Arabian peninsula returns to warring princes and tribes By The Wayne Madsen Report

Arabian peninsula returns to warring princes and tribes

By The Wayne Madsen Report

Saudi Arabia's 32-year old Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman al-Saud, fancies himself as a champion of "moderate Wahhabism," something that does not actually exist, and clean government. In fact, this fast-rising son of the decrepit 81-year old King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, was a prime motivator behind the creation of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), or "Da'esh," in Iraq and Syria, the chief architect of the genocidal Saudi-led war in Yemen, and the driving force behind the Gulf Cooperation Council's economic and travel sanctions imposed on Qatar. 

Rather than being a reformer or "moderate," MBS, as he is known in Saudi Arabia and abroad, hearkens back to an age when rival sheikhs and tribal leaders vied for control over wide patches of desert lands in Arabia. MBS's ongoing coup d'état against some of Saudi Arabia's most powerful and wealthiest princes points to his determination to become an autocratic ruler over Saudi Arabia once his father, King Salman, leaves the scene. MBS has curbed the power of Saudi Arabia's dreaded religious police and allowed women the right to drive in an effort to gain popular support for his own "Salmanist" movement in Saudi Arabia, one that brooks no dissent and rules with an iron fist. MBS will use Wahhabism for his own advantage and when it is against his interests, he will not hesitate to clamp down on Wahhabist domestic clerics and foreign missionaries. Indeed, some Middle East experts see MBS’s rapid rise to power as eventually achieving the same autocratic rule over Saudi Arabia as that commanded by the founder of the modern Saudi state, Abdulaziz bin Saud, in the 1930s.

MBS's rise to a prominent role within the House of Saud began in October 2011 when Crown Prince Sultan bin Abdulaziz died. Salman, who had been Governor of Riyadh province, and, as WMR reported, a major bankroller for Al Qaeda mercenaries traveling to Afghanistan, became second deputy prime minister and defense minister in November 2011. Salman made MBS his personal adviser and with that wide portfolio, the young prince helped initiate the jihadist rebellion in Syria against President Bashar al Assad and the uprising against Muammar Qaddafi in Libya. MBS also aided his father, the defense minister, is helping to brutally crush a pro-democracy uprising in Bahrain. 

In November 2012, Crown Prince Nayef bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, Salman's brother, died. Salman was named Crown Prince and First Deputy Prime Minister. Salman basically ran Saudi Arabia's domestic affairs while his half-brother, King Abdullah, was out of the country, which was often. Crown Prince Salman's penchant for charitable contributions to poor majority Muslim countries, which was shared by MBS, saw Saudi funds flow into the coffers of Wahhabist radical groups in Somalia, Bangladesh, Afghanstan, and Sudan. 

In January 2015, King Abdullah died at the age of 90 and Salman succeeded to the Saudi throne. The former chief of the Saudi Intelligence Agency, Prince Muqrin bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, was named Crown Prince by Salman. Muqrin's reign did not last long. In April 2015, Salman replaced Muqrin with his nephew, the Interior Minister, Prince Muhammad bin Nayef al-Saud. MBS was named defense minister. On June 21, 2017, in what can be described as the beginning of a "creeping coup," Crown Prince Nayef was deposed by Royal Decree. In what would portend future events a mere four months later, Nayef was reportedly held under house arrest at his palace and pressured to renounce his claim to the throne. King Salman moved quickly to name MBS the new Crown Prince.

In September 2017, MBS detained some of the top clerics in Saudi Arabia, including Salman al-Ouda, who, as being independent from the Saudi state Wahhabist infrastructure, was known to favor reconciliation between Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Al-Ouda’s two compatriots, Awad al-Qarni and Ali al-Omary, were also arrested.

Former Crown Prince Nayef is said to have remained under house arrest until MBS made his sudden move against other members of the House of Saud on November 4, 2017. Declaring the foundation of a new Saudi anti-corruption committee, MBS put under house arrest at least 11 Saudi princes, including multi-billionaire international investor and Kingsom Holding Company Chairman Prince Alaweed bin Talal al-Saud, MBS also fired and arrested the commander of the Saudi National Guard, the son of the late King Abdullah, Prince Miteb bin Abdullah and replaced him with MBS loyalist Prince Khalid Bin Ayyaf Al-Muqrin. Also arrested was the Saudi Minister of Economy and Planning Adel Fakieh, a close reform adviser of MBS. In Fakieh's place was appointed another MBS loyalist, Mohammad Al-Tuwaijri. 

Many senior officials of the late King Abdullah's government are being systematically purged by MBS and his loyalists. They include Prince Turki bin Abdullah, a former governor of Riyadh province, and Khaled al-Tuwaijri, the chief of the Royal Court under Abdullah.

No coup would be complete or successful without seizing control over the media. MBS ordered the arrests of Saleh Kamal and Waleed al-Ibrahim, the co-founders of the Middle East Broadcasting Corporation, which operates the Al Arabiya satellite news network. News out of Saudi Arabia is being strictly controlled by the new MBS regime, with the international corporate media dutifully echoing Saudi government press releases as "news."

In all, some 14 current ministers, officials and businessmen have been arrested. Dozens of former ministers have also been arrested. The Saudis have not confirmed all of the identities of those arrested. MBS has ordered the bank accounts of the princes and others in Saudi Arabia and abroad frozen. Most of the detainees are being held under house arrest in the Ritz Carlton Hotel in Riyadh. MBS has vowed a complete investigation of all the detainees for corruption, a crime for which the penalty is death.

One execution may have been carried out early. At the same time MBS was rounding up princes and ministers in Riyadh, a helicopter carrying Prince Mansour bin Muqrin, the deputy governor of Asir province and seven other senior Saudi officials, crashed near Abha in Asir Province, near the border with Houthi-controlled north Yemen. Prince Mansour was the son of former Crown Prince Prince Muqrin bin Abdulaziz, who was ousted in 2015 in favor of Salman. 

Saudi official news organs reported that the helicopter carrying Mansour and his aides was returning from an "inspection tour" near the border with Yemen. However, other reports indicated that the aircraft was shot down by the Saudis after they learned it was flying to Houthi-controlled Yemen where the prince and his party had been assured of political asylum. Parallels were immediately drawn to the Chinese attack on the plane carrying Chinese vice premier Lin Biao in 1971, following an abortive coup in Beijing. Lin and his party were fleeing China and their plane was shot down by Chinese MiGs over Mongolia. MBS's coup in Riyadh has been likened to the type of leadership purge that routinely takes place in China.

King Salman went through the motions, Cosa Nostra-style, in paying his respect, in person, to deposed Crown Prince Muqrin at the prince's palace in Riyadh. Saudi press reports failed to indicate whether Murqin was even free to leave his palace in the wake of MBS's coup.

Mansour's safe passage to Houthi-controlled Yemen may have been arranged by his father, Muqrin, who was known to favor dialogue with the majority Shi'as of Saudi Arabia's Eastern Province, as well as with Iran, the Houthis major benefactor. 

The role of the Trump administration and Israel in MBS's coup is an issue that is on the minds of every Middle East professional and lay observer. Trump son-in-law and Middle East special envoy Jared Kushner visited Saudi Arabia last month where he and MBS reportedly stayed up until 4 am for several nights "planning strategy." Kushner was accompanied to Israel by Trump's special adviser on Israeli matters, Jason Greenblatt. Both Kushner and Greenblatt are known to represent the interests of Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu in the Trump White House.

MBS has promised Trump a military showdown with Iran and a public Saudi rapprochement with Israel. The Saudi National Guard chief was fired after he was blamed for an alleged Houthi missile attack on Riyadh from Yemen. The Saudis and Americans are blaming Iran for the attack, however, there is a belief that it may have been a Saudi false flag designed to provide domestic support for MBS's coup and further ratchet up tensions with Iran.

The power struggle within the House of Saud also affects surrounding countries. Opponents of MBS can be assured of tacit support from the Al Thani governing family of Qatar, which has its own issues with MBS over the Saudi-led boycott of Qatar. 

MBS's counterpart in the United Arab Emirates, Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan, referred to as "MZN" and who is also the deputy commander of the UAE armed forces, does not see eye-to-eye with MBS on certain issues. MBS is backing the extremely corrupt exiled government in Jeddah of Yemeni president Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi against the Houthis and South Yemeni separatists. MZN, on the other hand, supports the South Yemeni independence restoration movement and has taken advantage of Yemen's civil war to extend virtual UAE control over Aden, the islands of Socotra, Abd al Kuri, Darsah, and Samhah in the strategic Gulf of Aden, and the former Mahra Sultanate in the Hadhramaut region of South Yemen. 

An official of the former Sultanate of Mahra and Socotra, Sheikh Abdullah Al Afrar, has received Abu Dhabi's support in representing the mainland Mahra state and Socotra on behalf of his General Council of the Sons of the Province of Al Mahra and Socotra Island. Meanwhile, the former sultan of Hadhramaut, Ghalib Al Quaiti, who has lived in exile in Saudi Arabia, has sought a role in an independent restored Qu'aiti State in Hadhramaut or a new federation of South Yemen. The al-Quaiti royal house was apparently double-crossed by MBS and MZN when it was discovered that Saudi and Emirati funds had flowed to Hadhramaut tribal leader Abdallah Faysal Sadiq al-Ahdal, someone identified as an ally of “Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). The royal family of the former Sultanate of Lahej, near Aden, has also been resurgent in politics, thanks to the patronage of the UAE, a federation of emirates that, unlike the sultanates and emirates of Arabia, survived the throes of British decolonization of the Arabian peninsula.

Meanwhile, the heirs of the Zaidi Imams' long-reigning Mutawakkilite Kingdom of the Yemen, overthrown in 1962, may be angling for a place in a restored North Yemen, which may be a republic or a reincarnation of the Kingdom of Yemen. The Houthis and other North Yemeni tribes, as well as those in the Saudi province of Asir, continue to hold the Imams of the Kingdom of Yemen in great reverence.

the Khalifa royal family in Bahrain is firmly in the MBS camp. The Hashemites royal family of Jordan, which has its own grievances with Riyadh, can expect to stay neutral in the House of Saud civil war. The Bin Said's of Oman and Sabahs of Kuwait would also prefer neutrality, although neither is happy with the MBS war in Yemen and the saber-rattling against Iran. The Al Rashids of Dubai have also shown a dislike for the Saudi treatment of Qatar and they have like-minded allies among the ruling royal families the northern emirates of Ras al Khaimah, Umm al Qawain, and Fujairah. Without an over-arching referee like Britain or the United States calling the shots, the political chess board on the shifting sands of Arabia has never been more unpredictable.

ROVING EYE - The killer on the (Saudi) king's highway By Pepe Escobar

ROVING EYE
The killer on the (Saudi) king's highway
By Pepe Escobar

There's danger on the edge of town
Ride the king's highway, baby
Weird scenes inside the gold mine
Ride the highway west, babyThe Doors, The End

The killer awoke before dawn. He put his American desert boots on. He took a knife from the ancient gallery. And he walked on down the hall - bathed in desert sunlight. 

The killer spoke with a British accent (London's East End?) Father (Saud), I want to kill you. Mother (Langley?) I want to... 

yeeeaaahh, c'mon! 

Then the sartorially composed Man in Black beheaded American photojournalist James Foley. 

This is not the end, beautiful friend. It's just a new beginning in the never-ending Global War on Terror. Now starring Papa Saud's brand new bag - The Caliph and his goons. This is the way Shock and Awe morphs into "Assad must go" morphs into Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, morphs into The Caliph's Black Britannia goon responding to "humanitarian" bombing. I'm my own baby now. Watch me work. Bring it on.

Choice scenery. Good sound and vision production values. Careful editing. No unnecessary gore. No blood splattering. No Allahu Akbar shrieks. "A Message to America", indeed - but most of all a message to the Ummah. As in we're the Men in Black badasses. We run The Caliphate. We're no mere death cult; we're winners. And we take no prisoners. 

And why did Islamic State, formerly ISIS, become winners? Because the "West" regimented, schooled, trained, logistically helped and weaponized most of IS's Takfiri goons with a mission at hand: to destroy Syria. The "West" lauded them as "Syrian rebels". Freedom fighters. 

Washington even promoted Jabhat al-Nusra (the official al-Qaeda franchise in Syria, and a "terrorist organization", according to the State Department) as "good" jihadis, as well as the preferred Saudi combo, the Islamic Front. 

No wonder after photojournalist James Foley was kidnapped in November 2012 the Washington-sanctioned version was that he was being kept by "Assad must go" forces in a prison near Damascus. 

Slouching towards Mecca 
The House of Saud, directly and indirectly, and the proverbial wealthy Gulf Cooperation Council donors are the Mom and Dad of ISIS. All duly vetted/approved by the industrial-military-Orwellian-Panopticon complex. 

And yet "Assad must go" had other ideas for Syria. He didn't go. He and his army resisted and counter-attacked. So the original mission in Syria morphed across the (non-existent) desert border towards Iraq. ISIS kept expanding - via extortion, kidnapping, captured oil fields, tribal smuggling networks.

The killer spoke with a British accent. Yet he may not be just a well-paid mercenary (500 from Britain, 700 from France, 500 from Belgium ). He's most certainly a true believer in the wider IS medievalist ideology as well as its no-holds-barred sectarian methods. 

How convenient that IS strategy is totally divide and rule. Totally balkanization of Iraq. Totally mum on Israel's slow-motion ethnic cleansing of Gaza. Totally useful in wagging the (beheading) dog to make the world forget about Gaza. 

Moroever, IS/ISIS strategy, stripped to the bone, is Pentagon manual; clear, hold and build - then expand (to an area larger than Great Britain). It's even Pentagon manual redux - as in building "coalitions of the willing" (see the alliance with "remnants" - Rummy talk - of the Saddam regime propelling their northern Iraq summer offensive.) 

How convenient that the mighty Orwellian/Panopticon complex satellite maze could not identify a long convoy of gleaming white Toyotas crossing the desert towards their summer conquests. And how convenient that a Briton beheading an American - what a "special relationship" plot twist! - fully sanctions the Return of Iraq Bombing ("for months", in Obama's words); more strikes; more drones; perhaps more boots on the ground; perhaps, in the near future, a Syria extension. 

IS also took over Tikrit, the birthplace of Saddam, in their summer adventure. Now Baghdad's military are trying to take it back. IS welcomed them with minefields, booby-trapped buildings, an array of snipers and hardcore mortar fire. How convenient that Obama's "humanitarian" bombs are not involved in R2P ("responsibility to protect") Saddam's birthplace. What really matters is the US consulate in Erbil, scores of CIA operatives and vast Big Oil interests in Iraqi Kurdistan. 

And then there's this ultimate plot twist; a pearl by a dissident Saudi researcher (in Arabic). He argues, in detail, that IS is essentially a revival of "pure" Wahhabism; not only that IS comes from outside the House of Saud's dominions - in Iraq and the Levant - but tries hard to shatter the monarchy's legitimacy. 

The House of Saud's counterpunch to the Arab Spring was (and remains) all about destroying or at least isolating the Muslim Brotherhood as an alternative Islamic rule/role model. Yet now comes IS - brimming with religious justification (however warped); military know-how; and an army of true - and well paid - believers.

Ride the king's highway, baby. No staged/not staged beheading could possibly top the ultimate blowback: the "West" nurturing the Beast who would slouch towards Mecca to finally behead the House of Saud. And those killers shall also speak with a British accent. 

Pepe Escobar is the author of Globalistan: How the Globalized World is Dissolving into Liquid War (Nimble Books, 2007), Red Zone Blues: a snapshot of Baghdad during the surge (Nimble Books, 2007), and Obama does Globalistan (Nimble Books, 2009).

He may be reached at pepeasia@yahoo.com. 

THE ROVING EYE - Burn, Men in Black, burn - By Pepe Escobar

THE ROVING EYE Burn, Men in Black, burn By Pepe Escobar  Let's cut to the chase. As in chasing that Zara outdoor summer collection, complete with state of the art assault rifles, brand new white Nike sneakers and brand new, unlimited mileage white Toyotas crossing the Syrian-Iraqi desert; the Badass Jihadis in Black. Once upon a (very recent) time, the US government used to help only "good terrorists" (in Syria), instead of "bad terrorists". That was an echo of a (less recent) time when it was supporting only "good Taliban" and not "bad Taliban". So what happens when Brookings Institution so-called "experts" start blabbering that the Islamic State of Iraq and Sham (ISIS) is really the baddest jihadi outfit on the planet (after all they were cast out of al-Qaeda)? Are they so badass that by warped newspeak logic they're now the new normal? Since late last year, according to US government newspeak, the "good terrorists" in Syria are the al-Qaeda spinoff gang of Jabhat al-Nusra and (disgraced) Prince Bandar bin Sultan, aka Bandar Bush, the Islamic Front (essentially a Jabhat al-Nusra multiple outlet). And yet both Jabhat and ISIS had pledged allegiance to Ayman "the doctor" al-Zawahiri, the perennial gift that keeps on giving al-Qaeda capo. That still leaves the question of what Men in Black ISIS, the catwalk-conscious beheading stormtroopers for a basket of hardcore tribal Sunnis and Ba'ath party "remnants" (remember Rummy in 2003?) are really up to. We interrupt this desert catwalk to announce they will NOT invade Baghdad. On the other hand, they are busy accelerating the balkanization - and eventual partition - of both Syria and Iraq. They are NOT a CIA brainchild (how come Langley never thought about it?); they are in fact the bastard children of (disgraced) Bandar Bush's credit card largesse. The fact that ISIS is NOT directly in Langley's payroll does not imply their strategic agenda essentially differs from that of the Empire of Chaos. The Obama administration may be sending a few marines to protect the swimming pools of the largest, Vatican-sized embassy on Planet Earth, plus a few "military advisers" to "retrain" the dissolving Iraqi Army. But that's a drop of Coke Zero in the Western Iraqi desert. There's no evidence Obama is about to authorize "kinetic support" against ISIS, even though Baghdad has already green-lighted it. Even if Obama went ballistic ("targeted military action"), and/or manufactured a new kill list to be itemized by his drones, that would amount to no more than a little diversion. What matters is that the confluent ISIS/Beltway agenda remains the same; get rid of Iraqi Prime Minister al-Maliki (not by accident the new meme in US corporate media); curb Iran's political/economic influence over Iraq; fundamentally erase Sykes-Picot; and promote the "birth pangs" (remember Condi?) of vast wastelands bypassing centralized power and run by hardcore tribal Sunnis. For the Empire of Chaos, ISIS is the agent provocateur that fell from (Allah's?) Heaven; the perfect ski mask-clad tool to keep the Global War on Terror (GWOT) in Enduring Freedom Forever mode. The icing in the (melted) cake is that the House of Saud hasofficially denied support of ISIS. So this means it's true, even over Bandar Bush's carcass. Cue to the official House of Saud and House of Thani narrative about ISIS: they are not in charge of what's happening in Iraq. It's all organized by the Ba'athist "remnants". Bring on more regime change  Now for the all-encompassing Iranian angle, because the whole drama, as usual, is mostly about "containment" of Iran. We just need to endure this to confirm it; the same old regurgitation about "evidence" that "Iran and its Syrian allies" have "cooperated" with ISIS and that Bashar al-Assad in Syria has a "business partnership" with ISIS. And don't forget the scaremongering; what's ahead is a "nuclear Iran" against a "Sunni Arab world" in which the great bogeymen remains al-Qaeda. Neo-con propaganda denouncing the US government for being in bed with Tehran against ISIS is, once again, disinformation. Commander of Iran's Basij, General Mohammad Reza Naqudi, was very close to the mark when he said, "Takfiri and Salafi groups in different regional states, especially in Syria and Iraq, are supported by the US", and that "the US is manipulating the Takfiri terrorists to tarnish the image of Islam and Muslims." The same applies to Speaker of the Majlis Ali Larijani; "It is obvious that the Americans and the countries around it have made such moves ... Terrorism has grown into an instrument for the big powers to advance their goals." What this all implies is that Tehran has identified the ISIS catwalk parade for what it is; a trap. Moreover, they are also convinced Washington won't break with its vassals at the House of Saud. Translation: Washington remains committed to old school GWOT. What Tehran is already, practically, supporting - also with "advisers" on the ground - is a myriad of Shi'ite militias who are being deployed to secure Baghdad and especially the Shi'ite holy cities, Najaf and Karbala. US Return of the Living Neo-Con Dead, meanwhile, insist on regurgitating their favorite theme; Maliki Maliki Maliki. Nothing of what's goin' on in Iraq has anything to do with Shock and Awe, the invasion, occupation and destruction of most of the country, Abu Ghraib, or the vicious, totally Washington-instigated sectarian war (Divide and Rule, all over again). It's all Maliki's fault. So he must be booted out. When everything fails - to the tune of trillions of dollars - the neo-con playbook always resets to default; regime change. Slouching towards Hardcore Sunnistan It's all extremely fishy about ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, aka Abu Dua, born in Samarra in 1971, a Saddam "remnant" but - crucially - a former prisoner of the US government in Camp Bocca from 2005 to 2009, as well as a former leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq. It's no secret in the Levant that ISIS Men in Black were trained in 2012 by US instructors at a secret base in Safawi, in the northern desert of that fiction disguised as a country, Jordan, so they would later fight as Western-approved "rebels" in Syria. It was al-Baghdadi who sent a batch of Men in Black to set up Jabhat al-Nusra ("good terrorists", remember?) in Syria. He may have split from Jabhat in late 2013, but still remains in charge of a vast desert wasteland from northern Syria to Western Iraq. He's the new Osama bin Laden (the gift that keeps on giving, again), the all but certain Emir of an Islamically correct desert Caliphate in the heart of the Levant. Forget about Osama in the Hindu Kush; this is so much sexier. A hardcore Sunnistan between Iraq's Kurdish north and the Shi'te south, swimming in oil, extending all the way to Aleppo, Rakka and Deir ez-Zor in Syria, between the two rivers - the Tiger and the Euphrates - with Mosul as capital, back to its ancestral role of pivot between the twin rivers and the Mediterranean. Sykes-Picot, eat your heart out. Obviously, al-Baghdadi could not have pulled that awesome feat off all by himself. Enter his top Saddam "remnant" sidekick, Ba'ath party theorist extraordinaire Izzaat Ibrahim al-Douri, who happens to be from strategic Mosul. And most of all, enter the General Military Council for Iraqi Revolutionaries - an awesomely "secret" organization which has had the guile to dribble, like an infernal composite of Lionel Messi and Luiz Suarez, the whole Western intel apparatus, Orwellian-Panopticon NSA included. Well, not really, because this ISIS-Ba'athist coalition of the willing was brokered by none other than Bandar Bush - while he was still in action, with crucial, lateral input from Turkey's Prime Minister Erdogan. No way to trace it all back to the Beltway. What the General Military Council managed to assemble was no less than all the "remnants" of the good old early 2000s Iraqi resistance, top tribal sheiks, merge it with ISIS, and create what might be dubbed a "Resistance Army" - those Badass Jihadis in Black in their white Toyotas, now the stuff of legend, performing the miracle of being untrackable by the NSA's satellite maze. They're so hip they even have their own Facebook page, with over 33,000 "likes". Balkanize or bust Meanwhile, the agenda of the Empire of Chaos proceed unabated. Balkanization is already a fact. Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari, crucially a Kurd, pledged Kurdish Peshmerga "cooperation" with the Iraq army to keep oil-rich Kirkuk away from ISIS. Like clockwork, the Peshmergas for all practical purposes annexed Kirkuk. Grand Kurdistan beckons. Grand Ayatollah Sistani, also for all practical purposes, launched a Shi'ite jihad against ISIS. For his part, the leader of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, Sayyid Ammar al-Hakim, all but resurrected their formidable paramilitary, the Badr Corps - very close to the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps. These are real badasses, against which ISIS does not stand a chance. And Muqtada al-Sadr is launching "Peace Brigades" to protect the Shi'te holy cities and also Christian churches. Civil war rules. Meanwhile, in the Land of Oz, the Pentagon will certainly be able to extract extra funds for its perennial crusade to save Western civilization from Islamist terror. After all, there's a (ski masked) neo-Osama bin Laden in da hood. Although the majority of Iraqis reject balkanization, Sunnis will keep accusing Shi'ites of being Iranian pawns, and Shi'ites will keep accusing Sunnis of being the House of Saud's fifth column. ISIS will keep getting loads of cash from wealthy Saudi "donors". The US government will keep weaponizing Sunnis in Syria against Shi'ites and (perhaps) conducting soft "targeted military strikes" for Shi'ites against Sunnis in Iraq. Welcome to Divide and Rule run amok. Pepe Escobar is the author of Globalistan: How the Globalized World is Dissolving into Liquid War (Nimble Books, 2007), Red Zone Blues: a snapshot of Baghdad during the surge (Nimble Books, 2007), and Obama does Globalistan (Nimble Books, 2009). He may be reached at pepeasia@yahoo.com.

Will the House of Saud pivot to China? By Pepe Escobar

THE ROVING EYE 

Will the House of Saud pivot to China? 

By Pepe Escobar 

The favorite geopolitical sport du jour is to deconstruct the reasons why the House of Saud - that marriage of hyper-absolute monarchy and Wahhabi fanatics - has gone completely bonkers, with the ineffable Bandar Bush in the frontline. 

They are terrified with the possibility that the 34-year Wall of Mistrust between Washington and Tehran finally tumbles down. They are terrified that those American infidels refused to fight "our" regime change war on Syria. They were horrified by (mild) criticism about hardcore repression in Bahrain (which was invaded by Saudi in 2011, by the way). They abhor the American worshipping of that weird deity - democracy - that allowed friendly tyrants in Tunisia and Egypt to be abandoned (Libya is different; King Abdullah had wanted Gaddafi snuffed since at least 2002). 

The House of Saud is so mad as hell at the Obama administration that even "all options" are supposed to be "on the table". Which begs the question; what if Riyadh is actually dreaming of pivoting to China? 

Beijing's self-described "socialism with market characteristics" badly needs Saudi oil; after all the House of Saud is already China's top supplier. King Abdullah looks East and what he sees is an aspiring superpower, flush with unlimited cash, which will never dream of interfering in Saudi internal affairs, not to mention contemplate toxic Arab Spring ideas. 

So picture the dying King Abdullah dreaming of a Riyadh-Beijing axis as his legacy - with the inbuilt added benefit of displacing mortal enemy Iran as a supreme matter of national security for the Chinese (although Beijing would certainly see it as the proverbial win-win situation, keen to buy even more oil from Saudi as it keeps buying more gas from Iran). 

Saudi Arabia produces roughly 10% of the global total, which stands at around 90 million barrels of oil a day. It is the world's top exporter, swing producer, and essential in influencing the price of oil - which remains very high not only because of Chinese and Indian demand but also due to ceaseless speculation. 

Riyadh is carefully observing the possibility of the US becoming energy self-sufficient because of fracking technology - dirty, nasty and causing devastating pollution. They are certainly factoring that even with the US producing http://www.allgov.com/news/top-stories/us-now-leads-the-world-in-oil-and-gas-production-131008?news=851336 more than Saudi - around 12 million barrels a day, including ethanol - it still needs to import no less than 6.7 million barrels of oil a day in 2013. The US will still need oil - Saudi oil - in the foreseeable future. 

If "all options" are really "on the table", the House of Saud may be mulling striking a decades-long deal with the energy-voracious Chinese, assuring supply for a certain price. But let's assume demand - especially from Asia - rises, as it will; the House of Saud knows the US may find itself in trouble, and graphically manifest its displeasure. 

Losing my (petrodollar) religion
The House of Saud also knows very well it is the solid anchor that keeps OPEC tied to the petrodollar system. Without Saudi Arabia the petrodollar is history. 

That's arguably the number one scam in international relations. Virtually everyone and his neighbor needs US dollars which are mostly invested in US Treasury bills and other securities and mostly used to buy US dollar-denominated commodities like oil. How sweet it is to be bought by you; Washington keeps running up untold trillions of US dollars of debt that everyone must buy. The House of Saud of course duly invests its cascades of US dollars in US debt. Now imagine the House of Saud deciding to ditch the petrodollar. That would be Apocalypse Now for the US economy. 

Slowly but surely times are changing. Iran under those declaration of war-style sanctions is pointing the way, selling energy in other currencies, accepting gold and even bartering (the House of Saud, by the way, is also terrified that with a US-Iran d?tente, there will be a lot more Iranian oil and gas on Western markets, thus diluting Saudi profits.) 

Russia is now the number one global oil exporter, and China is the number one global oil importer - importing more from Saudi Arabia than the US. By 2020 China will be importing a whopping 9.2 million barrels of oil a day. So it obviously makes no sense for BRICS members Russia and China to keep using the petrodollar; that's a crucial feature of Beijing's recent call to "de-Americanize" the world. And Riyadh knows it. 

The House of Saud also considers two other trends; it has been exporting most of its oil to Asia for years now; and China, inevitably, has become the top exporter - myriad manufactured products - to Saudi Arabia, ahead of the US. Beijing, once again, is playing a discreet, long game, investing in Saudi infrastructure. Aware that Saudi Arabia cannot export more of its heavy, high sulfur oil - because few customers can refine it - China is buildinga massive new refining/export complex. So, long-term, what we have is essentially a US-China confrontation (with Russia and Iran also weighing in) over the petrodollar. 

The House of Saud utmost priority - whatever happens - is self-perpetuation. Then to keeping earning loads of cash - petrodollar or otherwise. And then to keep mortal enemy Iran - those "apostate Shi'ites" - in check. 

But would that warrant a pivoting to China? 

The mob protection racket is so sweet; because of the petrodollar religion, the House of Saud is essentially self-perpetuated by the Pentagon umbrella and those tons of weapons contracts. 

But now House of Saud paranoia is developing on two fronts like a deadly virus. They are terrified the protection racket will not last if Iran is back in the game - worse, they imagine, with a nuclear breakout capability. 

And they suspect that the much-vaunted - and so far inexistent - US pivoting to Asia is a not so discreet "say goodbye to your new friend", as in Saudi Arabia's preferred partner China. The pivoting could even be interpreted by a paranoid House of Saud as a double threat; directed towards China in the long term but also against Saudi Arabia, as in "don't even think about moving to the petroyuan." 

So far, a House of Saud devoured by a vicious succession battle, as well as angry, fearful and paralyzed by fast evolving geopolitics, offers no evidence it would let escape the mongrel "special relationship" with the US. It's just throwing a fit. If, and when, it switches to losing my (petrodollar) religion mode, then the real action begins. 

Pepe Escobar is the author of Globalistan: How the Globalized World is Dissolving into Liquid War (Nimble Books, 2007), Red Zone Blues: a snapshot of Baghdad during the surge (Nimble Books, 2007), and Obama does Globalistan (Nimble Books, 2009).

He may be reached at pepeasia@yahoo.com. 

The self-beheading House of Saud By Pepe Escobar

The self-beheading House of Saud. 

My latest on Asia Times on what those "double standards" princes are really up to. Hat tip to Joe Lauria for alerting me about the WSJ piece. It's very messy in Riyadh at the moment - and heads are about to roll. And yes, Bandar Bush will get even more medieval in Syria.

THE ROVING EYE

The self-beheading House of Saud

By Pepe Escobar 

Don't count on a female Saudi playwright writing a 21st century remix of John Osborne's Look Back in Anger starring a bunch of non-working class Saudi royals. But anger it is - from King Abdullah downwards; not only at the UN's "double standards" but especially - hush hush - at the infidel Obama administration. 

This is the official Saudi explanation for spurning a much-coveted two-year term at the UN Security Council, only hours after its nomination. 

No wonder the House of Saud's unprecedented self-beheading move was praised only by the usual minion suspects; petro-monarchies of the Gulf Counter-revolution Club, aka Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) as well as Egypt, who now depends on Saudi money to pay its bills and barely survive. 

Kuwait shared Riyadh's pain, enough to send "a message to the world". The UAE said the UN now had the "historical responsibility" to review its role. Bahrain - invaded by the Saudis in 2001 - stressed the "clear and courageous stand". Cairo said the whole thing was "brave". 

How brave, indeed, to lobby Arab and Pacific nations for two years, and to spend a fortune training a dozen diplomats in New York for months just to say "no" when you get the prize. The House of Saud would have replaced Pakistan with a Pacific seat; Morocco stays until 2015, in an African seat. As early as five months ago the Saudi seat was considered a done deal at the UN. 

NSA-worthy torrents of bits have flowed speculating over the Saudi's alleged "reformist agenda" or "principled position" on R2P (the Responsibility to Protect doctrine), Palestine and turning the Middle East into a weapons-free zone. 

To his credit, King Abdullah had advanced a plan for Palestine since 2002 based on a two-state solution and a return to the pre-1967 borders. 

But there has been no follow-up pressure on Israel; on the contrary, Riyadh is allied with Tel Aviv on setting Syria on fire. That implies no effort to include nuclear power Israel in a weapons-free Middle East. As for the Saudi version of R2P, it only applies to a sectarian "protection" of Sunnis in Syria. 

Apart from a few Middle Eastern spots, no one is seriously losing sleep over the adolescent Saudi move - which displays a curious notion of leverage, as in choosing a PR spin reinventing the corrupt petro-monarchy as the "principled" champions of a cause (UN reform) just as they might have a crack at trying to influence it from within. 

That would have implied more scrutiny. For instance, this Monday the Human Rights Council, another UN institution, duly blasted Saudi Arabia on its sterling record of discrimination against women and sectarianism, following reports by Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International. As a member of the UN Security Council, the discrepancy between the medievalist reality inside Saudi Arabia and its lofty "reformist" agenda would be even more glaring. 

I want my kafir fluid
A bottle of that precious kafir fluid, Chateau Petrus - much prized by itinerant Saudi princes in London - may be bet that the "dump the UN" decision came straight from the leading camel's mouth. And now that the House of Saud has decided to keep displaying its "influence" from the outside, nothing makes more sense than the resurfacing of Bandar Bush - who this summer was christened by King Abdullah as the man in charge of the Syrian jihad. 

The perennial Saudi Foreign Minister, Prince Saud al-Faisal had lunch with US Secretary of State John Kerry at the Prince's very private luxury digs in Paris this Monday. The mystery is which kafir fluid was consumed; no doubts though in the official, harmless spin; they agreed on a nuclear-free Iran, an end to the war in Syria and a "stable" Egypt. Before the Paris bash, during the weekend, Bandar Bush was already in his trademark full gear, openly announcing to European diplomats in Riyadh that he will buy his Syria-bound weapons somewhere else, will dissociate his scheme from the CIA, and will train "his" rebels with other players, mostly France and Jordan. 

The Wall Street Journal has the story, which predictably has not surfaced in Arab media (90% of it controlled by different branches of the House of Saud). 

Even more interesting is two other pieces of information leaked by diplomats. The House of Saud wanted the US to provide them with targets to be hit inside Syria when Obama's kinetic whatever would start. Washington adamantly refused. 

Better yet; Washington allegedly told Riyadh the US would not be able to defend the Shi'ite majority, oil-rich Eastern Province if the Tomahawks started flying over Syria. Imagine the horror show in Riyadh; after all, mob protection against petrodollars recycled/invested in the US economy is the basis of this dysfunctional marriage for nearly seven decades. 

So that should lead us to the now much hyped "independent Saudi foreign policy posture" to be implemented in relation to Washington. Don't hold your breath. 

As much as the House of Saud is completely paranoid regarding the Obama administration's latest moves, throwing a fit will not change the way the geopolitical winds are blowing. Iran's geopolitical ascent is inevitable. A Syrian solution is on the horizon. No one wants batshit crazy jihadis roaming free from Syria to Iraq to the wider Middle East. 

The Saudi spin about creating "a new security arrangement for the Arab world" is a joke - as depicted by Saudi-financed shills such as this. 

The bottom line is that an angry, fearful House of Saud does not have what it takes to confront benign protector Washington. Throwing a fit - as in crying to attract attention - is for geopolitical babies. Without the US - or "the West" - who's gonna run the Saudi energy industry? PhD-deprived camels? And who's gonna sell (and maintain) those savory weapons? Who's going to defend them for smashing the true spirit of the Arab Spring, across the GCC and beyond? 

Perennial Foreign Minister Prince Saud is gravely ill. He will be replaced by a recently appointed deputy prime minister. 

Guess who? 

Prince Abdul Aziz bin Abdullah, the king's son. Instead of a "principled" stance against "double standards", the House of Saud move at the UN feels more like nepotism. 

Pepe Escobar is the author of Globalistan: How the Globalized World is Dissolving into Liquid War (Nimble Books, 2007), Red Zone Blues: a snapshot of Baghdad during the surge (Nimble Books, 2007), and Obama does Globalistan (Nimble Books, 2009).

He may be reached at pepeasia@yahoo.com.