancy cars and the message I got was why learning if one can have everything? Of course, I did learn and now I have, but so many years later I am still amazed at thier low IQ. Statistics:
I had 4 arabs in the frst year. By the third one there was none. They were still in 1st or second.
Blacks: I had 5 colleagues. None managed to pass the 1st.
When I finished 5 years later all of them (blacks) were still in the 1st, which was strange, as for us, the mortals, there was only ONE chance to repeat a year, except the 1st, which if you did not pass it you were out for good. I can't remember about the arabs, perhaps they were not too important.
You're absolutely right. Black people are less intelligent than white people.
he Islamic State has called for the “liberation” of Mecca from the House of Saud and launched a bombing campaign aimed at the Kingdom’s Shiites.
That sounds very much like how US makes its statements. We must destroy ISIS, and launch air campaign to bomb civilian power plants.
I would not bet ISIS doing anything aginst House of Saud. They are bombing shiites.
Make no mistake what is going on here. This is ALL about the Petro-dollar. If the house of Saud falls, the Petro-Dollar dies. IF the Petro-Dollar dies first, and there are many trying to kill it, then the house of Saud dies. The two are tied tightly.
Forces are trying to kill the Petro-Dollar, and it is damned near dead. One of the strategies is to bring the house of Saud to an end. That is why the USA will defend Saudi at almost any cost. That is the USA under anyone besides Obama. The moves he makes means there is either an alternative plan, or he is trying to collapse the economy of the world....I am betting on option 2.
Which is a good thing. I want them to get impoverished so badly they wont have any money left for their crimes. Die Saudi.
The writer fails to mention the billions the US spent in Afghanistan supplying the same Mujahedeen and creating Al Qaeda in the process.
This is what happens when governments get addicted to easy money. That applies to the printing press too.
All of you are wrong.
All of you are right.
Bomb Riyadh.