Saudi Arabia & the Arabian Peninsula

[DougMacG]

Well expressed!  I went looking for evidence that he is MB or jihad supporting but he was not going to openly put that it a tweet.

[Crafty_Dog]

Tablet is very much a Dem/Progressive publication, but here it forthrightly defends President Trump

https://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/middle-east/275697/trump-saudi-arabia?utm_source=tabletmagazinelist&utm_campaign=87e63bf5ce-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2018_12_07_03_29&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_c308bf8edb-87e63bf5ce-207194629

[ccp]

" Tablet is very much a Dem/Progressive publication, but here it forthrightly defends President Trump "

of course ,  who if they are really  being honest thinks we should ditch our whole Mid East policy for this one freakin guy?
(only the trump deranged . they go to bed unable to sleep they can't focus during the day with 24 hr hate of Trump and thus us)

oBama did business with China  though they murder and torture and imprison all those who go against the Party.

[DougMacG]

https://spectator.us/jamal-khashoggi-time-person-year/

I don't know the author or the accuracy.

"Khashoggi represented everything that is repressive and repugnant about journalism in the Arab world. Why is he so honored?"

"Khashoggi became rich working for a Saudi royal family that was, and remains, among the world’s worst persecutors of journalists. He edited government-controlled Saudi newspapers, which are without exception regime propaganda outlets, and headed TV news channels that were owned by Saudi princes.

Then he outdid himself by working as a media adviser to a senior Saudi prince in London and Washington. He embraced with unbridled enthusiasm his role of justifying Saudi regime atrocities in the Western media. He even denied on the BBC that anyone was ever tortured in Saudi Arabia."
-------
We've heard about the brutality of his murder.  I don't know if we've heard the motive.  He knew something...

We heard over and over he was a "journalist".  I somehow don't think that was all of it.

I'm not justifying torture or gruesome murder in the least, just want to get at the whole story someday.

[Crafty_Dog]

The Senate on the Saudis
A phony gesture on War Powers but a useful statement on Khashoggi.
54 Comments
By The Editorial Board
Dec. 13, 2018 7:21 p.m. ET
Senator Bernie Sanders speaks after the senate voted on a resolution ending U.S. military support for the war in Yemen on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., Dec. 13.
Senator Bernie Sanders speaks after the senate voted on a resolution ending U.S. military support for the war in Yemen on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., Dec. 13. Photo: joshua roberts/Reuters

Donald Trump scrambles political categories, and the latest evidence is Thursday’s Senate vote to end U.S. military support for the Saudi-led war in Yemen. The President who is so often criticized for wanting to retreat from the world and not standing by allies was rebuked for refusing to abandon an ally in a proxy war with Iran.

The Senate voted 56-41 for a bill sponsored by Vermont Socialist Bernie Sanders and Utah Republican Mike Lee to invoke the 1973 War Powers Resolution and yank U.S. troops home within 30 days. Never mind that the Pentagon says U.S. forces assisting the Saudis aren’t in harm’s way and thus the War Powers Resolution doesn’t apply. We’d go further and say this is also an unconstitutional intrusion on a President’s power as Commander in Chief.

But all 49 Democrats voted for it, as did seven Republicans. They had the political luxury of knowing the bill is going nowhere in the House this year. There’s nothing more senatorial than voting for something you know won’t pass and calling it an “historic victory,” as Mr. Sanders did.

The more useful effort was a resolution sponsored by Tennessee Sen. Bob Corker that condemned the Saudi murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi and held Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman responsible. The resolution passed unanimously, and while it won’t change U.S. policy, it is a warning to the White House and Saudis that America has values as well as interests to defend. The President’s political freedom narrows when Democrats control the House next year. Mr. Trump could lose control over foreign policy, and the U.S.-Saudi alliance, if he doesn’t somehow recognize the bipartisan disgust at the Khashoggi murder.

[DougMacG]

https://securitystudies.org/jamal-khashoggi-and-qatar-in-the-echo-chamber/

His columns and paychecks came right out of enemy propoganda.

[G M]

https://securitystudies.org/jamal-khashoggi-and-qatar-in-the-echo-chamber/

His columns and paychecks came right out of enemy propoganda.

http://ace.mu.nu/archives/378858.php

December 26, 2018
Washington Post More or Less Confirms That Jamal Khashoggi Was a Paid Qatari Intelligence/Propaganda Asset
I can see how American "journalists" would regard this as the normal state of affairs and not really that different from a plain ol' "journalist."

Many journalists in the US are paid by Fusion GPS to plant Fusion stories, which in turn were funded by interested parties including foreign governments.

Quotes from the Washington Post below, with commentary added by streiff from RedState.

Perhaps most problematic for Khashoggi were his connections to an organization funded by Saudi Arabia’s regional nemesis, Qatar. Text messages between Khashoggi and an executive at Qatar Foundation International show that the executive, Maggie Mitchell Salem, at times shaped the columns he submitted to The Washington Post, proposing topics, drafting material and prodding him to take a harder line against the Saudi government. Khashoggi also appears to have relied on a researcher and translator affiliated with the organization, which promotes Arabic-language education in the United States.
...

Khashoggi was never a staff employee of the Post, and he was paid about $500 per piece for the 20 columns he wrote over the course of the year. He lived in an apartment near Tysons Corner in Fairfax County that he had purchased while working at the Saudi Embassy a decade earlier. [Note: how did he live in the DC Metro area for about $10K/year?]


Khashoggi also appears to have accepted significant help with his columns. Salem, the executive at the Qatar foundation, reviewed his work in advance and in some instances appears to have proposed language, according to a voluminous collection of messages obtained by The Post. [Journalists accepting "significant help" from government operatives in writing stories is a fact of how journalism is conducted in the Middle East, the Post eliding over this speaks volumes.]

In early August, Salem prodded Khashoggi to write about Saudi Arabia's alliances "from DC to Jerusalem to rising right wing parties across Europe...bringing an end to the liberal world order that challenges their abuses at home."

Khashoggi expressed misgivings about such a strident tone, then asked, "So do you have time to write it?"

So in other words, Khashoggi was largely just a frontman for anti-Saudi propaganda written by an operative of the Saudi's chief Arab rival, Qatar.


"I'll try," she replied, although she went on to urge him to "try a draft" himself incorporating sentences that she had sent him by text. A column reflecting their discussion appeared in The Post on Aug. 7. Khashoggi appears to have used some of Salem's suggestions, though it largely tracks ideas that he expressed in their exchange over the encrypted app WhatsApp.

Other texts in the 200-page trove indicate that Salem’s organization paid a researcher who did work for Khashoggi. The foundation is an offshoot of a larger Qatar-based organization. Khashoggi also relied on a translator who worked at times for the Qatari embassy and the foundation.

...

On Oct. 3, one day after Khashoggi's death, while his fate remained uncertain, his researcher contacted The Post to say that he had a draft of a column that Khashoggi had begun writing before his disappearance. It was published two weeks later. [The likelihood that Khashoggi's last column was ghostwritten to take advantage of his disappearance by making him appear to be an Arabian Thomas Jefferson approaches certainty.]

streiff quotes Dave Reaboi of the Strategic Studies Group noting that it doesn't make sense for the Washington Post to reveal that the man they've been painting as a patriotic martyr for two months was in fact a shabby operative working for a government hostile to his native country except if the Washington Post knew that there were rumors about these texts and possible payments to Khashoggi and they sought to get ahead of a story they knew could no longer be suppressed.

[Crafty_Dog]

Where Is Crown Prince Mohammed?
Out of public view, he attempts to control Saudi society with a combination of dread and circuses.
57 Comments
By Karen Elliott House
Feb. 11, 2019 6:44 p.m. ET
Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

This is the winter of Mohammed bin Salman’s discontent. The young crown prince is beset on all sides by problems that would depress or deter most leaders, but there is no sign that his optimism or energy are flagging. Whether sheer determination will be enough to secure his success, however, seems more in doubt than ever.

Many of the crown prince’s challenges come from overseas. His international reputation is stained by the killing of Saudi columnist Jamal Khashoggi. The U.S. Congress is increasingly determined to block arms sales to Riyadh for its stalemated war in Yemen. Then there’s the Saudis’ festering feud with Turkey, and their cold war with Iran. Finally, a global economic slowdown could erode oil demand, lower prices and diminish the revenue the kingdom badly needs to fund its biggest budget ever.

But the crown prince’s international challenges pale in comparison with those at home. His Vision 2030 plan to transform the kingdom foresees a vibrant private sector to wean the country off its dependence on oil revenues and its citizens off dependence on government. This vision—the product of more than $1 billion in consulting fees—already is proving overly ambitious in scope and time.

Over the past two years, consumer spending has collapsed and more than a million migrant residents have returned to neighboring South Asian countries as a result of the crown prince’s reforms. The Saudi private sector, long dependent on government contracts, was knocked to its knees by the government’s decision to halt contract payments to assess corruption. Riyadh’s moves to slash energy subsidies and raise non-oil revenues—by imposing levies on foreign workers as well as assessing a value-added tax on most sales—have also hit the economy hard.

In the capital, the heady optimism of previous years is giving way to a realization that change won’t be quick or painless. “We are trying to correct 50 years of bad policies in three to five years,” says one businessman. “It can’t be done.” An economist says of the crown prince: “The consultants sold him a development plan that can’t be done on the timetable given. It took South Korea 30 years to develop, why should Saudi think we can do it in 15?”

The crown prince has two responses to the dimming prospects of his reform program. On one hand, he seeks to distract Saudis with circuses. He has imported rock stars for concerts, has started construction near Riyadh of a new entertainment city three times the size of Disney World, and is developing a tourist industry that could open Saudi Arabia for the first time to millions of foreign visitors. These initiatives risk offending the most conservative Saudis while frustrating middle-class families for whom the new entertainment is unaffordable. Tickets to see Mariah Carey perform last month went for $80 to $500. The average office manager earns $4,000 a month but ordinary workers earn half that.

Yet while the crown prince gives with one hand, he takes with the other. Saudi Arabia has never been an open society, but the current government is clamping down on almost every form of actual and potential opposition. The space for public discussion—much less criticism—has over the past two years narrowed to nonexistent, even on social media. A liberal Saudi who used to tweet regularly says he has quit for fear that anything could lead to arrest. A conservative Saudi notes that “such exaggerated security control makes people ready to explode.”

But neither dread nor circuses are solving the problem. One father tells me he abhors that bargain. His teenage son has been in prison for two years because teachers reported to authorities a remark deemed treasonous. “When I visit him, I see Saudi mothers dressed in tight jeans and bare faces visiting their sons in prison,” he says. “I wonder, do they believe the freedom to dress like that is a fair trade for their sons having no freedom to speak?”

To be sure, not all Saudis feel alienated. Young women, especially, enjoy a measure of personal freedom that seemed unimaginable a year ago. More are moving into significant jobs. Crown Prince Mohammed is personally popular with progressive young Saudis who want the kingdom to enter the 21st century. Many have his smiling face as the screen saver on their iPhones.

Even businessmen disappointed with the pace of progress still credit the crown prince with his economic reform—notwithstanding the wreckage in the private sector along the way. The young ruler also has the support of the two men who matter most: President Trump and King Salman, who has given no indication of abandoning his ambitious son.

Since the Khashoggi killing, the king has assumed a more active public role, meeting foreign dignitaries without his son at his side. But by all indications the crown prince remains entirely in control of the levers of power. Government ministers still are hauled in regularly to report to him. Some are fired for failing to meet the targets of the Vision 2030, plan, whose 1,300 initiatives are tracked and reported quarterly to him by a new government entity.

The kingdom’s religious conservatives have been silenced if not entirely subdued. And members of the extended Al Saud family have been reduced to playing roles in a supportive chorus or sitting silently in their palaces. A royal relative as prominent as Prince Al Waleed bin Talal, who once strutted on the Saudi stage, now appears publicly as a hapless courtier. No one has failed to grasp the message the crown prince sent by incarcerating his royal relatives in the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in November 2017 and freeing most only after taking $106 billion.

If the royal family is quieted, normal Saudi families face a new type of tension. This is a society in which men traditionally have ruled while women and children obeyed. No longer. Male domination is under challenge as more women seek financial independence. When men object, women can and do cite royal decrees affirming their rights to work and drive without a male guardian’s consent. “On the outside we hear change, change,” says a Saudi sociologist. “But inside the walls of every house there is war about who gets to make decisions.”

This is the winter of discontent not only for the crown prince, but also for the society he rules. Still, the chaos in surrounding states seem to resign most Saudis to grudging patience with their prince.

Ms. House, a former publisher of The Wall Street Journal, is author of “On Saudi Arabia: Its People, Past, Religion, Fault Lines—and Future” (Knopf, 2012).

[Crafty_Dog]

I've not read this with care yet, but what I have read shows not a little bit of superficiality but OTOH there most certainly is something to keep an eye on here.

https://www.truthdig.com/articles/giving-the-bomb-to-saudi-arabias-dr-strangelove/

OTOH, this is just stupid:  "Iran, a mortal enemy of Saudi Arabia, will have no choice but to begin a nuclear weapons program if the Saudis build nuclear reactors. "

[DougMacG]

...
OTOH, this is just stupid:  "Iran, a mortal enemy of Saudi Arabia, will have no choice but to begin a nuclear weapons program if the Saudis build nuclear reactors. "

Yes, just stupid.  Iran doesn't need another motive; they have been pursuing this decades and had the completion of their nuclear path paved by the Obama Iran deal.  The problem now is vice versa.

They call Kushner the half-wit son-in-law, then write this:  "Iran, is closely monitored by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)."  Who then is the half-wit?  If the IAEA really had control over these things, the threat of Saudi going from power generation to weapons would be nil.

Saudi's most immediate motive is Iran's pursuit and the world non-proliferation agreement was wrecked by the free world tolerating the programs of NK, Pakistan, Iran and others.

The article starts with this point:  "...decision to share sensitive nuclear technology with Saudi Arabia and authorize U.S. companies to build nuclear reactors in that country."

Can't we separate those decisions, build and operate a carbon-free nuclear power plant in Saudi at their expense without sharing all the technology?   Why not lease the land and sell them the energy or charge them the costs?

Prior to Obama paving Iran's path we were speculating that Bush-Cheney would conduct an Ozarik-like strike on Iran's facilities before they left office and they didn't.  Cheney lost influence in the second term and Bush lost or never had the nerve.  Like Clinton on NK, Bush kicked the can down the road, left the world more dangerous.  Now the goal of non-proliferation is in the rear view mirror.  India needed nuclear because of Pak, or is it the other way around?  Japan needs nuclear because of NK and China.  Saudi because of Iran.  Israel because of existential threat from all directions and so on.  Put all those "secrets" back in the bottle?  Good luck.  I doubt Saudi needs US help.  If snubbed by the US they can change their alliances.

Meanwhile there is a power generation issue on earth between nuclear power and fossil fuels.  Which one is really the existential threat?  IF it really is fossil fuels, we better start building the nuclear plants.

[Crafty_Dog]

Why the U.S. and Saudi Arabia Are Destined to Diverge
By Matthew Bey
Senior Global Analyst, Stratfor
Matthew Bey
Matthew Bey
Senior Global Analyst, Stratfor
U.S. President Donald Trump leads a U.S. delegation at a working lunch with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and his aides.
(KEVIN DIETSCH - Pool/Getty Images)
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Highlights

    The relationship between Saudi Arabia and the United States has long been a volatile one, but that volatility will become more frequent in the coming decades, outgrowing some of the personal relationships that provide its framework today.
    U.S.-Saudi cooperation has always been based on common interests rather than common needs. While those interests have changed over time, they are now entering a phase in which they will not be as closely aligned.
    The shale revolution and its effect on global energy markets is driving Saudi Arabia ever-closer to Russia and China economically and politically.
    An ascendant China will force the United States to complete its pivot toward Asia, with a resulting reduction in the attention it pays toward the Middle East. More and more often, Riyadh will struggle to get on the same page as Washington in balancing against China.

President Donald Trump's current enthusiasm for Saudi Arabia notwithstanding, the relationship between the United States and perhaps its most important ally in the Middle East is undergoing a significant transformation. U.S. political pressure on Saudi Arabia is rising, led by a growing congressional discomfort over the Saudi-led intervention in Yemen and the circumstances surrounding the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, but that is just the tip of the iceberg.

Beneath the surface of the politics of the day, a pair of more significant geopolitical shifts is helping pull the longtime allies apart: the evolution of the global system away from U.S. dominance toward an intensifying, near-peer competition with China, as well as the fundamental reshaping of the global oil and gas markets upon which Saudi Arabia has built its wealth and power. As both countries adjust to these changing dynamics, their shared strategic relationship will evolve away from the foundation of oil, counterterrorism and the mutual desire to contain Iran. It's likely that, as those changes play out, the countries' future priorities will not align as they have in past decades.
The Big Picture

The fundamental relationship between the United States and Saudi Arabia is changing dramatically and will continue to undergo significant shifts over the next two decades. Their alliance has always been beset by complications — becoming downright antagonistic at times — but the distance will only grow as their mutual strategic importance declines in the coming years.
See The U.S. and the Balance of Power
See The Saudi Survival Strategy
A Relationship Built on Pragmatism

Despite their obvious differences, Saudi Arabia and the United States have maintained a nearly eight-decade friendship. From the beginning, the U.S.-Saudi relationship has rested on mutual needs, not necessarily shared values. A meeting in the waning weeks of World War II aboard the USS Quincy between U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt and King Abdulaziz (better known in the West as Ibn Saud) set the stage for their countries' close ties. The stark contrast between the lands that they governed could not have been more apparent. Roosevelt, arguably the leader of the world's most powerful and industrially advanced country, had just attended the Yalta Conference, where he helped decide the postwar future of the globe. King Abdulaziz, on the other hand, came from one of the least developed countries in the Middle East, its oil industry still in its infancy.

Almost three-quarters of a century later, the countries' differences remain just as stark. The United States, which touts one of the world's most liberal economies, is a democracy that prides itself on religious and cultural tolerance. On the other hand, Saudi Arabia, a state that derives legitimacy from a religious foundation, is one of the world's last remaining absolute monarchies with little space for political opposition. Although Saudi Arabia has worked to shed its image of intolerance, there's only so much it can do. Unlike U.S. relationships with allies that possess a shared set of values, such as Canada and the United Kingdom, Saudi-U.S. ties are based on pragmatism at their core. Although they share interests in certain areas, significant disagreements on others will remain.

History has borne this out.

At the time of the USS Quincy meeting, Saudi Arabia had been looking to establish a close alliance with an outside patron capable of pushing back against colonial interests in the Middle East. The United Kingdom, which controlled most of the surrounding Middle Eastern territory, certainly eyed the monarchy's newfound oil reserves. The United States, meanwhile, also wanted access to Saudi Arabia's oil but had little desire to forge a colonial empire. This drove the two together, as did mutual opposition to the rise of communism, which threatened the legitimacy of the monarchy. But their relationship over the next three decades was not without its complications. As far as Saudi Arabia was concerned, the United States would not drop its support for Israel and would not budge far enough on the Palestine issue, eventually leading to two oil embargoes.

The fall of the shah of Iran in 1979 pushed their relationship in a different direction. This time, the United States and Sunni-dominated Saudi Arabia found themselves on the same side of the issue — with the Shiite-led Islamic Republic of Iran on the other. The Americans and the Saudis still were fighting communists, as their cooperation against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan evidenced, although once the Soviet Union collapsed, so did the battle against communism as a unifying priority. Just a few years after the Cold War ended, however, another common foe emerged: Iraq's Saddam Hussein. The Gulf War and subsequent U.S. dual containment policy targeting both Iraq and Iran in the 1990s brought the United States and Saudi Arabia closer together. But other events over the years have also pushed them apart. The Iran-Contra affair complicated the relationship in the 1980s, while the rise of the global jihadist movement emanating from the Wahhabism sect, which is closely identified with Saudi Arabia, added another wrinkle, particularly after 9/11.
This timeline shows key events in the U.S.-Saudi relationship.

For most of their history as allies, Saudi Arabia has needed the United States more than vice versa. From the beginning, King Abdulaziz needed the United States to provide a counterweight to the United Kingdom. Later, the United States provided a powerful buttress girding the monarchy against populist movements, including communism. Today, Saudi Arabia counts on Washington to support its struggle against Iran and help it battle transnational militant groups. At every step, Saudi Arabia has had to appeal to the United States by proving its utility to Washington.
A World that is Shaken, not Stirred

Two significant geopolitical shifts are altering the fundamental way that Saudi Arabia and the United States interact: the dramatic transformation in global energy markets and the rise of China, which is reducing the dominance of the U.S.-led Western order that emerged after the Cold War.

The shale revolution in the United States is driving U.S. crude oil production to record levels — more than 12 million barrels per day (bpd) — far eclipsing the 5 million bpd it produced just a decade ago. Rystad Energy projects that by 2025, the United States will become a net exporter of crude, with production of about 16 million bpd. And 2018 marked the first time in three decades that the United States imported less than 1 million bpd from Saudi Arabia.

Unsurprisingly, the astronomical rise in U.S. oil production has caused major ripples in global oil markets, contributing to the glut that caused oil prices to plummet below $100 a barrel in 2014. Riyadh's desire to balance the increasing U.S. supplies has prompted it to lead the effort by OPEC and other major producers to trim production — something that has driven Saudi Arabia closer to Russia. The close cooperation that both countries must achieve in order to micromanage oil markets is driving their political cooperation on other levels as well.
These graphs show oil production in the United States and Saudi Arabia.

As the United States' thirst for its oil decreases, Saudi Arabia has pivoted more forcefully to Asia to find alternative markets. Increasing Chinese consumption and falling production make it an attractive substitute. Thus, China, along with the rest of Asia, represents Saudi Arabia's oil market of the future. And as with Russia, the growing economic interdependence is driving political cooperation at the highest level between Riyadh and Beijing.

To be clear, even though U.S. dependence on oil from Saudi Arabia and the Middle East has fallen, that does not mean that it is losing significant interest in maintaining stable energy production in the region. Any crisis in the Middle East that would reverberate through the global economy would bring the United States – which is deeply tied to the global financial system – down with it. Beyond 2030, however, even this could shift as alternative energy sources, electric vehicles and battery technology continue to alter the structure of energy geopolitics.
Toward a Multipolar World

After the Cold War ended, the United States was left standing as the global system's dominant power. But with China's emergence, that is evolving into a more multipolar structure, and the United States has, naturally, refocused its attention on countering its rising rival. This includes not only economic competition – as the trade war represents – but also shifting its security posture away from places like the Middle East to free resources to manage the burgeoning great power competition.

In fact, it is this shift in focus, especially the U.S. overtures to Iran under President Barack Obama, that concerns the Saudis the most. For Obama, striking the nuclear deal with Iran meant reducing the risk that yet another Middle Eastern conflict would draw in the United States. But for Saudi Arabia, the deal meant losing its close U.S. support in its campaign against its regional nemesis. With a new administration in the White House came a shift in U.S. attitude back toward more hostile relations with the Islamic republic. Over the next two decades, however, the prospect of at least a partial normalization with Iran will present a tantalizing option for U.S. presidents as national priorities continue to change.

The new normal of relations with the United States will present a difficult adjustment for most regional powers like Saudi Arabia. Absent an emerging need, Riyadh may find itself filling a lesser role in the grand U.S. strategy than it has for nearly a century. Saudi Arabia's increasing economic interconnectivity with China and Russia may also mean that soon, for the first time since that initial meeting between FDR and King Abdulaziz, the kingdom may find itself dropping down the list of U.S. strategic partners.

Unlike U.S. relationships with allies that possess a similar set of values, Saudi-U.S. ties at their core are based on pragmatism.

A Relationship that Bends but not Breaks

Even if Saudi importance in the eyes of the United States declines, their relationship would not necessarily reach a breaking point, but it would certainly become more volatile. Status as a less important partner would mean that the amount of political capital a U.S. president would be willing to invest in Saudi Arabia will decline, both domestically and internationally.

But perhaps the biggest consequence for Saudi Arabia over the next two decades will be the likely inevitability that Tehran and Washington will one day reach some form of understanding. A strategic reversal on Iran would make sense for the United States on several levels as the global picture changes. For one, Iran would be more inclined to cooperate with the United States and India in South and Central Asia, particularly as Pakistan and China's cooperation on the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor deepens. In the short term, progress on the U.S.-Iran relationship is likely to be minimal, but significant generational shifts in both countries will bring to power additional political leaders whose views are not as colored by the immediate events surrounding the Islamic Revolution and subsequent U.S.-Iran hostage crisis. U.S. detente with Iran would allow Tehran to consolidate the regional gains it has made in places like Iraq, meaning that the competition between Iran and Saudi Arabia for regional hegemony would likely increase.

The potential decline of the U.S. role as a security guarantor will continue to force Riyadh to diversify its relationship with the other power poles in the global system. This is already happening in the area of weapons sales. Saudi Arabia is trying to build an indigenous defense industry, and while the United States is reluctant to include the technology transfer rights that would accelerate that process in its arms deals with the kingdom, China and Russia are more than willing to do so. That said, there are significant limitations to how far and how quickly Saudi Arabia can diversify away from U.S. weapons suppliers. Nevertheless, a Saudi turn toward U.S. rivals will certainly alienate Washington, as happened with a drone factory that China built in Saudi Arabia to serve the local market.

Another key area to monitor will be how Saudi Arabia moves forward with its nuclear energy ambitions. It has been negotiating with the United States, China, Russia and others over the construction of nuclear power plants in the country. But the kingdom has demanded that much of the fuel enrichment and reprocessing cycle remain under its control, an idea that has not sat well with Washington over concerns that it could allow Riyadh to develop nuclear weapons. But if the United States is unwilling to budge on its position, Saudi leaders will certainly consider a deal with China or Russia, which may not adhere to the same standards.

The kingdom's human rights record is also likely to increase the distance between Saudi Arabia and the West. The outcry against the Saudi war in Yemen and Khashoggi has been growing in the U.S. Congress. But no real change in Saudi behavior can be expected as long as oil prices remain low and the kingdom continues to struggle to implement long-term economic reform under Saudi Vision 2030. That means that as the U.S. need for a close relationship with Saudi Arabia declines, Washington's responses to such issues are likely to become increasingly harsh.

While the Saudi-U.S. relationship is not destined to crash, it will grow increasingly rocky over the next two decades as the imperatives that brought them together continue to change. The countries will continue to cooperate on key issues, especially if resurgent transnational terrorist groups like Islamic State or al Qaeda target the West, again derailing the U.S. pivot to Asia. But in the end, the Saudi-U.S. relationship will always be defined by mutual interests, not mutual values. That means that as the global system evolves to a place in which neither needs as much from the other, their friendship is unlikely to be as steadfast.

[Crafty_Dog]

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-saudi-nuclear-idUSKCN1R82MG?utm_campaign=trueAnthem%3A+Trending+Content&utm_content=5c9c2c233ed3f0000171fab6&utm_medium=trueAnthem&utm_source=facebook&fbclid=IwAR3eC2AZnarEAJbEH75S4Z2thAu2BEuWfLJSs43GtHxGgbYjjzRrC4ox47k

[Crafty_Dog]

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/members-of-saudi-team-that-killed-khashoggi-received-training-in-us-report/ar-BBVqtsM?ocid=sf

[Crafty_Dog]

Saudi Arabia Is Changing Fast
Social liberalization has outpaced economic reform, but there doesn’t seem to be any turning back.
By Karen Elliott House
Nov. 4, 2019 6:12 pm ET

A woman runs in ‘The Happiest 5K on the Planet,’ in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, Nov. 2. PHOTO: AMR NABIL/ASSOCIATED PRESS
Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

For Saudis these days, life is a roller coaster. Even as Iranian missiles threaten their national security and livelihood, previously unimaginable social freedoms accelerate. All this leaves some Saudis squealing with delight; others are frozen with fright.

During a three-week visit, the public delight is visible everywhere from the capital city to remote rural provinces like Jizan in the south and Tabuk in the north. Teenage Saudi girls scream hysterically at a performance here by the Korean boy band BTS. Young Saudi women with bared faces run a 5K through city streets clad only in short-sleeved T-shirts and tight leggings. Groups of young men and women relax together in Starbucks. Hotels are no longer permitted to ask Saudi couples for proof of marriage at check-in. All this change and more in a society where until very recently women, uniformly clad in floor-length abayas, couldn’t exercise, drive or appear in public with men other than close relatives.

This most puritanical of Islamic societies is increasingly mirroring Western mores as the government seeks to attract foreign tourists and investors whose money is needed to diversify the kingdom’s oil-dependent economy.

The regime no longer worries about the erosion of the kingdom’s distinctive culture. Its view is that in a world of ubiquitous social media all cultures are destined to blend and it is no longer feasible, let alone desirable, for Saudi Arabia to shut itself off from inexorable global trends.

Exactly how this is affecting the average Saudi is difficult to assess. Open debate and discussion aren’t allowed, leaving public opinion in a fog. Some Saudis undoubtedly are frightened by the arrests of even mild dissenters, the violent death of critic Jamal Khashoggi last year, and the public stripping in 2017 of prominent princes’ wealth and right to travel. Such fears are expressed only in deep privacy. The country is operating under what might be called the Thumper Rule, after the little rabbit in “Bambi” whose father teaches him, “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say nothing at all.”

“We are all riding in the back seat of a speeding car,” says one nervous Saudi. “We can’t see where we are going. We just pray the driver knows so we avoid crashing.” This is as close to overt criticism as Saudis dare get these days. Another Saudi sums things up this way: “We used to debate and never decide. Now we”—or rather, the king and crown prince—“decide but never debate.”

There is no doubt that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, 34, effective ruler of the kingdom, has decided to press ahead full speed with economic and social change (the former much tougher than the latter). Nothing will deter him. The crown prince, those close to him say, is absolutely convinced his reforms are essential and urgent. So in his view, debate is pointless. There is no possibility of reversing course—and no apparent concern about a conservative backlash. The once-powerful religious authorities have been reduced to mouthpieces for the regime and are widely ignored by the public. Even immediate foreign threats are more distraction than deterrent to Crown Prince Mohammed’s domestic agenda.

Thus change continues at a dizzying pace. The government is spending billions on bringing entertainment—wrestling, tennis, car racing, expensive restaurants, musical performers—to the kingdom to jump-start tourism. Joining a Saudi family for dinner, I am driven by golf cart through a park to the restaurant by a young Saudi woman with a bare face, cropped hair and no abaya. Such dress or employment for a Saudi woman was unthinkable even a few months ago. “I feel out of place in my own country,” says one Saudi woman in shock at seeing a Lebanese singer entering a Riyadh hotel in a sleeveless midthigh dress. Such “indecency,” unlike dissent, runs no risk these days.

Economic reform, unlike social change, will require massive investment as the nation transforms from an oil-dependent kingdom into a diversified economy. One big step to finance investment is the decision, announced days ago, to sell the public shares in Aramco, the kingdom’s oil company. The main threat to the reform agenda comes not from within Saudi Arabia but from outside. Shortly before dawn on Sept. 14, Iranian missiles and drones struck Saudi oil fields, knocking out 50% of the country’s production. Aramco restored most production within a few weeks, but the strike underscored the vulnerability of the Saudi economy.

“I wept the night of the attack,” admits Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman, the new Saudi oil minister and a half-brother of Crown Prince Mohammed. “The next morning I wept tears of gratitude when our Aramco engineers assured us they could repair things quickly.”

Remarkably, hardly anyone I meet here speaks of the attack on the oil fields. If pressed, almost all Saudis insist the kingdom did the right thing by not retaliating. “We have too much to lose” is the typical comment. The truth is Saudi Arabia is in no position to go to war with Iran even if it were so inclined. The Saudi military is too weak, its U.S. ally too reluctant. And war would spell the end of ambitious domestic reforms.

To rule out retaliation, Saudi government officials insist the attack wasn’t really aimed at Saudi Arabia; they say the kingdom is simply a proxy for Iranian anger at the U.S. “This was not an attack on Saudi Arabia,” says the oil minister, “but an attack on every household in the world.” He insists the Iranians lash out at Saudi Arabia because they are feeling the pain of U.S. economic sanctions but can’t strike the U.S. directly.

Crown Prince Mohammed has privately called the Iran strike “super stupid,” insisting that Tehran, not Riyadh, is the loser. The evidence: Iran is more isolated than ever as Germany, Britain and France all blamed it for the attack—even though Europe hasn’t imposed sanctions on Tehran. Also, Saudi officials say the Houthis, whom Iran blamed for the attack, are now more willing to find a solution to the war in Yemen, which is draining Saudi Arabia’s finances as well as its international reputation. The Saudis are putting the best spin possible on the vulnerability revealed by Iran’s attack, but those at the top seem to believe it.

Meantime, the Saudi government is putting maximum pressure on the U.S. to provide additional military support to the regime. Failure to stand visibly with Saudi Arabia, say officials here, could encourage Iran to strike again and lead to higher oil prices for the U.S. and world-wide. Or the Saudis could opt to price oil in a currency other than the dollar, with severe ramifications for the U.S. and the global economy.

Crown Prince Mohammed is said to have been livid about the slow U.S. reaction but mollified by the Trump administration’s recent decision to dispatch 2,000 additional American troops to Saudi Arabia along with two Patriot missile batteries and a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system, or Thaad. The American buildup looks intended to deter future Iranian aggression, but whether the Trump administration would engage or duck is anyone’s guess given the lack of a formal U.S.-Saudi mutual-security treaty. The Saudis are understandably nervous after President Obama failed to enforce his “red line” in Syria and President Trump made no response to Iran’s downing of an American drone in June or its attack on Aramco six weeks ago.

Ms. House, a former publisher of The Wall Street Journal, is author of “On Saudi Arabia: Its People, Past, Religion, Fault Lines—and Future.”

[Crafty_Dog]

   
    George Friedman's Thoughts: On My Visit to the United Arab Emirates
By: George Friedman

I spent last week in the United Arab Emirates, in the city of Dubai. Dubai sits on the edge of the Persian Gulf, which is called the Arabian Gulf by Arab states. This was not my first trip there, but I have never left the city, which means I have only seen the most modern part of the Arab world. I have only had glimpses of how this city interacts with the much larger part of the country that resembles what we think of when we speak of the Arabian Peninsula. Each time I come here I mention this to my hosts, and each time they want to immediately arrange a tour. There is never enough time, and I always promise them and myself to leave the city. I never have.

The meetings I attended this time were convened by the prime minister’s office, which asked me to speak on the shape of the world next year. I spoke to men in flowing white robes and to women in their covering. There is no doubt that power is held by the men, yet there were women who were ministers, and all spoke fluent English. My initial exposure to the idea of an Arab was the movie “Lawrence of Arabia,” made half a century ago about a time a century ago, celebrating an Englishman who thought he had moved beyond what he was born as to become nearly Arab himself. Lawrence was never an Arab; he was an Englishman trying to become one. Still, through the rich landscape of the movie, it was possible to be both utterly enchanted and thoroughly misled by the movie.
A Space Program on the Gulf
At the very least, even the Arab world moves on. In the midst of the pure white robes, a white I have rarely seen in America, I was introduced to a man who was the head of the United Arab Emirates’ space program. The idea that the UAE has a space program is startling, until you look at the city of Dubai. Wedged between the Gulf and the desert is a city of skyscrapers, all of an aggressively modern architecture. Many years ago, when I passed through the UAE on my way elsewhere, there were some buildings and streets, but in a generation, what has emerged is magnificent for its mere presence, and daunting for its almost inhuman size. I can think of no Arab city that approaches it in size, nor in its indifference to Arab style.
What is most striking is that it is a city that was thrown up with the speed of a Texas city, with little sentiment and no apology. Dubai challenges you to accommodate yourself to it, much as Houston does. Arabs are an enormously polite people. In “Lawrence of Arabia,” the prince comments that mercy is a passion for Lawrence (the Englishman) while for an Arab it is simply good manners; the king asks, which is the more powerful force? The idea of mercy as a matter of custom and propriety is the most striking concept in the movie. While Arabs violate the principle of mercy, as all humans violate their customs, they are as appalled by cruelty as an Englishman is appalled by bad table manners. The manners of those I met were flawless. But they also understand how to wage war, making them very much like the rest of the world.

Therefore, why shouldn’t they have a space program? The Emiratis have one of the most advanced air forces in the world. I also had a nice talk with their minister of artificial intelligence. Few countries have such an air force or such a minister. Why be shocked that they are looking to space, as well? What was interesting about their space program was the reason it began: falcons.

Falconry is a passion of the Arab elite. No matter how well trained, the falcon may choose to go where he will. And finding him is difficult, to say the least. The Emirati space program was started in order to track falcons. Tagging falcons with GPS trackers is one solution. But the Emiratis were more ambitious, wanting to know if the falcon was flying or at rest, and if flying, then at what angle. To do this, they needed to collect data from multiple satellites. The ancient sport of kings merged with the space age, and the man who made it possible spoke to me about his ambitions to put an Emirati satellite in orbit around Mars. He was quite serious, and is already talking to a private U.S. space company. He was not shy of outsourcing the mission and, as is often the case these days, project management is a bigger hurdle than engineering in going to Mars.

Speaking with a man who was dressed in the flowing robes still common in the Emirates, discussing the subtleties of falcons and planning a space mission in a place that had been regarded as hopelessly backward when I was young, reminded me of my age, and of how geopolitics and tradition intertwine, and take on a life of their own.

The Importance of the Strait of Hormuz

The United Arab Emirates rests on a bulge that juts out into the Gulf at the southern edge of the Strait of Hormuz. The northern landmass is Iran. The Persians and Arabs have had a very ancient feud over this waterway, but in the 1970s the Strait of Hormuz became a global issue. In 1971, I was taking a class in operations research required for my military modeling ambitions. My professor, well known for his trips to Washington, informed me that my concerns about the Soviets grabbing the city of Hamburg or China dominating Vietnam were all beside the point, not to mention simplistic. The only really significant point on the global stage, according to him, was the Strait of Hormuz and the countries on either side of it. I thought he was buying the cheap Kool-Aid again.
 
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In 1973, Egypt and Syria attacked Israel, launching the Yom Kippur War. In solidarity with them, other Arab states declared an oil embargo. The price of oil soared, and the consumers of Arabian and Iranian oil were plunged into recession. This created a huge and complex problem for the United States. The countries that had imposed the embargo were also critical U.S. allies against the Soviets – including Iran, which would be a U.S. ally for another six years. Pressuring Arab states on oil prices could give the Soviet Union an opening. Doing nothing might do wonders for oil companies, but would end political careers. The lines waiting for gas at those stations that had any seemed to signal the end of civilization.

The key to this was the Persian (or Arabian) Gulf. The fear was that the oil flowing from Iran (which did not join the boycott but enjoyed the higher prices) and the Arab countries on the Gulf’s western coast (which included the UAE and which were also managing to sell oil at high prices) would have their supply lines cut off at the Strait of Hormuz. If the strait were closed, the effect on the United States’ enclosure of the Soviet Union would be shattered, along with its economy. The only force that could conceivably want to do this and had the ability was the Soviets. So, my professor’s dismissal of Europe turned out to be true. I never asked how he nailed that.
 
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It was at that time that the U.S. became fascinated by both sides of the Strait of Hormuz. After the fall of Iran’s shah, and an early Iranian flirtation with the Soviet Union (or one we thought we saw), holding open the Strait of Hormuz became a central concern for the United States. During the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s, sinking tankers in the Gulf became a pastime. The U.S. was so concerned that it sent in naval convoys to escort tankers out of the Persian Gulf, and frankly stated that if either side attacked the convoys, it would mean war. Not long after, the U.S. did go to war with Iraq, and to this day is still toying with the idea concerning Iran.

The U.S. and Its Strategic Allies

And throughout this time, to this moment, the UAE and the city of Dubai remained key strategic assets to the United States. If Iran could take Dubai, it could block the Strait of Hormuz with little challenge. Today, the U.S. operates a major air base in Dubai, cooperates with the UAE’s air force and collaborates respectfully with the UAE on many fronts. The respect in this collaboration is important: The U.S. has trouble working respectfully with allies (a problem going far back in time), and while Arab states may fear Americans and Europeans, they have difficulty respecting them all the same. Oddly, the collaboration works. (Likely in part because the elevators work well in towering Emirati buildings, and for Americans, respect starts there.)
I have noted on several occasions that, throughout history, being a strategic necessity to the most powerful country in the region, be it Rome or Britain, carried with it some risk but also great rewards. After World War II, Germany, Japan and South Korea all were strategic assets to the U.S. All became enormously wealthy, not simply because they had favorable access to American markets and guaranteed access to natural resources, but also because of their own assets, particularly their human assets. This was not because of any virtue of the United States, but simply because the United States needed them to be strong because they were strategic.

The evolution of Dubai into a world-class city had something to do with this. But the need for the strategic alliance was mutual. The UAE needed the Strait of Hormuz open to sell the massive amounts of oil it had. And the U.S. needed Dubai to be robust. As with all such alliances, the interest was mutual. But Dubai did something unexpected.

Germany drew on its own assets, intellectual and cultural. Dubai, on the other hand, went against its inherent culture. It retained the falconer aristocracy, the desert wanderer seeking to be free to make his own way with his tribe. But Dubai went in a different direction. It understood that it was at the chokepoint of the world economy. It understood that it would be standing watch so long as the petroleum economy existed. And it understood that it had vast wealth to draw on. It proceeded to add to its oil economy and to use its strategic position to dramatically enhance its economy, beyond exporting oil.

Instead of the Emiratis sending their money to the Swiss, the Swiss came to Dubai asking for the money. In leaving the Dubai airport, there is a sign advertising a well-known private Swiss banking service. But Dubai has spent its wealth on real estate development to facilitate its rise as the Switzerland of the Middle East, not only in financial matters, but beyond Switzerland – in taking its ambitions in space.

It struck me on this visit how similar Dubai is to Israel. Both are in a way invented countries. Both are now financial and technical centers. Both have close ties with the United States and the rest of the advanced industrial world. Both retain and struggle with older traditions. Orthodox Jews and devout Muslims both circumscribe what is possible to women. In Dubai, I met a minister dressed in traditional garb. She was not more than 30, and perhaps younger. It reminded me of the first time I ran into an off-duty Israeli officer in a miniskirt. The struggle to retain and overcome their traditional lives ought to bind them together.

At this point, I should say that unfortunately they are torn apart by religion. But, in fact, that’s not true. They are aligned in many ways, from hostility toward Iran to business interests, and they make no bones about it. At one end of the Arabian Peninsula is the UAE. At the other end is Israel. In between there is wreckage and insecurity. I have watched both UAE and Israeli air force demonstrations. In a world where mass armies are less important than the sophistication of precision-guided munitions and acquisition of targeting intelligence, large forces simply represent ample targets. Agile forces with advanced munitions and intelligence will defeat them.

This points to an interesting geopolitical possibility. If Israel is the major economic and military power on the western end of the Arabian Peninsula, and the UAE is the economic and military power in the east, then collaboration between the two of them could define the region. That is shooting from the hip, of course, ignoring Turkey and Iran, or the U.S. and Russia. But after this visit it is less preposterous an idea than in the past. When you meet a man who is using space-based assets to track falcons, do not dismiss its significance.

The Arabian Peninsula was shaped by desert and a hunger for water which combined to create a sparse population clustered in small groups, distrustful of the intentions of others. To this day, the UAE contains rival emirs, who collaborate with one another but do not fully trust each other. But the eastern shore of the Arabian Peninsula is rich with oil, and the waters of the Gulf allow the peninsula’s states to sell that oil to the world. But to be rich and weak is the most dangerous thing in the world. So the Arab states of the peninsula have sought the ability to defend themselves from the world, mostly through dangerous alliances, and a few by creating their own power. But to be powerful in the modern world, you must become part of it, and this is what the UAE has done. It has created its own space program. Even if the program was started to find the falcons.
I repeat the saying of Malraux: Men leave their nations in very national ways.   

[Crafty_Dog]

   
    Saudi Arabia’s Security Dilemma
By: Hilal Khashan

The devastating attack less than two months ago on two major oil facilities near Saudi Aramco’s headquarters in Eastern Province revealed the extent of Saudi Arabia’s vulnerability to foreign threats, as well as its inability to defend itself.

Though the Houthis claimed responsibility for the attack, Saudi and U.S. officials blamed it on Iran. Much to the chagrin of the Saudi royals, U.S. President Donald Trump ruled out military retaliation, and Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan merely offered to help de-escalate the situation. Disillusioned with the unwillingness of its closest allies to respond more aggressively, Saudi officials resigned themselves to their inability to take charge of the situation. King Salman, who accused the Iran-supported Houthis of launching about 600 drones and ballistic missiles into Saudi Arabia in recent years, implored the international community to stop Iran’s aggression. The Saudis now find themselves in an unenviable position: After decades of relying on local and foreign partners to provide for their political and territorial security, they must now use their own resources to ward off the burgeoning threats they face in the Middle East.

Origins of the Dilemma

Saudi Arabia’s inadequacies when it comes to self-defense are a result of centuries of poor defense planning and lack of foresight. The rise in 1744 of the first Saudi state that aspired to expand beyond Arabia resulted from Muhammad bin Saud’s alliance with Muhammad bin Abdulwahab, the founder of the religiously austere Wahhabi movement. Wary Ottoman officials instructed closely allied Egypt to put an end to territorial and ideological threats emanating from Arabia. In 1818, Ibrahim Pasha’s army conquered the Saudi state and destroyed its capital, Diriyah. The second Saudi state, founded in 1824 by Turki bin Abdullah, made modest territorial claims but became incapacitated by internal feuds. In 1891, the pro-Ottoman Rashidi family took down the new Saudi state in the Battle of Mulayda. The Ottomans arranged for deposed ruler Abdulrahman al-Saud to settle in Kuwait in the hope that they could bring him under their wing, a move that the British did not oppose since they believed he could be useful in their plans for Arabia. His energetic son Abdulaziz, aka Ibn Saud, seized Riyadh in 1902 and set the stage for the emergence of the third Saudi state in 1932 with the establishment of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, which he ruled until his death in 1953.

In order to avoid facing the same fate as the first two Saudi states, Ibn Saud understood that he needed the backing of a foreign power superior to the Ottoman Empire. He also understood that, if he was to achieve his territorial objectives, he would need a robust military force to replace the corrupt and untrustworthy tribal fighters. In 1912, he formed a Wahhabi indoctrinated military force called al-Ikhwan. It proved instrumental in enabling him to spread his control over four-fifths of the Arabian Peninsula from the Persian Gulf to the Red Sea, and from British-held Iraq and Trans-Jordan in the north to Jizan and Najran in the south.

Thanks to British military and financial support, al-Ikhwan seized the Eastern Province and expanded Ibn Saud’s emirate beyond Najd. Sensing the impending demise of the Ottoman Empire and content with the battlefield impact of British aid, Ibn Saud signed in 1915 the Treaty of Darin with the United Kingdom. In addition to providing additional material resources to satisfy Ibn Saud’s ambitions, the treaty made his burgeoning state a British protectorate.

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The defeat of the Ottoman Empire in the First World War and its loss of Arab lands in West Asia created opportunities and challenges both for the British and Ibn Saud. Britain consolidated its grip on the tiny Arab sheikhdoms on the Persian Gulf, in addition to seizing Iraq and Palestine. But al-Ikhwan’s recurring raids on Iraqi Shiite religious sites in Najaf and Karaba created significant security issues for the British, who were also under pressure from Sharif Hussein, the king of Hejaz, to deliver on their promise to create an Arab kingdom in West Asia. The British struck a deal with Ibn Saud in the Uqair Protocol of 1922 to prevent al-Ikhwan from going into Iraq and Trans-Jordan, with the tacit understanding that they would not oppose his plans to conquer Hejaz.

Unlike Sharif Hussein, who entertained more ambitious territorial claims beyond the Arabian Peninsula, Ibn Saud had no desire to spread his kingdom outside Arabia and accepted British conditions to stay out of Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, the Trucial States, Oman and Yemen. Just before his kingdom was complete, Ibn Saud proposed in 1930 signing a treaty of friendship with Iran. Reza Shah, who did not want to develop a special relationship between the two countries, humiliated him by rejecting the proposal.

Ibn Saud did not like the British, even though they facilitated the establishment of his kingdom. He viewed their commitment to the Saudis as vague and fluid and resented their refusal to invest in Saudi Arabia’s promising oil industry. The Saudi king preferred to work with the Americans, who seemed to him to be generous, approachable and willing to take a calculated risk. In 1933, he signed a deal with Standard Oil of California, which ultimately struck oil in 1938. The momentous discovery paved the way in 1945 for a meeting between U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt and Ibn Saud aboard the USS Quincy. Subsequent developments in the Middle East showed that the two leaders had different expectations out of their historic meeting. Roosevelt’s focus was on Saudi Arabia’s spectacular hydrocarbon finds and the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine, particularly after the horrors of the Holocaust were revealed. Ibn Saud, meanwhile, hoped that the United States would unconditionally defend Saudi Arabia against foreign threats in exchange for partnership on oil projects.


The unwillingness of the United States to side with Saudi Arabia in its 1952-55 dispute with British-backed tribes in Oman and the Trucial States (now UAE) over the Buraimi Oasis and its recognition in 1962 of the republican order in Yemen outraged the Saudi royals. They became particularly disillusioned with Washington after President John F. Kennedy did not take action against Egyptian air force raids on the Saudi cities of Najran and Jizan, save for some symbolic U.S. Air Force flights over Riyadh and Jeddah. Already threatened by the surge of Arab nationalism and the rise of leftist political parties, Saudi Arabia decided to adopt an aggressive regional policy to insulate the fragile kingdom from the implications of these emerging ideologies.

Failure of Regional Balancing Policy

In the 1950s, the Saudi royals feared that Aramco could serve as a hotbed of leftist and pan-Arab political affiliations. Though they valued its massive contribution to the country’s economy, they realized that Aramco functioned both as an oil company and a cultural center. The presence of thousands of politicized Arab workers, mainly Palestinians, Syrians, Sudanese and Bahrainis, proved decisive in mobilizing fellow Saudi workers in political parties and in labor movements. The liberalizing threat from within clashed with the patrimonial and ultraconservative nature of Saudi politics.

Saudi kings from the beginning of Saud bin Abdulaziz’s rule in 1953 until the death of King Abdullah in 2015 adopted a preemptive policy of intervening in inter-Arab affairs to defeat leftist and nationalist ideologies and to prevent Egypt and Iraq from dominating the Arab world, which would have compromised the kingdom’s stability. Thus, Saudi Arabia, along with Egypt, opposed the Baghdad Pact – a military alliance established in 1955 between several Middle Eastern states and the United Kingdom – because it would have enabled Iraq to emerge as the most influential Arab country. Iraq pulled out from the pact, renamed the Central Treaty Organization, after its 1958 republican coup.

The Saudis shifted their concern to Egypt after it merged during the same year with Syria to form the United Arab Republic. The Saudis even attempted to assassinate President Gamal Abdel Nasser, who rose to become the uncontested champion of Arab nationalism. But a year after the 1961 dissolution of the UAR, a republican coup took place in Yemen, and its leaders appealed to Nasser to send troops to consolidate their hold on the country. The stationing of the Egyptian army in Yemen, next to Saudi Arabia’s southern borders, and the defection of several Saudi air force pilots to Egypt, including the air force commander, sparked shock and fear within the Saudi royal family.

The 1967 Six-Day War in which Israel won a spectacular victory against the combined Arab armies of Egypt, Syria and Jordan led to the withdrawal of the Egyptian military from Yemen by the end of the year. For a decade afterward, the Saudi ruling elite rested assured about the absence of foreign threats to the kingdom’s stability. Yet, they acted swiftly to clamp down on internal dissent movements that threatened to bring down the third Saudi state. Examples of this dissent in the 1960s included the rise of the Free Princes Movement, led by Talal bin Abdulaziz, who demanded the transformation of Saudi Arabia into a constitutional monarchy, and a coup attempt in 1969. The 1970s saw the assassination of King Faisal in 1975, the seizure of the Grand Mosque in Mecca in 1979 by ultra-conservative Salafists and a Shiite mutiny in the Eastern Province.

The rise of the Islamic republic in Iran in 1979 and its aggressive goal of exporting its revolution to the Arab world placed Iraq and Saudi Arabia at the center of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s foreign policy. Instead of creating a unified Arab military coalition to deter Iran, the Saudis injudiciously pushed Iraq to wage a seamless war against it. One year into the quagmire, the Saudis took the lead in establishing the Gulf Cooperation Council, which the small Arab states in the Gulf joined reluctantly, despite their fears of Saudi dominance. The exclusion of Iraq from the GCC indicated that the Saudis feared the Baathist regime in Baghdad as much as Iran’s Islamic republic. The GCC failed to create a viable military force capable of deterring foreign threats, and despite allocating astronomical funds to armament, the Saudi armed forces remained a paper tiger at best.

The Saudi royals have over the years displayed inadequate analytical depth and foresight. They turned Iraq against Iran in the 1980-88 war, did not use their leverage to prevent the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990 and then planned with the United States to go to war to reinstate the independence of Kuwait. Immediately after the end of the 1991 Gulf War, Egypt and Syria committed themselves in the Damascus Declaration to preserve the territorial integrity of GCC member states, but Saudi Arabia dismissed the declaration’s offer of protection, unwilling to host Arab troops on its soil on a long-term basis.

When the Syrian uprising of 2011 turned into a civil war, Saudi Arabia hoped it would lead to the fall of the pro-Iran regime in Damascus. In 2013, it participated in the U.S.-led Military Operations Center, which armed Syrian opposition groups operating in southwest Syria. The primary motives of other participants in the MOC – including the U.S., Jordan and the UAE – centered on defeating radical Islamic rebels, not Bashar Assad’s regime. The MOC, therefore, played a decisive role in the collapse of the Saudi-backed Southern Front.

Impromptu decisions based on a lack of nuanced understanding of the determinants of foreign policy have often trapped Saudi decision-makers. In fact, their decision to go to war in Yemen has been more disastrous than even their operations in Syria. Yemen has humbled many foreign powers in the past, and Saudi Arabia is no exception. Saudi Arabia has not been able to raise a fighting army since modern British weapons made it possible for Ibn Saud to defeat the camel-riding al-Ikhwan desert warriors in the 1929 Battle of Sibilla. Its military weakness, xenophobic suspicion of its neighbors and crude diplomatic behavior not only blocked its claim to regional power status but threaten its very survival in the long run.   

[Crafty_Dog]

https://www.meforum.org/60297/saudi-critics-should-revisit-sue-myrick-wake-up?utm_source=Middle+East+Forum&utm_campaign=b501e4bdca-MEF_Caschetta_2020_01_17_08_18&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_086cfd423c-b501e4bdca-33691909&goal=0_086cfd423c-b501e4bdca-33691909&mc_cid=b501e4bdca

[G M]

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-07/saudi-aramco-slashes-crude-prices-kicking-off-price-war

[Crafty_Dog]

May 29, 2020   View On Website
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Saudi’s City of the Future Is a Mirage
By: Hilal Khashan

In October 2017, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman launched the New Future project, his vision of what would drive Saudi economic development in the post-oil era. The project, thereafter dubbed Neom, is a novel idea as far as the Saudis go; it’s a far cry from Prince Mohammed al-Faisal’s idea in 1977 to tow a 100 million-ton iceberg to the desert to solve a water shortage problem. But whereas the oil boom dashed al-Faisal’s iceberg dreams, the oil bust has convinced Salman that the future of Saudi prosperity lies in other industries, even a futuristic city that is believed to cost $500 billion.

The Case for Neom

The idea behind the city is to concentrate development and thus foster the accumulation of wealth and ensure the sustainability of growth. Each city would comprise an integrated metropolis consisting of economic clusters equipped with modern facilities providing services, logistics and residential quarters. The Saudis argue that economic cities such as Neom have a competitive edge because they attract capital for intelligent investments, largely because they require advanced digital and technological systems. The project, which would cover more than 26,000 square kilometers (10,000 square miles) of waterfront property near Jordan and Egypt, will also focus on renewable energy, water desalination, transport, food production and manufacturing, technical and digital science, advanced industrialization, media production, and recreation. As part of the framework for Vision 2030, Neom aims to transform Saudi Arabia into a cultural model worth emulating.

The Saudi Public Investment Fund, which owns the project, is marketing it as an ultramodern technological achievement found nowhere else on Earth. Promotional efforts also note that 70 percent of the world’s population would be able to access the city in less than eight hours, thanks to King Salman’s causeway that will connect Neom to Africa and Europe via Sinai. As a unique investment region, the project is exempt from Saudi laws and regulations, such as taxes, customs, and labor laws, and so is designed to attract more foreign direct investment. The execution of the first phase of the project is slated for 2025, and it will take 30-50 years to complete.

But the case for Neom is born of necessity as much as it is of ambition. Saudi Arabia has compelling reasons to search for new sources of revenue. Oil exports account for 87 percent of total exports, 70 percent of the budget, and 46 percent of gross domestic product. The advent of alternative energy sources such as electric cars is expected to dramatically reduce demand for hydrocarbons by 2025. Oil revenues are expected to drop by 33 percent in 2020 and 25 percent in 2021. The economy, therefore, is vulnerable to vagaries in the market, and always will be so long as it relies overwhelmingly on oil.
 
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Even now, the budget deficit continues to grow, leading to further borrowing and excessive debt levels. The last annual budget deficit exceeded $100 billion. Saudi Arabia has lost more than one-third of its foreign reserves since 2014. The most dramatic decrease occurred in March this year, with a $24 billion loss. The public sector is bloated, and the cost of maintaining it is high. The country’s expensive military expenditures are meaningless since it is unable to defend itself against foreign threats.

Economic diversification is a necessity because it reduces the financial consequences of fluctuating demand for hydrocarbons and unstable oil prices. Economic cities are Riyadh’s way of empowering the private sector and the long-sought-after solution to the dilemma of development.
 
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Indeed, Neom intends to achieve what 10 previous plans tried and failed to: economic development. Riyadh’s first five-year development plan, which meant to transform the kingdom into a welfare state, started in 1970. The second and third development plans focused on building the infrastructure of economic development. From the fourth through the ninth development plans (1985-2014), Saudi Arabia emphasized domesticating the workforce and focusing on human resource development. Government efforts encountered resistance because of public preference to seek employment in the public sector and aversion to manual or skilled labor and any position that assumed responsibility for making decisions.

The 10th development plan (2015-2019) set the stage for initiating the Neom project. It outlined the intention of transforming the kingdom into an international logistic center and launching grand economic initiatives without compromising Islam’s foundational values and tenets. In keeping with growing public demand and international pressure for political change, the plan paid lip service to the importance of citizenship and national belonging, strengthening the principles of justice and equality, and protection of human rights in accordance with Sharia law.

The 10th plan built on the principles of previous plans – that is, the exploration and development of economic diversification opportunities, investment in less water-intensive crops, development of a fisheries sector, and increasing human resource efficiency – though it differs in that it calls for the spread of information throughout the population, the activation of the role of economic cities, and the return of migrant capital to invest in productive sectors. It is also, notably, built on ideas introduced in the seventh and eighth development plans, which recognized that cities could create the economic development Riyadh needs. This is embodied in the creation of King Abdullah Economic City, north of Jeddah, in 2005 at an estimated cost of $100 billion. The blueprint of the project included the construction of a container harbor and an industrial valley and the expectation that it would create 1 million jobs. Other planned economic cities in the Northern Borders province and Jizan region concentrate on agriculture, food canning, vocational training, and storage. The government proposed that the economic cities in Mecca and Medina serve pilgrims in undertaking religious rites and providing high-end shopping. But these cities have either stumbled or atrophied, making Neom all the more consequential.

Science Fiction

Neom is a high-tech project that intends to provide advanced IT solutions. But its success is questionable in a country that scores low on the key indicators of a knowledge-based economy: skilled labor, incentives and motivation. Jamal Khashoggi, for example, was critical of Salman’s megaprojects, calling on him to launch smaller projects for the poor in Riyadh and Jeddah instead of complicated endeavors that don’t benefit local workers. He was killed inside a Saudi consulate in Istanbul in October 2018.

Saudi Arabia is also very censorial, curbing what its subjects are allowed to access via the internet and making sure that connections are always slow. The free and uninterrupted flow of information is crucial in developing independent and critical thinking that Saudi formal education views with disfavor. Neom cannot possibly thrive in a politically repressive and culturally closed environment.

Then there is the pesky problem of financing. Saudi Arabia’s finance minister recently announced that the country would implement painful measures to slash public expenses, given the dramatic decline in oil revenues due to the coronavirus pandemic. The minister’s announcement led to a sharp decline of over 7 percent in the Saudi stock market. The unprecedented oil slump prompted Moody’s to downgrade Saudi outlook from stable to negative. It is difficult to imagine that the Saudis can lure foreign investment to take part in Neom under the existing financial, social and political conditions.

And even if they can, Neom is like a mirage in the desert. The project does not differ fundamentally from similar initiatives in the United Arab Emirates and Qatar. The Port of Jebel Ali (Dubai) and the Hamad Port (Doha) are world-class seaports. The two countries have premier international airlines that Neom cannot dislodge. Contrary to Saudi Arabia’s promotion of Neom as a site that straddles three continents, its location, surrounded by a vast swathe of barren desert, has no unique value. If anything, it would cripple the flagging Jordanian economy and destroy its tourism sector, as well as Egyptian resorts in South Sinai. Neom is just too much for the Middle East and way beyond what it needs.

The risks associated with the implementation of the project are high, and its outcome is unpredictable. The Neom scheme is unsustainable and potentially catastrophic. The introduction of flying taxis and robots capable of performing any task nullifies the claim that Neom would create millions of jobs. Saudi Arabia needs to import all the required technology to transform Neom into a reality, which is too costly to make the project feasible, especially with unclear benefits. The plan does not benefit the local population that the government is coercing to vacate land needed for the project. Recently, the security forces killed a resident from the Huwaitat tribe because he refused to abandon his house and relocate.

In short, Neom is a project inspired by science fiction. It seems to have been influenced by the gated communities that American and British companies built in Saudi Arabia to keep their personnel disconnected from the locals. In November 2017, Salman ordered the arrest of hundreds of prominent Saudi princes and businessmen on the grounds of money laundering, embezzlement of public funds and corruption. He subsequently announced recovering $50 billion to the state’s coffers, ostensibly contributing to development projects like Neom. He expected to get a similar amount before closing the Ritz-Carlton dossier. There is little evidence that Neom is progressing except for the construction of five gigantic royal palaces serviced by a private airport and 10 helipads.   

[Crafty_Dog]

Saudi Arabia, With China’s Help, Expands Its Nuclear Program
Kingdom harbors hopes for a civilian nuclear power program, but U.S. critics worry about its ambitions for nuclear weapons

Al Ula is a small city in northwest Saudi Arabia. The kingdom is said to be constructing a facility for extracting uranium yellowcake in a remote desert location in the city’s general vicinity.
PHOTO: AHMED YOSRI/REUTERS
By Warren P. Strobel, Michael R. Gordon and Felicia Schwartz
Aug. 4, 2020 5:14 pm ET
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WASHINGTON—Saudi Arabia has constructed with Chinese help a facility for extracting uranium yellowcake from uranium ore, an advance in the oil-rich kingdom’s drive to master nuclear technology, according to Western officials with knowledge of the site.

The facility, which hasn’t been publicly disclosed, is in a sparsely populated area in Saudi Arabia’s northwest and has raised concern among U.S. and allied officials that the kingdom’s nascent nuclear program is moving ahead and that Riyadh is keeping open the option of developing nuclear weapons.

Even though Riyadh is still far from that point, the facility’s exposure appears certain to draw concern in the U.S. Congress, where a bipartisan group of lawmakers has expressed alarm about Saudi nuclear energy plans and about Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s 2018 vow that “if Iran developed a nuclear bomb, we will follow suit as soon as possible.”

It is also likely to cause consternation in Israel, where officials have warily monitored Saudi Arabia’s nuclear work.


Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman attended a Group of 20 summit in Hangzhou, China, in 2016.
PHOTO: STEPHANE DE SAKUTIN/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES
The Saudi Energy Ministry said in a statement it “categorically denies” having built a uranium ore facility in the area described by some of the Western officials, adding that mineral extraction—including uranium—is a key part of the country’s economic diversification strategy.

The Saudi statement said the kingdom has contracted with the Chinese on uranium exploration in Saudi Arabia in certain areas. A spokesman declined to elaborate on the ministry’s statement.

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Saudi Arabia has no known nuclear-weapons program, operating nuclear reactors or capacity to enrich uranium. But it says it wants to acquire nuclear plants that Saudi authorities say will generate power and reduce its reliance on oil, its principal export.

Information about the yellowcake facility has been tightly held within U.S. and allied governments, the officials said, and some details couldn’t be learned—including whether it has begun operations. The site doesn’t violate international agreements the Saudis have signed, experts on nuclear nonproliferation said.

“Yellowcake” is a milled form of uranium ore which occurs naturally in Saudi Arabia and neighboring countries such as Jordan. It is produced by chemically processing uranium ore into a fine powder. It takes multiple additional steps and technology to process and enrich uranium sufficiently for it to power a civil nuclear energy plant. At very high enrichment levels, uranium can fuel a nuclear weapon.

The yellowcake facility may represent the kingdom’s “longer-term hedge against a nuclear Iran,” said Ian Stewart, of the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies. It is “another step in the direction of having an indigenous uranium enrichment program,” he added.

Olli Heinonen, the former deputy director of the International Atomic Energy Agency who is at the Stimson Center think tank, agreed the facility’s construction suggested the Saudis were trying to keep their options open. He said the yellowcake facility alone wouldn’t mark a significant advance unless the yellowcake is converted into a compound known as uranium hexafluoride and then enriched.

But Mr. Heinonen said of the Saudis, “Where is the transparency? If you claim your program is peaceful, why not show what you have?”

The Chinese embassy in Washington didn’t respond to a request for comment. Iran has denied it is interested in developing nuclear weapons. Iranian officials didn’t respond to a request for comment.

A State Department representative declined to say whether Washington has raised the issue with Riyadh, but said the U.S. has warned all its partners about the danger of engagement with China’s civilian nuclear establishment.

One Western official said the facility is located in a remote desert location in the general vicinity of al Ula, a small city in northwest Saudi Arabia.

Two officials said it was constructed with the help of two Chinese entities. While the identities of these entities couldn’t be learned, the China National Nuclear Corp. signed a memorandum of understanding with Saudi Arabia in 2017 to help explore its uranium deposits. A second agreement was signed with China Nuclear Engineering Group Corp. That followed a 2012 pact announced between Riyadh and Beijing to cooperate on peaceful uses of nuclear energy.

Saudi Arabia only has the most limited safeguards agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency. The country was among the last to sign the old version of a so-called Small Quantities Protocol in the 2000s, which doesn’t oblige it to disclose the yellowcake site to the agency.

The IAEA and Saudi Arabia have talked about replacing that agreement, although Riyadh hasn’t committed to the most advanced type of IAEA oversight accord. Known as the Additional Protocol, it allows widespread inspection of nuclear and nonnuclear facilities and has extensive reporting requirements.


The Vienna headquarters of the International Atomic Energy Agency, which enacts safeguards against nuclear weapons proliferation.
PHOTO: CHRISTIAN BRUNA/EPA/SHUTTERSTOCK
As of early 2020, more than 150 countries—including the U.S. and Iran, but not Israel—have signed Additional Protocols, according to the IAEA, which promotes peaceful uses of nuclear energy and enacts safeguards against nuclear weapons proliferation.

The Saudi Energy Ministry’s statement said the kingdom’s “nuclear program fully complies with all relevant international legal frameworks and instruments governing nuclear energy and its peaceful use.”

The Trump administration has discussed selling reactors and nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia, a close security ally. But U.S. arms-control negotiator Marshall Billingslea, restating U.S. policy, said at a July 21 congressional hearing that Saudi Arabia must first agree to requirements known as the “Gold Standard” of nuclear oversight.

That means the kingdom would need to forswear the enrichment of uranium, which is several steps beyond producing yellowcake. It also would need to refrain from reprocessing spent fuel, which could enable a nation to develop nuclear weapons, and would need to sign the IAEA Additional Protocol.

“The reason we do nuclear technology development deals with countries is so that they will commit to the Gold Standard and commit to a working relationship with the United States. The Saudis are trying to have it both ways, and we can’t allow them to get away with that,” Sen. Chris Murphy (D., Conn.), said in an interview.

“My guess is that one of the reasons to go to the Chinese is that it doesn’t come with the same controls that coordination with the United States does,” Mr. Murphy said.

The Saudis haven’t ruled out enriching uranium, even as they have insisted that any nuclear program they pursue will be peaceful.

The King Abdullah City for Atomic and Renewable Energy, which oversees such work, states on its website “Saudi Arabia has Uranium resources that can be used to produce nuclear fuel for future National power reactors and for [the] uranium international market.”

Riyadh has expressed a desire to master all aspects of the nuclear fuel cycle. It is constructing with Argentina’s state-owned nuclear technology company a small research reactor outside of Riyadh.

In recent years, the Saudis have significantly expanded their nuclear workforce, experts say, through academic nuclear engineering programs and growing research centers.

In addition to its agreement with Argentina, the Saudis are collaborating with South Korea in refining the design of a small commercial reactor to be built in Saudi Arabia, and that could also be marketed to other nations in the Middle East and Southeast Asia. It also has public cooperation agreements with Jordan on uranium mining and production.

Plans to issue tenders to construct its first two large nuclear power reactors, however, have repeatedly been delayed.

Israel, which doesn’t acknowledge its own nuclear weapons arsenal, has long been concerned about nuclear proliferation in the region.

“Every year or so we learn something new about Saudi’s nuclear appetite. It seems very big and if you combine their fears of Iran, fear of neglect by the U.S., their abundance of resources and the current management in Saudi Arabia, it’s quite dangerous,” said Yoel Guzansky, an expert on Israel’s relations in the region at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv.

—Laurence Norman, Stephen Kalin and Gordon Lubold contributed to this article.

[Crafty_Dog]

   
Saudi Arabia on the Brink of a Breakthrough
Its economy in trouble and its regional leadership challenged, Riyadh is in talks that would reshape the Middle East.
By: Caroline D. Rose

In the final weeks of November, Saudi Arabia’s foreign policy machine went into overdrive. Riyadh announced a series of defense and commercial agreements strengthening bilateral ties with Egypt, Iraq and the United States. But while Saudi diplomats were traveling around to increase Saudi Arabia’s influence in the Greater Middle East, recent meetings between Saudi and U.S. officials may well lead to a breakthrough closer to home in the Gulf.

A U.S. delegation visit to Riyadh during the first week of December seeks to hit two birds with one stone: putting an end to the more than three-year crisis between Gulf countries and Qatar, and starting the process of diplomatic normalization between Saudi Arabia and Israel. While the United States has had success getting countries like Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates to adjust their regional diplomatic policy, the Saudis have been the hardest to budge. The kingdom considers itself the natural, de facto leader of the Gulf and Sunni Arab world, and for some time reckoned it could not afford to lose political credibility by realigning itself with a historical rival (Israel) and a neighbor (Qatar) whose brand of religious ideology and independent foreign policy are considered a threat to Saudi regional influence. But a breakthrough is more likely than ever, as a combination of waning regional influence, financial constraints and shifting fault lines in the Middle East push Saudi Arabia to explore normalization with Israel and Qatar.

Leadership Contest

Saudi Arabia has traditionally been considered the effective ideological and religious leader of the Sunni Arab world. The country’s vast oil wealth, combined with its custodianship over Islam’s holiest cities, Mecca and Medina, and location at the crossroads of Red Sea and Persian Gulf trade routes, make it a natural Gulf power. Saudi Arabia was at the forefront of the Middle East’s modern political rifts, considering itself the moral and religious guardian of the Arab world in opposing Israeli annexations, upholding the Palestinian cause, taking the reins of the Arab League and Gulf Cooperation Council, and later, in the years after the 1979 Iranian Revolution, leading its Sunni allies in countering Iran’s Shiite Crescent strategy.

But Saudi Arabia’s star is dimming. The kingdom’s over-reliance on its oil industry (where prices are stubbornly low due to COVID-19 and oversupply), demographic challenges, and a 2030 Vision reform program on shaky ground have chipped away at its regional credibility and relative strength with its neighbors. Additionally, the al-Saud royal family’s record on human rights and the country’s war in Yemen have alienated traditional partners like the U.S. and the EU. All the while, the UAE – a country less than 4 percent the size of Saudi Arabia – has made a series of ambitious foreign policy moves that have begun to overshadow Saudi Arabia as regional leader. The UAE has taken the lead in the ideological battle on political Islamism: Abu Dhabi has reportedly funded mercenaries and has armed the Libyan National Army against the Turkish- and Qatari-backed Government of National Accord in Libya; has been at the forefront of strengthening Gulf ties through the Eastern Mediterranean Gas Forum against Turkish expansionism in the Mediterranean; and, notably, was the first among its Gulf neighbors to initiate peace with Israel this year. Gone are the days when Riyadh could depend on its cultural soft power to maintain its Gulf hegemony and regional leadership.

While the Saudis have been on the sidelines, their Gulf peers have seen a flurry of economic and political opportunities from normalizing ties with Israel. In the four months since Israel and the UAE reached their agreement, they have signed a string of memorandums of understanding on banking and finance, commerce and trade infrastructure, and even an oil pipeline deal worth as much as $800 million that would transport Emirati oil to Europe via Israel’s ports of Eilat and Ashkelon. Bahrain, which also normalized ties with Israel, hasn’t been far behind, inking business cooperation deals with Israel’s Chamber of Commerce and aviation agreements. Both countries have proved that normalization can bring economic rewards at a time when most Gulf economies, particularly Saudi Arabia, desperately need diversification.

Riyadh is therefore in discussions with Washington about rapprochement with Israel. At first, Saudi Arabia worried that normalization with Israel would risk its regional legitimacy, but now it’s considering that the reverse may be true. An Israeli-Saudi peace deal could help Saudi Arabia catch up to its Emirati neighbor with a series of investment, commercial and infrastructure agreements that would create new regional trade and financial hubs between the Red Sea and the Mediterranean. The U.S. and Israel have also reportedly hinted that joint custodianship over Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque would be on the table – something that would enhance Saudi Arabia’s reputation as the Islamic world’s religious guardian (but could also cause tensions with Jordan, the current sole custodian of Al-Aqsa). And, importantly, Riyadh would look to use normalization to position itself as a mediator for an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal, which would score it major points among regional partners, the U.S. and the international community. For the kingdom, the political short-term and economic long-term payoffs are worth the risk of changing its traditional stance.

Countering Iran and Turkey

Political credibility and economic opportunity aside, the kingdom has another significant reason for normalization. By realigning with Israel and Qatar, Saudi Arabia and its Gulf partners would be able to further isolate two of their primary rivals in the region: Iran and Turkey.

For Israel and Saudi Arabia, Iran is a common enemy. As Iran has augmented its strategic depth in the region over the years, building a proxy network that extends from the Zagros Mountains to the Red Sea and Mediterranean, Saudi Arabia and Israel have found greater incentive to work together. Over the past two decades, the two countries expanded cooperation and intelligence-sharing behind closed doors, keeping relations ice-cold only on the surface. But as the Gulf begins to open up toward Israel, Saudi Arabia has an opportunity to expand its coalition against Iran beyond traditional Sunni Arab lines and include one of the top military powers in the region in its circle.

The same logic applies to the Gulf Cooperation Council’s broadening campaign against Turkish influence in the region. As Turkey has gotten more deliberate about expanding its influence and control, Saudi Arabia and its Gulf counterparts are recognizing that they share an interest with Israel in opposing Turkish expansionism. Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt and their Gulf partners (excluding Qatar, of course) have been vocal opponents of Turkey, accusing the ruling Justice and Development Party of supporting political Islamist movements like the Muslim Brotherhood. And for Saudi Arabia in particular, Turkey’s neo-Ottoman approach and brand of Islamic identity politics is seen as a challenge to its leadership over the Sunni Muslim world. Meanwhile, Israel has had hostile relations with Turkey since the 2010 Gaza flotilla incident and has become engaged in an ideological war of words with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan over the status of Palestine. Israel has resented Turkish attempts to take up the torch of the Palestinian cause over the years; Ankara in September hosted mediation discussions between rival Palestinian factions, Hamas and Fatah, to encourage unity against Israel, and has been a vocal opponent of Israeli annexations and Israeli peace deals with Arab Gulf states. Israel is also a member of the Eastern Mediterranean Gas Forum, an emerging regional coalition that Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Gulf partners have begun to align with to amplify opposition to Turkish moves over maritime territory. When strategizing its next step against Turkey, Saudi Arabia is beginning to accept Israel as a natural partner.

Then there is the question of Qatar. Normalization with Qatar offers a different, but more delicate, opportunity for Saudi Arabia. Doha has a relatively positive relationship with Iran and an intimate partnership with Turkey, as well as a Sunni ideological platform that runs counter to Saudi domestic interests. Saudi Arabia and its Gulf partners have criticized Qatar for alleged support of Islamist groups like the Muslim Brotherhood and have framed Qatar as an agent of foreign efforts to thwart regional stability through Islamist infiltration. Of course, intra-Gulf tensions infamously came to a head in 2017 when Gulf states severed diplomatic relations with Doha and enacted an air, sea and land blockade, isolating Qatar from its former Gulf allies. The ideological rivalry has by no means abated, particularly as Saudi Arabia and the UAE have countered Qatari influence in new theaters like Libya and have continued to accuse Doha of supporting Islamists. Shortly after the 2017 blockade, Qatar normalized relations with Iran and enhanced bilateral trade in gas and shipping. And since the diplomatic crisis, Qatar has become Turkey’s most reliable regional ally, offering Ankara financial relief through currency swap deals, investing in joint defense projects abroad and boosting trade relations. Unlike Israel, Qatar does not seem like a natural partner in broadening the regional coalition against Iran and Turkey. However, it could serve as a useful agent to isolate Saudi Arabia’s rivals.

As the sun sets on the current U.S. administration and Trump’s Middle East team scrambles to assemble a series of legacy-sealing deals before Jan. 20, 2021, Riyadh sees space for maneuver. By extending an olive branch and lobbying the U.S. to apply pressure on Doha, Saudi Arabia and its Gulf partners are working to rein in Qatari influence and convince it to end its engagement with Iran and Turkey. While the exact details of what a deal would look like are uncertain, Gulf countries have insisted since 2017 on a 13-point ultimatum that includes demands to close a Turkish military base on Qatari soil, sever all ties with the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamist groups, shut down diplomatic posts in Iran and limit Iranian-Qatari ties to trade and commerce that strictly complies with U.S. sanctions. Though Qatar has been reluctant to yield to these demands, the incentives for re-initiating relations with its Gulf neighbors are increasing. Thanks to Qatar’s mammoth-size gas reserves (the third largest in the world), ramped up domestic production, and boosted economic ties with the U.S. and Turkey, the 2017 blockade didn’t entirely devastate the Qatari economy. However, the logistical issues remain as Qatar is cut off from the countries where 60 percent of its imports (namely food and supplies) transit through. While Turkey and Iran have served as alternative supply routes, resolving the crisis with the Gulf Cooperation Council countries would ease these logistical conundrums as well as reintroduce Qatar into the Gulf’s expanding financial and trade hubs. If Doha was pressured to concede to such a deal, Turkey and Iran would be further isolated in the region. Of course, a snap decision on the Gulf crisis will likely not be ironclad, as tensions between Gulf states and Qatar linger beneath the surface, but it would put restrictions around Qatar’s foreign engagement – threatening to deprive Turkey of its sole regional ally, and weakening Iran’s foothold in the Gulf.

As meetings between U.S., Israeli, Qatari and Saudi officials continue into December, an opening between the Gulf’s de facto leader and its traditional rivals becomes more likely. With a precarious long-term economic outlook, waning religious and political credibility, and a fragmented regional campaign against Turkey and Iran, Saudi Arabia is indicating it no longer wishes to wait when it comes to peace with Israel and Qatar.

[Crafty_Dog]

Biden Brings More Skepticism Into the U.S.-Saudi Relationship
As the drivers bringing them together weaken, the United States and Saudi Arabia will become more conservative in deepening their strategic ties and more critical of one another’s differences. On Feb. 26, the administration of U.S. President Joe Biden released a report publicly blaming Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman for the 2018 assassination of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, and imposed visa bans on 76 Saudis associated with the act under a new so-called “Khashoggi Policy.” This, along with other recent public statements and arms freezes, indicates Biden preparing to shift U.S.-Saudi ties away from his predecessor’s close personal relationship with the kingdom. The White House appears ready to press Saudi Arabia to engage in more restrained foreign policy, emphasizing U.S. human rights objectives in its Saudi dialogue. That pressure will undoubtedly clash with several of the kingdom’s own deeply set imperatives, creating pushback from Riyadh and turbulence in long-standing U.S.-Saudi ties.

[Crafty_Dog]

Important regional development: The Saudis have changed their tone when it comes to their open hostility toward Iran, according to an interview with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Here's the relevant passage, in full:

"At the end of the day, Iran is a neighboring country. All what we ask for is to have a good and distinguished relationship with Iran. We do not want the situation with Iran to be difficult. On the contrary, we want it to prosper and grow as we have Saudi interests in Iran, and they have Iranian interests in Saudi Arabia, which is to drive prosperity and growth in the region and the entire world. The problem that we have lies with certain negative behaviors they have, whether in terms of their nuclear program, their support of illegal militias in some countries in the region, or their ballistic missile program. We are working now with our partners in the region and the world to find solutions for these problems. We really hope we would overcome them and build a good and positive relationship with Iran that would benefit all parties."

[Crafty_Dog]

This seems like a really BFD!!!

Saudi Crown Prince's Decision May End his Country's Support for Wahhabism
by Hany Ghoraba
IPT News
June 10, 2021

https://www.investigativeproject.org/8891/saudi-crown-prince-decision-may-end-his-country

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Saudi Arabia has been a main proponent and Islamism and Wahabbism for decades.

But in an April interview broadcast on Saudi-owned Al Arabiya News, Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman indicated that support may be about to end. Saudi Arabia intends to disregard many of the unverified sayings attributed to Islam's prophet Muhammad that were passed from generation to generation without any verifiable source.

"We should engage in continuous interpretation of Quranic texts," bin Salman said, "and the same goes for the Sunnah of the Prophet PBUH, and all fatwas should be based on the time, place, and mindset in which they are issued."

Saudis should not idolize any scholar, even Mohamed Abdel Wahab, the Muslim theologian and founder of Wahhabism, bin Salman said.

The changes are vital if Saudi Arabia is to remain economically vibrant, he said.

"Now, we cannot grow, we cannot attract capital, we cannot have tourism, we cannot progress with such extremist thinking in Saudi Arabia. If you want millions of jobs, if you want unemployment to decline, if you want the economy to grow, if you want your income to improve, you must eradicate these projects for the other interest."

In Islam, the Prophet Muhammad's sayings, known as the hadith, are second in influence only to the Quran. Some hadith are verified and unchallenged. Scholars debate the validity of others. Bin Salman in this interview became the first Saudi official to acknowledge that.

This change could open the door to Saudi Arabia nullifying a majority of the hadiths on which many Islamists base their doctrine.

"When we commit ourselves to following a certain school or scholar, this means we are deifying human beings," bin Salman said.

The comments mark a stunning shift for Saudi Arabia, since Wahhabism has been a main component of its constitution and politics since its 1932 founding. Wahhabis remain a main challenge to the ruling House of al-Saud and have organized attempts to overthrow it, including the 1979 seizure of the grand mosque of Mecca.

Bin Salman's interview has had ripple effects. In Egypt, the grand imam of Al Azhar, the most prominent Sunni institution in the world, said that the hadith enjoyed too much emphasis.

"Calling to sanctify the jurisprudential heritage, and equating it with the Sharia leads to the rigidity of contemporary Islamic jurisprudence," said Ahmed al-Tayyib. For example, fatwas prohibiting interest on loans remain popular among Islamists based on old interpretations. But an Al Azhar fatwa stipulated that regular banking is permissible.

Other modern day-to-day activities fatwas are issued because of the confusion caused by adhering literally to old texts. Fatwas causing misogyny in Islamic societies based on unverified and weak hadiths, such as the false hadith, "A people who make a woman their ruler will never be successful," are being debunked with historical examples.

The Prophet's wife, Aisha, led the Muslim armies in the battle of Al-Gamal, wrote Syrian Islamic thinker Ahmed Al-Romh. Also, Egypt was briefly ruled in 1259 by Sultana Shajra al -Durr following the death of her husband, the last Ayyubid Sultan of Egypt.

Moreover, terrorist groups have used a statement attributed to Muhammad as inspiration. It says Muhammad was "ordered (by Allah) to fight against the people until they testify that none has the right to be worshipped but Allah and that Muhammad is Allah's apostle."

But scholars have determined that that hadith isn't valid, wrote Moroccan Islamic thinker Mohamed ibn Al-Azrak. It "contradicts reason and sound logic ... if they call us to fight the world and sever ties with the peoples of the world."

Decades of Saudi-financed Wahhabist proselytizing are felt throughout the world. King Fahd Al Saud, bin Salman's uncle, spent more than $75 billion in efforts to spread Wahhabi Islam during his 1982-2005 reign. That money helped establish 200 Islamic colleges, 210 Islamic centers, 1,500 mosques, and 2,000 schools for Muslim children.

But now some of those investments are seen as liabilities. The kingdom started reversing that policy and gave up control of some mosque and Islamic centers in the West, such as a Brussels mosque in 2018, which it had leased since 1969. The kingdom's aim was to change its reputation as main supporter of ultra-conservative Islam.

Muslim majority countries which had more tolerant and secular traditions, such as Indonesia, witnessed increasing levels of radicalism with the spread of Wahhabism.

Indonesia, with 270 million people, has the largest Muslim population in the world. More women there are wearing the niqab, thanks to Wahhabi interpretations of unverified hadiths, and not a direct instruction in the Quran. "The women who wear a niqab must never say she is wearing it because it is required by (Islamic) Sharia," Al Azhar's al-Tayyib said in 2017. "It is like wearing or taking off a ring."

In 2016, 500,000 Islamist protestors, organized by the Islamic Defenders Front (FPI) in Jakarta, accused the Christian governor of Indonesia's capital of blasphemy against Islam.

"The accusation came after Basuki Tjahaja Purnama referred to a Quranic verse while campaigning. He argued that some Islamists were using the verse to discourage Muslims from voting for a non-Muslim. But he was accused of insulting the Quran and Muslims. Purnama was sentenced to two years in prison sentence in April 2020.

In 2016, bin Salman announced Vision 2030, a blueprint for transforming Saudi Arabia into an industrial powerhouse. He wants expanded investment in tourism to be a key part of that vision. Tourism, mostly to religious sites, contributes $26.8 billion annually to the national GDP.

Meanwhile, the country is loosening its cultural grip. Movie theaters reopened after a 35-year ban imposed by King Fahd. Moreover, bin Salman told CBS in 2018 that women would no longer compelled by law to wear the hijab or niqab. "The decision is entirely left for women to decide what type of decent and respectful attire she chooses to wear," said bin Salman.

The Riyadh High Court in 2018 waived the requirement for women to wear full veil and restricted it to wearing a hijab. Following Salman's decision, women were seen in public walking around without any headwear.

Moreover, ancient archaeological sites, such as the Nabatean city ruins of Hegra, which were neglected for decades, were reopened for the public. Driving for women was permitted in 2017 by a royal decree.

That said, Saudi Arabia's human rights record is still criticized by a number of NGOs, such as Human Rights Watch. The country still represses dissidents, human rights activists, and independent clerics. These issues tarnish any reforms that the crown prince is undertaking.

It could be years before these religious and social reforms take root in full Saudi society. But if bin Salman's pledge to back away from Wahhabism takes root, radical Islamists have lost a key component used to spread their ideology.

IPT Senior Fellow Hany Ghoraba is an Egyptian writer, political and counter-terrorism analyst at Al Ahram Weekly, author of Egypt's Arab Spring: The Long and Winding Road to Democracy and a regular contributor to the BBC.

Copyright © 2021. Investigative Project on Terrorism. All rights reserved.

[Crafty_Dog]

April 28, 2022
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The Myth of the US-Saudi Strategic Alliance
Relations between the two countries are at an all-time low.
By: Hilal Khashan
U.S.-Saudi relations have been deteriorating since 2014, when the Obama administration announced its intention to reach an agreement with Iran on its nuclear program. The special relationship between the two countries goes back to February 1945, when U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt met with Saudi King Ibn Saud aboard the USS Quincy in the Suez Canal. There was nothing special about the two leaders’ agreement, often celebrated as the beginning of the most enduring alliance between the U.S. and an Arab country. It was a purely business transaction, providing the U.S. with reasonably priced oil in exchange for its pledge to defend Saudi Arabia against foreign threats. However, at times of heightened risk since then, the U.S. has chosen not to act on behalf of Saudi Arabia despite its monarchs’ pleas for military intervention. The souring of relations is unlikely to end the two countries’ economic and military cooperation, but their relationship is transitioning from the pretense of a strategic alliance into a mere partnership between two distant nations.

The Beginning

The U.S.-Saudi partnership began as a collaboration on their shared energy interests. Ibn Saud doubted Britain’s ability to strike oil in Saudi Arabia despite the readiness of the London-headquartered Iraq Petroleum Company to prospect there. He preferred to collaborate with the Standard Oil Company of California, signing an agreement with the firm in 1933. He also distrusted the British because of their close ties with his archrivals, the Hashemites in Iraq and Jordan. The U.S. established a legation in Jeddah in 1942, elevating it to an embassy in 1949. Ibn Saud urged the U.S. to open a consulate in Dhahran in 1944 to serve U.S. citizens employed by the Arabian American Oil Company, now known as Aramco. In 1943, he invited the U.S. to build an airfield in Dhahran, which the U.S. air force maintained until 1962. In 1944, the U.S. extended the wartime Lend-Lease program to Saudi Arabia.

Upon returning from the Yalta Conference, where he met with British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Soviet Premier Josef Stalin, Roosevelt met with Ibn Saud primarily to discuss his position on creating a Jewish state in Palestine, an issue on which Roosevelt had not made up his mind and which the Saudi king vehemently opposed. Reaching an agreement on the future of U.S.-Saudi relations did not feature prominently in Roosevelt’s thinking, yet he concluded an oil-for-protection deal upon the insistence of the Saudi king. In 1949, U.S. President Harry Truman refused to reach a defense agreement with Saudi Arabia, despite Ibn Saud’s urging. Instead, the two countries signed the 1951 Mutual Defense Assistance Agreement, which established the United States Military Training Mission in the kingdom.

Partner, not Ally

Despite cooperating with Washington on oil, security and military training, Saudi Arabia maintained an independent foreign policy. Unlike other Gulf Cooperation Council countries, it had reservations about the presence of U.S. troops on its territory, and when it needed to host them, it made their stay as short as possible. Its sensitivity to a permanent U.S. military presence explains why American presidents have referred to Saudi Arabia as a partner, not an ally. Washington has fostered much closer ties with GCC countries that allowed the establishment of U.S. military bases on their soil. Last January, for example, President Joe Biden designated Qatar a major non-NATO ally, a recognition that two other GCC members – Bahrain and Kuwait – had previously attained. These three countries host significant U.S. military assets: Bahrain is the seat of the U.S. Fifth Fleet, Kuwait accommodates 8,000 U.S. troops in eight bases, and Qatar permitted the U.S. to build the al-Udeid air base west of Doha in 1996.

U.S. Military Bases in Gulf Cooperation Council Countries

(click to enlarge)

Saudi Arabia was always reluctant to allow U.S. troops entry into the kingdom. In 1962, it did not renew the lease for the U.S. airfield in Dhahran, transforming it into a civilian airport. In 1990, the royal family was split over allowing the U.S. access to its territory after Iraq invaded Kuwait – though the faction led by the Saudi ambassador to Washington prevailed, paving the way for more than half a million U.S. troops to enter Saudi Arabia to reinstate Kuwait’s independence. Most of the troops left the country after the war. Some stayed in Kuwait, and others were stationed at the al-Udeid air base. When the U.S. decided to invade Afghanistan after Sept. 11, the Saudis did not allow the U.S. to use their territory for military operations. Following the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, the Saudis demanded that the U.S. immediately withdraw its forces.

For its part, the U.S. didn’t support the Saudi position in the 1952-1955 Buraimi Oasis dispute with the United Kingdom, calling on all parties to seek a diplomatic resolution. The British eventually divided the disputed area between the Sultanate of Muscat and Abu Dhabi. Washington failed to come to Riyadh’s aid after Egypt raided Saudi towns near the Yemeni border in response to Saudi support for Yemen’s royalists following a 1962 coup. The Saudis appealed for U.S. military support, but President John Kennedy recognized the new Yemeni republic. Kennedy sent eight F-100 jets that flew sorties over Jeddah to allay Saudi fears, but U.S. forces never took part in the fighting. Saudi Arabia imposed two oil embargoes on the West in response to the 1967 Six-Day War and the 1973 Arab-Israeli War. In contrast to the first embargo, which had little impact on U.S. oil supplies, the second embargo had significant consequences and led to the reformulation of Washington’s Middle East policy, which included going to war against Iraq in 1991 after it invaded Kuwait.

The Saudis regard the current U.S. administration as an extension of Barack Obama’s presidency, which backed the Arab uprisings and angered late Saudi King Abdullah. The United States’ hasty withdrawal from Afghanistan and resumption of nuclear talks with Iran cast doubts in Riyadh about Biden’s willingness to defend Saudi Arabia against any future existential security threat.

Low Point

The Saudis likely understood the U.S. commitment to defend them against foreign threats as the offering of military support without comprehending the complex determinants of a superpower’s foreign policy imperatives. In 2014, Obama visited Saudi Arabia to ease Saudi fears about the Iran nuclear negotiations but couldn’t convince his Saudi interlocutors that Washington’s scaling down of its Middle Eastern presence was not an abandonment of its regional commitments. The U.S. wanted to avoid meddling in regional relations, expecting countries to manage their own affairs without outside intervention.

U.S.-Saudi relations reached a low point after the gruesome murder of Saudi opposition journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018 and Biden’s election in 2020. During his election campaign, Biden viewed Saudi Arabia as a pariah state because of Khashoggi’s murder. The administration’s decision to release an intelligence report implicating Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in the assassination infuriated MBS, who feared Biden might try to deny his accession to the Saudi throne.

The Biden administration finds MBS’ impulsive behavior problematic and has refused to engage with him. MBS destroyed the Saudi royals’ balance of power that persisted since the kingdom’s founding in 1932. He created a heavily centralized political system resembling that of Syria under Hafez Assad and Iraq under Saddam Hussein. MBS decided to get involved in the Yemeni war despite Egyptian and Pakistani warnings not to. He ordered Khashoggi’s assassination but has expressed exasperation with U.S. officials’ constant reference to the matter. Last year, he lashed out at U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan when he inquired about the Khashoggi case, angrily telling the senior U.S. diplomat to forget about increasing Saudi oil production. U.S. officials were also dismayed by MBS’ silent coup in 2017 that ousted and imprisoned Crown Prince Mohammad bin Nayef, who was viewed favorably in Washington for his efficient uprooting of al-Qaida militancy in Saudi Arabia.

MBS understands that he can’t deter the U.S. from striking an agreement with Iran and seems to have resigned himself to reaching a deal with Iran’s ayatollahs. He thought he could pressure Biden to recognize him as Saudi Arabia’s legitimate crown prince and future king, but instead, the Saudis’ stance on Russia’s war in Ukraine has further angered Washington. Riyadh has refused to condemn Moscow, calling instead for a peaceful resolution to the conflict and rejecting the U.S. request to pump more oil to offset the effect of sanctions on Russia. Biden responded by releasing 180 million barrels of U.S. strategic oil reserves in an unprecedented move. MBS is now waiting for the midterm elections in November, expecting to see a decline in the administration’s congressional support. He’s also pinning his hopes on Donald Trump’s possible return to the White House.

Here to Stay

With the declining U.S. demand for hydrocarbon imports, the historic relationship between Washington and Riyadh has lost its relevance. The U.S. accounts for less than 5 percent of Saudi oil exports, while the Far East and South Asia account for more than 70 percent. This, as well as the fundamental political disagreements with Washington, has led the Saudis to reevaluate their foreign policy.

Saudi Arabia's Crude Oil Exports to the U.S. Decrease

(click to enlarge)

MBS’ strategy now is to try to win the Biden administration’s recognition and restore even a semblance of friendly ties. He recently noted that Saudi Arabia has had strong relations with the U.S. – but then stressed that if Washington did not grab the lucrative business opportunities available in his country, other nations – namely China – would seize them. He emphasized that Saudi investments total more than $800 billion in the U.S. but less than $100 billion in China.

The Saudis, however, have no delusions that partnerships with Russia and China can supplant their traditional ties with the United States. The Saudi armed forces depend heavily on U.S. military equipment. Between 2015 and 2019, 73 percent of Saudi military procurement came from the United States. Between 2008 and 2020, the Saudis spent $147 billion on U.S. military purchases. It’s unthinkable that the Saudi military would accept relying instead on Chinese or Russian arms.

The U.S. also still has a need to keep Saudi Arabia close. The Ukraine war has demonstrated the vital role of hydrocarbons in global conflicts and power competition. Thus, as Russia and China challenge the U.S.-led Western hegemony, Washington will not allow Riyadh to drift into either’s orbit.

MBS says he doesn’t care what Biden thinks of him, but he is eager, if not desperate, to talk to the U.S. president. He recently called British Prime Minister Boris Johnson to discuss bilateral relations, likely in an effort to present himself as an internationally respected political figure. Though the U.S.-Saudi partnership will endure, the U.S. doesn’t regard MBS as an indispensable part of it.

[ccp]

https://www.wsj.com/articles/alcohol-free-saudi-arabia-plans-champagne-and-wine-bars-at-neom-11663421529

I never thought of traveling as tourist to SA...

https://www.visitsaudi.com/en

as long as they work with Israel
it would be something I would consider .

topless beaches might bring in more tourists .....

[ccp]

https://www.newsmax.com/us/saudi-arabia/2022/10/11/id/1091392/

best way they could do this is simply
drill in US

it ain't Saudis fault we are suffering from high gas prices

but they make easy scape goats
along with oil companies

[Crafty_Dog]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsliZbzSR-8

[Crafty_Dog]

A Multipolar World Makes More Room for a U.S.-Saudi Split
undefined and Stratfor Middle East and North Africa Analyst at RANE
Ryan Bohl
Stratfor Middle East and North Africa Analyst at RANE, Stratfor
10 MIN READOct 27, 2022 | 14:00 GMT





Saudi and U.S. flags line the King Abdulaziz Road in the Saudi Red Sea port city of Jeddah on July 14, 2022.
Saudi and U.S. flags line the King Abdulaziz Road in the Saudi Red Sea port city of Jeddah on July 14, 2022.

(Photo by AMER HILABI/AFP via Getty Images)

To paraphrase the United Kingdom's long-serving Foreign Secretary Lord Palmerston, the United States and Saudi Arabia are not permanent friends. Instead, their relationship has always been anchored by temporary alignments, born of the geopolitics of the era. In the final days of World War II as the Cold War dawned, a simple enough compact was born between them: Saudi Arabia would provide oil to stabilize the global energy market in exchange for U.S. military protection from Soviet-backed rivals that sought to overthrow the monarchy. This was possible because the world was in a bipolar moment in which states were pressured either into the communist East or the capitalist West, with little wiggle room in between for militarily weak but economically important countries like Saudi Arabia. Even with the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, the fundamentals of the compact remained the same: the Saudis gave oil, and the United States provided protection from Saddam Hussein's Iraq, Iran and later al Qaeda.

This arrangement could not last. Over time, the United States began an energy pivot, both to produce more oil and to lessen its use of it. China rose as a growing competitor to the United States, drawing American strategic attention to Asia. The United States tried and failed to reorder the Middle East through nation-building, and Washington decided it was better to cut deals with rivals like Iran rather than remain locked in conflict. These were the ingredients that created an emerging multipolar world.

This era does not force Saudi Arabia to choose a side as cleanly as did the eras of the Cold War and the War on Terror. In fact, some of its greatest fault lines, like the U.S.-China confrontation and the Russia-Ukraine war, pose little direct threat to Riyadh itself. And so there is little reason for Saudi Arabia to use its oil heft on behalf of its U.S. friend; rather, there is all the more reason for Saudi Arabia to make what income it can from oil before technological developments and economic change reduce its value in the coming decades. And as Saudi Arabia and the United States remained destined to diverge, future events in the multipolar world will only drive them further apart.

The immediate context of OPEC+'s production cut
In July, U.S. President Joe Biden visited Riyadh and met with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. The trip came as a political about-face, as Biden had promised to isolate Saudi Arabia over human rights violations during his presidential campaign in 2020. But by 2022, that promise had become hard to keep. Gas prices had soared in the United States in the wake of the Russia-Ukraine war, and the trip was aimed at convincing Riyadh to use its heft in the oil market to help lower prices and take some of the public pressure off the White House.

At first glance, the Biden administration seemed satisfied with the results of the trip, as it touted a supposed Saudi commitment "to support global oil market balancing for sustained economic growth." According to Washington, Saudi Arabia would help keep gas prices in America stable, thereby improving the Democratic Party's chances of holding at least part of Congress in otherwise difficult midterm elections in November, as well as staving off gas price-induced public war weariness that could threaten to affect U.S. policy toward Ukraine.

But Saudi Arabia did not see the visit the same way. Though the country did modestly increase output in August, a possible oil oversupply and a slowing global economy had changed minds by October, and Riyadh began to argue that market fundamentals should allow it to cut production to stabilize prices. That same month, OPEC+ agreed to a higher-than-expected 2 million barrel per day output cut, shocking the United States and spurring calls from Congress — and whispers from the White House — for retaliation against the Saudis for breaking their alleged promise.

Imperatives passing in the night
The production spat is just one of several ways the two countries no longer see eye-to-eye. Broadly, the United States believes Saudi Arabia, particularly under its brash crown prince, is too repressive to remain stable domestically, too willing to use force in places like Yemen without consideration for its impact on civilians, and that its old "oil weapon" is blunted in the face of increased U.S. output. Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia believes Washington intends to draw down its forces in the region enough to embolden Iran, give heart to radicals like al Qaeda and the Islamic State, and allow the Houthi rebels in Yemen to strike Saudi Arabia at will.

Ukraine is another place where the countries' goals split. For the United States, the balance of power in Europe has been a critical geopolitical imperative since the end of World War II, and Russia's invasion of Ukraine is a great challenge to the security architecture that keeps the Continent stable. To this point, Washington is attempting to halt the Russian invasion without escalating to direct war, including by using the oil market against Russia, even though such a strategy could cost Americans at the pump. But for Saudi Arabia, the Russia-Ukraine war is distant, so whoever controls Ukraine is less relevant to Riyadh than its own economic transformation under its Vision 2030 plan, which aims to shift the country toward a sustainable post-hydrocarbon economy before the world evolves past the high demand for oil. Taking an economic loss on behalf of a European war does little to achieve such a goal.

The impossible task of corralling Saudi Arabia
The U.S. political system has now firmly turned on Saudi Arabia, and many politicians seeking to burnish their credentials on the Middle East, energy or U.S. foreign policy will likely continue to berate Riyadh rhetorically, regardless of the facts of the matter. (The OPEC+ production cuts did not, after all, cause a spike in oil prices, and American gas prices are dependent on more than just the global oil market, anyway.) But while U.S politicians will pledge to bring fire and fury to U.S.-Saudi relations, they will struggle to implement their promises, facing White House vetoes and Pentagon objections due to the U.S. need to counterbalance Iran in the Middle East, keep oil markets stable and remain a bulwark against radicalism. Even so, these politicians may find more wind in their sails if the next OPEC+ meeting in December results in yet more output cuts as the bloc prepares for recessions to hit the West in 2023. The optics of such an event would be particularly bad given that Europe will be in the midst of a tough and expensive winter as the Continent weans itself off Russian natural gas. But whatever measures the United States takes will be meant to strain relations, not wholly break them.

Saudi Arabia, for its part, will adjust in the face of such pressure and likely continue its pivot toward a combination of soft support for Ukraine and increased mediation of humanitarian deals, prisoner swaps and possible cease-fires, as Turkey has done. The latter effort is part of a bid to mold Saudi Arabia's image into that of a responsible and reasonable global player. Such an image will not convince anyone in Washington to ease off criticism if it is accompanied by more output cuts, but Saudi Arabia's efforts will improve its image elsewhere — like in the Global South, where oil price spikes hurt substantially more in impoverished countries. What Saudi Arabia will not do is jeopardize its economic transformation strategy.

As mistrust builds, the United States could decide to reduce military support for Saudi Arabia, and Riyadh might go to U.S. allies like France and the United Kingdom, as well as U.S. rivals like China, in response. But given that such a military adjustment would take years, if not a full decade, to realize, Saudi Arabia would in the meantime be in a vulnerable position. For instance, Riyadh might find it hard, if not impossible, to prop up its allies in Yemen, giving way to a Houthi military advantage and possibly even a Houthi-run northern state that is aligned with Iran on its southern border. Iran, which would no longer be concerned about triggering an immediate U.S. military response, would also likely be emboldened to strike Saudi Arabia in an escalated covert campaign. In this scenario, Iran would aim to undermine the monarchy and its ability to influence regional events in places where Tehran and Riyadh back opposite parties, like Lebanon, Iraq and Yemen.

And there is the matter of Vision 2030, Saudi Arabia's economic transformation program. Foreign investment and foreign workers are part of this strategy, but it is unclear how much foreign capital and labor will flow into Saudi Arabia when it appears that its great protector, the United States, is drawing back. Some sources of capital and labor — like fellow Gulf Cooperation Council states and the subcontinent — appear likely to back Vision 2030 no matter what the U.S.-Saudi relationship looks like, but they may rethink their positions if Saudi Arabia, shorn of U.S. forces, finds itself stuck in an elevated proxy conflict with Iran or a Houthi-run North Yemen.

Future rounds of deterioration
It is likely that going forward, the United States will again expect Saudi Arabia to act in American interests, believing (incorrectly) that they align with Saudi interests, and Riyadh will refuse to do so. For instance, Saudi Arabia will not go along with any attempts to impose a price cap on Russian oil, knowing that could affect the bottom line for Saudi exports as well. Riyadh is also unlikely to block Russian tourists or Russian businesses from entering or investing in Saudi Arabia short of the West expanding to a globally-disruptive secondary sanctions campaign. And Riyadh will keep up diplomatic contacts with Russia, even sending high-level delegations there, in spite of the optics that might cause in the West, to ensure that the country has working relations with a fellow oil power with which Riyadh so recently fought a price war in 2020.

Looming behind that growing tension could be a confrontation between Saudi Arabia and the United States over China. As China's threats to Taiwan increase and Washington attempts to deter and counter Beijing's economic and military growth, the United States will lean on partners like Saudi Arabia to corral Chinese power. In the event of a Chinese invasion or major military escalation over Taiwan, the United States would likely try to squeeze China's energy-dependent economy with restrictions or even bans on oil exports, but Saudi Arabia would balk at such a ban, given how much of the country's exports now flow to China. Such resistance would not be motivated by a desire to actively back China in its attempt to take Taiwan militarily, but it would again be due to the fact that such a distant war in Asia would be less important to Saudi Arabia than oil income. In the ever-more multipolar world, such a choice becomes strategically logical — even at the expense of relations with the United States.

[ccp]

link goes to "page not found"

[Crafty_Dog]

I am seeing the piece I posted immediately above.

[Crafty_Dog]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ziGN8HXdj6U&t=5s

[Crafty_Dog]

https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Saudi-Arabia-Reiterates-Commitment-To-China-Regardless-Of-US-Concerns.html

[DougMacG]

https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Saudi-Arabia-Reiterates-Commitment-To-China-Regardless-Of-US-Concerns.html

.

We should have been isolating China  against the rest of the world, not losing strategic allies to them.

[Crafty_Dog]

Well said.

[Crafty_Dog]

The Wall Street Journal.
China's Xi Jinping to Visit Saudi Arabia Amid Global Reshuffling
Stephen Kalin, Keith Zhai, Summer Said - 12h ago
WSJ



Chinese leader Xi Jinping is planning to visit Saudi Arabia before the end of the year, according to people familiar with preparations for the trip, as Beijing and Riyadh seek to deepen ties and advance a vision of a multipolar world where the U.S. no longer dominates the global order.

Officials are completing the details for a summit between Mr. Xi and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman that would underline Beijing’s growing influence in the Middle East, where the U.S. long reigned supreme, and growing links between the oil-rich Saudis and Washington’s top global rivals.

In the works for months, the trip is tentatively scheduled for the second week of December, these people said.

Beijing “attaches great importance to the development of China-Saudi relations, and places Saudi Arabia as a priority in China’s overall diplomatic policy,” Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said late last month Chinese-Saudi relations have deepened in recent years in the economic realm, including a potential Chinese stake in state oil giant Saudi Aramco, and militarily through weapons sales.

The meeting comes at a time when large parts of the developing world have expressed reluctance to choose sides in the war between Russia and Ukraine, which has received Western backing, despite urging from Washington and European capitals.

Riyadh, in particular, has expressed a desire to put its own interests first on oil policy, in a way it says isn’t intended to benefit Russia. Saudi Arabia pushed for a significant cut in output by the OPEC+ group of oil-producing nations in an effort to keep petroleum prices from falling.

Higher prices for oil—a major Russian export—help Moscow pay for its war effort. The production cut last month also raised crude prices at a moment of high inflation just before the U.S. midterm elections, straining the kingdom’s relationship with Washington.

Saudi officials reject U.S. assertions that they are aligning with Moscow and say they don’t want to be forced to take sides between world powers as they did during the Cold War, when Saudi Arabia stood squarely in the American camp.

“There is this sort of realignment happening: Where does your future lie?” said Helima Croft, managing director of global commodity strategy research at RBC Capital Markets. For the Saudis, she said, “It is pushing them more toward a multifaceted set of relationships. They see their future in the East.”

With the world’s second-largest economy and a shared interest in countering the West, China might be Moscow’s most important partner as the Kremlin weathers Western economic sanctions and declining oil exports to Europe. Beijing hasn’t condemned the invasion and has accused the U.S. of inflaming the crisis but said it isn’t selling weapons to Russia.

Saudi Arabia has condemned the invasion and sent humanitarian aid to Ukraine but also sustained its oil alliance with Russia.

The strategic recalibration of Saudi foreign policy is bigger than the recent blowup with the Biden administration over oil production, said Ian Bremmer, president of the political-risk firm the Eurasia Group, as Riyadh looks for a counterweight to dependence on the U.S.

“This orientation of the Saudis and the Chinese towards each other is a long-term tipping point shift that is really going to matter economically, not just for this election cycle,” said Mr. Bremmer.

The Saudis once sold the U.S. over 2 million barrels of oil every day, but that has fallen to less than 500,000 barrels a day, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. The U.S. grew to become the world’s biggest oil producer, and China is now the biggest buyer of Saudi oil, followed by India.

The world’s top oil importer and biggest oil exporter are likely to meet at an important moment for global energy markets that could determine the future of Russia’s war effort.

Just before the Chinese leader lands in Saudi Arabia, the OPEC+ alliance led by Riyadh and Moscow will make a highly anticipated decision on crude production on Dec. 4, after cutting output by 2 million barrels last month. That will be followed by the planned implementation of a price cap on Russian oil by the Group of Seven wealthy nations and a European Union embargo on Russian crude.

Mr. Xi, who last month cemented his role as China’s leader for a third term, is expected to meet the leaders of other Persian Gulf and Arab countries in a visit that will likely feature pageantry and agreements demonstrating the countries’ deepening partnership.

When President Biden visited Saudi Arabia in July, he met with Prince Mohammed and joined a summit of friendly Arab nations but faced intense scrutiny back home over Riyadh’s human-rights records and came away with few concrete achievements.

The Chinese leader’s welcome is more likely to resemble the 2017 visit by then-President Donald Trump, who was feted by Prince Mohammed on his first trip abroad and then largely backed the Saudis, according to people familiar with the preparations.

Formal relations between China and Saudi Arabia only began in 1990 and were restricted mainly to oil: Saudi Arabia is China’s top supplier of crude and China is Saudi Arabia’s biggest customer, buying one out of every four barrels of oil the kingdom sells.

More recently, their courtship has intensified with discussions on selling a stake in state oil giant Saudi Aramco, including yuan-denominated futures contracts in Aramco’s pricing model, and even possibly pricing some Saudi oil sales to China in yuan.

Saudi Arabia, the custodian of Islam’s holiest sites, has publicly defended China’s policies in its western region of Xinjiang, giving cover to its crackdown on the Uyghur Muslim minority. At home, it is introducing Mandarin into the Saudi school curriculum.

China hasn’t demonstrated interest or ability in supplanting the broad American role in the Middle East, analysts say, and the Saudis don’t really want to replace the U.S. as their main security guarantor.

But Beijing has sold drones to Saudi Arabia, helped it manufacture ballistic missiles after the U.S. refused to do so over proliferation concerns, and helped construct a facility in the kingdom to fabricate uranium yellowcake, an early step along the path to a civil nuclear energy program or a nuclear-arms capability. The countries have also discussed building a naval base on the Red Sea, one of the world’s most strategic waterways.

Beijing maintains warm relations with Saudi Arabia’s rival Iran, which Riyadh could seek to leverage if Tehran agrees to a revived nuclear deal with the U.S. and other world powers.

The sense of China’s growing influence in the Middle East changes the calculus for Washington policy makers, who want to pivot to Asia but are loath to let Beijing establish a foothold in the strategic crossroads leading to Europe and Africa, said Jonathan Fulton, assistant professor of political science at Abu Dhabi-based Zayed University who studies China’s relations with Gulf states.

“If the U.S. finds it harder to leave the Gulf, that would be in China’s favor,” he said. “China probably thinks that nursing those perceptions helps.”

The China-Saudi relationship, while still largely transactional, has grown beyond just being a hedge for Riyadh to signal its displeasure with Washington, said Dr. Fulton.

The Saudis “aren’t trying to play one off the other so much as really trying to deepen what they’re getting out of both sides,” he said. “The U.S. has this binary right now, where it’s strategic competition: work with us or work with China. But most actors in the Gulf don’t seem to see it that way.”

[Crafty_Dog]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/17/mbs-immunity-saudi-arabia-biden/?utm_campaign=wp_post_most&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_most&carta-url=https%3A%2F%2Fs2.washingtonpost.com%2Fcar-ln-tr%2F385ca2f%2F6377bff47e2620469f164158%2F61cdf026ae7e8a4ac205b2b3%2F14%2F72%2F6377bff47e2620469f164158&wp_cu=10fdb05edea8f32c1b02f6dfec609335%7CD462DD329F9C56B3E0530100007F597F

[Crafty_Dog]

View This Email in Your Browser


The Significance of Xi's Visit to Saudi Arabia
Chinese President Xi Jinping's trip to Saudi Arabia highlights the two countries' deepening economic, defense, cultural and educational ties, which could grant both sides greater freedom in foreign policy as Riyadh and Beijing each look for ways to withstand U.S. pressure. On Dec. 8, Chinese President Xi Jinping began a three-day trip to Saudi Arabia to kick off what he called ''a new era'' in Saudi-Chinese relations, which have been deepening since China began economic reforms in the 1980s. During the visit, Xi and Saudi King Salman signed a ''comprehensive strategic partnership agreement'' in which the two heads of state committed to holding biannual meetings and increasing their countries' cultural and tourism ties. The meeting yielded various deals to increase cooperation in fields spanning technology, education, energy and economic development as well. Xi also participated in a China-Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) summit on Dec. 9, where he pledged to use China's currency (the yuan) more to purchase China's oil and gas exports from the region, which are typically priced in U.S. dollars. The high-profile visit comes against the backdrop of strained Saudi-U.S. relations after the kingdom helped lead an OPEC+ production cut in October against Washington's advisement. China's relations with the United States have also hit new lows amid growing tensions over Taiwan.

[Crafty_Dog]

March 2, 2023
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Saudi Arabia’s Untenable Modernization Plan
It will be difficult even with more seasoned leaders than MBS.
By: Hilal Khashan
In 2016, when Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman launched a vision for Saudi development, he seemed sure that his country had everything it needed to create a competitive and sustainable industrial economy by 2030. He expressed confidence that ambitious young Saudi talents could achieve the momentous task. He estimated that, in 2035, the number of factories in Saudi Arabia would increase to 36,000. Reality has since set in. Though he continued to argue that another Saudi Arabia – that is, a fully developed country – was possible, he came to understand that Saudi economic development was a long way off.

The new Saudi Arabia he wanted to build required society to renounce extremism, rid its economy of oil dependence, build balanced international relations, unleash society's talents and eliminate corruption. Instead of fighting corruption, he gave it a new lease. Rather than promote new societal values, his plan excluded ideas that would be conducive to modernity. Vision 2030, including the yet-to-be-built Red Sea city of NEOM, lives only in MBS’s imagination.

Reinventing Corruption

In the 1950s and 1960s, Saudi Arabia’s public office was key to social advancement. After the oil boom of the 1970s, it became a way for Saudi royals to control society. The bureaucracy grew bloated by patronage, expanding irrationally. The effects were not immediately tangible economically or socially because the bureaucracy could still absorb more nationals, and the oil wealth could cover squandered expenses that had no economic or administrative necessity. The royal family meant to transform the state into a patriarch of society, which would be directly dependent on Riyadh for sustenance. This bureaucratic expansion was one of the most extensive social bribes of the 20th century.

During this period, the state carried out politically motivated development projects such as schools, hospitals, roads and bridges, many of which were random and wasteful. It also launched a movement to convince Saudis that they benefited from oil spoils. Since the private sector was still relatively immature, the state undertook the leadership of these projects through public institutions, becoming the employer of society, exercising control over economic activity and becoming an authoritarian state while maintaining its rentier state status. The bureaucracy swelled, forming centers of power around midlevel government officials who entered the private labor market by establishing companies they managed internally, benefiting from their relations with prominent princes to win contracts and tenders. Many Saudi commoners benefited from the oil boom by entering the real estate market and brokerage business and representing foreign companies to win quick and substantial fortunes.

In 2017, when he realized that more of his relatives opposed his installation as king than he thought, MBS moved against many of them under the pretext of financial corruption and theft of state funds. The idea behind arresting princes who were reluctant to support him was to warn them of the consequences of their opposition. Apprehending businesspeople and senior officials was to embellish the situation, as the Anti-Corruption Committee is nothing more than a tool for settling scores. Put simply, MBS covers up some loyal princes' corruption and targets others he distrusts. The Control and Anti-Corruption Authority answers only to MBS and refrains from acting against anyone except on his directive, even if it has documented evidence against them.

Corruption remains a critical problem in the rationalization of public policy because it was inherent to Saudi Arabia’s economic development. Made more pronounced by oil money, it became a structural feature of the rigid Saudi bureaucracy, subsequently institutionalizing the incidences of corruption. In the unlikely event MBS decides to fight the bureaucracy's structural corruption, he will risk antagonizing a class of beneficiaries that grew over decades and secured the regime's stability. If he chooses against reforming the public sector to maintain his authority, it will become impossible for him to implement his controversial economic objectives.

Bribery, favoritism and nepotism thus remain widespread. In just one month in 2021, the Control and Anti-Corruption Authority investigated 562 government personnel in administrative and criminal cases, arresting 136. In Saudi Arabia's traditional tribal society, nepotism and favoritism are part of everyday life. Controlling corruption is beyond the state's ability.

Unmodern Values

Saudi society suffers from sharp tribal, sectarian and regional divisions, which the state has reinforced by banning all spaces that unite people, such as unions, political parties and demonstrations. Instead of dealing with citizens, the state deals with tribal heads or regional notables. There are no formations for social integration in the country, making it much easier for the authorities to manage a large populace. Despite the deep regional divisions, the government neither invested in nation-building nor defined a national identity. On the contrary, it concretized divisions by relying on prominent Sunni families in Najd and Hijaz while excluding the predominantly Shiite Eastern Province and Ismaili south.

The government's policies did not promote the value of hard work among Saudi subjects. Despite its superficial technical and vocational training support, the government needed to do more to orient the youth toward productive occupations. The overwhelming majority of young people preferred a college education. Aversion to manual work caused a permanent dependence on expatriate labor and perpetuated the traditional social contempt for skilled and semi-skilled labor. Government welfare policies promoted extravagant consumer behavior and tolerated the chauvinistic tendency toward expatriate workers. Even so, the state secured a conservative and broad social base loyal to it. MBS stresses the need for Saudi Arabia's development to align with the country's cultural and historical norms and religious peculiarities –to reflect not the experiences of other countries but its own unique foundations and aspirations. Development therefore cannot occur at the expense of religious beliefs entrenched in the popular conscience or in official policies because Saudi Arabia has permanent responsibility toward Mecca's Grand Mosque.

Saudi youth view vocational work as degrading; they prefer unemployment. The Saudi government, which shyly encouraged young men to pursue vocational training to spur economic development, was simultaneously providing massive support to holders of college degrees with graduate scholarships in the U.S. and the U.K. Its policies promised them lucrative jobs in the public sector while giving meager salaries for technical workers, regardless of their qualifications and competence.

The private sector thus accumulated expertise and capital in the 1990s, and in doing so created an economic bourgeoisie. By 2010, the Saudi bourgeoisie no longer relied on government contracts to create its wealth because the economy that emerged during the oil boom created a dynamic private sector that weaned itself from reliance on government contracts. The private sector, in turn, produced a local bourgeoisie, not a national one, because it stood against all attempts to recruit a Saudi workforce, opting instead for foreign labor. The business class is copying the example of the state's social policies in producing generations of young people without skills, deepening the demographic problem, and perpetuating the values that the regime implanted during the boom era.

Even though many young Saudis support the policies of MBS, enthusiasm for him will cool unless they play a role in determining the future of the Kingdom. Saudis who attend university abroad often return to a country that has disjointed spaces marked by specific, government-controlled channels for social advancement rather than modern social and political avenues. Instead of being catalysts of change, these new workers are neutralized by an absence of voluntary civil society organizations, coerced into operating through the existing patronage system. MBS believes that adopting democracy as a system of government will lead to the kingdom's collapse. He has said democracy clashes with Saudi tribal society, its traditional culture and Islam, which, according to the Wahhabi doctrine adopted by Saudi Arabia, considers democracy blasphemy.

Challenges Ahead

This is all to say that, despite propaganda to the contrary, MBS is an immature leader who likely cannot achieve what he wants. Every speech he makes betrays a political cultural shallowness apparent to any fair observer. His reckless policies since going to war in Yemen in 2015 continue apace, especially regarding his Vision 2030 and its NEOM centerpiece.

Vision 2030 contains components circulated by senior Saudi officials four decades ago, namely focusing on the post-oil era, diversifying sources of income, encouraging investments, the need for austerity, ending the indiscriminate welfare state, addressing unemployment and creating a skilled local workforce. Implementing MBS's development plan, which depends on bustling private sector growth and new sources of state revenue via taxes and fees, is going to be difficult. His economic development project needs to address the issue of political participation within the framework of a new social contract.

NEOM may be the perfect distillation of the challenges ahead. Many observers agree it is a $500 billion bet to build a city in the desert. Others think it is little more than an attempt to polish MBS’s image and divert attention from his human rights violations. Like other megalomaniacal autocrats, he wants to build a futuristic city that people will remember for generations. In 2016, MBS said Saudi Arabia would achieve its development vision by 2030, but he later announced that it would witness only the completion of the project's first phase by then.

The enormity of MBS's development goals by 2030, including the painful deliverance from oil, is a challenge to his credibility. Given his excessive lifestyle, whether he dedicates more time to Saudi development or to his ambitious personal business needs must be clarified. After all, he owns many companies and a lot of real estate abroad, including the Louis XV palace ($300 million), a mega luxury yacht ($320 million) and Leonardo da Vinci's Savior of the World painting ($450 million).

[ccp]

'Leonardo da Vinci's Savior of the World' painting

has its own interesting story. it. was thought to be lost and the painting a fake or copy

obtained by consortium or art dealers in '05
for  $1,175 on a hunch.

later sold to the Saudi "prince "  for  $450.3 million in  '17.

once is what found to be the original and not a fake or copy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvator_Mundi_(Leonardo)
WOW

[ya]

Its interesting that the media is not talking about the China brokered thawing of relations between Saudia and Iran. Both countries will open embassies etc in each others countries. One or both countries will join BRICS. US losing importance/dominance in much of the world, China becoming the peace maker!. Geopolitics of the gulf region is changing, potential of the Houthi war against Saudis will go away. Not sure Israel will be thrilled about it though. US needs a regime change in Saudi Arabia 

[Crafty_Dog]

For years I pounded the table here about the huge historical error that pulling out of Iraq would prove to be.  What would the ME be like today had we stayed to finish the job of enabling the new democratically elected government to take root?

With Iran putting the finishing touches on going nuclear, , , , frankly it looks too late for Israel or us to do anything about it.   Off the top of my head, I cannot say that it is a bad thing for Iran and SA to come to understanding.

[Crafty_Dog]

Saudi Arabia Warms Up to Iran
Beijing and Tehran seize on U.S. Democrats’ neuroses about an ally.
By The Editorial BoardFollow
March 10, 2023 6:44 pm ET

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Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman
PHOTO: AHMED YOSRI/REUTERS

We’re old enough to remember a time—roughly three years ago—when diplomatic breakthroughs in the Middle East meant good news for the U.S. Not so with Friday’s thawing relations between Saudi Arabia and Iran, which shows the cost of President Biden’s hostility to Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, known as MBS.

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Riyadh and Tehran are restoring diplomatic ties after cutting them in 2016. The deal, which was brokered by China, isn’t an alliance. Its near-term practical effect is likely to be limited to the reopening of embassies. But the symbolic import is hard to miss as Democrats in Washington do everything they can to harass and annoy the Saudis.

Mr. Biden came into office promising to isolate the Saudis, especially the young, reformist leader MBS. The U.S. cut off support for the Saudi-backed war against the Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen. It toyed with ending arms sales to the Kingdom, and it sought to revive the Iranian nuclear deal the Saudis oppose as a threat to their security.

Worried about U.S. support, MBS hedged his security bets. He has courted China and flirted with selling oil in yuan, rather than dollars, and he has sought better relations with Russia. Now the Sunni Arab Kingdom is seeking a detente with its Shiite Persian neighbors. A genuine peace would be good for the region, but Iran’s support for terrorism and Shiite militias in Arab nations suggests its promises are suspect.

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Mr. Biden tried to mend relations with a visit to Riyadh that included the famous fist bump with MBS. But the Saudis don’t trust the Biden Administration or Congressional Democrats, who threatened retaliation when the Saudis refused to increase oil production last year.

The Kingdom isn’t a democracy, but compared to Iran it’s Switzerland. Instead of alienating the Saudis, the Biden Administration could be working to persuade the Kingdom to join the Arab nations opening relations with Israel under the Abraham Accords.

The Journal reports that Riyadh’s conditions for joining the accords might include U.S. security guarantees and support for a civilian nuclear program. The former is worth considering, since the U.S. would probably defend the Kingdom if it were attacked without formal guarantees. Assurances that the Iran nuclear deal is dead and that the U.S. won’t let Tehran acquire a nuclear weapon would also help.

Mr. Biden prides himself on his ability to build alliances, but he muffed it with the Saudis and our adversaries are taking advantage.

[Crafty_Dog]

In Search of U.S. Concessions, Saudi Arabia Reaches Out to China
Aug 28, 2023 | 21:43 GMT


Saudi Arabia's pursuit of uranium enrichment will likely remain a sticking point in U.S.-Saudi-Israel talks, which could push the kingdom to deepen its ties with China, as evidenced by Riyadh's recent talks with Beijing over a potential nuclear plant. According to an Aug. 25 report published by The Wall Street Journal, Saudi officials are considering a Chinese bid to build a civilian nuclear power plant in the kingdom, partially in the hopes of pressuring the White House to grant concessions on Riyadh's nuclear energy goals. The report comes after several Western news outlets reported earlier in August that the United States, Saudi Arabia and Israel are negotiating a mega-deal that would see Saudi Arabia recognize Israel in exchange for increased U.S. security guarantees and a civilian nuclear energy deal. U.S. President Joe Biden is also considering a face-to-face meeting with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on the sidelines of the Sept. 9-10 Group of 20 (G-20) summit in New Delhi, India.

U.S. officials have stressed that a broad U.S.-Saudi-Israel agreement will be complicated to finalize and that they are only now starting to negotiate specific details of the deal, which they hope to hammer out over the next 9-12 months.

Meanwhile, the BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) on Aug. 24 invited Saudi Arabia and five other countries to join their bloc starting on Jan. 1, 2024. China has led the BRICS expansion project.

For the United States, a mega-deal with Israel and Saudi Arabia would enable it to better concentrate on its strategic rival China, which Riyadh is seeking to exploit by demanding significant security and nuclear concessions as part of the agreement. The United States is hoping to use the mega-deal to limit Saudi Arabia from furthering its relationship with China, which has blossomed in recent years amid Beijing and Riyadh's growing strategic alignment (with the former in need of Saudi oil to fuel its economic development, and the latter in need of new foreign partners to reduce its reliance on the United States). As part of the U.S.-Israel-Saudi mega-deal, Washington is reportedly considering stipulations that would bar Riyadh from pricing its oil in yuan, restrict the kingdom's use of Chinese communications technology (like Huawei's 5G equipment), and disallow a Chinese military presence on Saudi soil. Several of these conditions run counter to Saudi Arabia's strategic interests in pursuing closer ties with China and Russia in a multipolar world, particularly as the United States and Europe continue to raise concerns about Saudi human rights violations and seek to reduce their consumption of fossil fuels — the bedrock of the Saudi economy. As a result, Riyadh will likely only agree to put guardrails on its relationship with China in exchange for significant security and nuclear concessions that would effectively make it impossible for the United States to criticize Saudi Arabia's human rights record or sanction the country for any reason due to defense commitments. In the face of Iran's continued nuclear development, Saudi Arabia would also likely insist that the United States either: 1) allow the kingdom to control enrichment so that it could develop nuclear weapons, 2) sign a defense agreement that would bring the United States to Saudi Arabia's aid in the event of a conflict, or 3) potentially bring Saudi Arabia under the U.S. nuclear umbrella where the United States would promise to defend Saudi Arabia using its own nuclear weapons in the event of an Iranian nuclear attack on Saudi Arabia.

In addition to potentially joining BRICS, Saudi Arabia joined the China-led Shanghai Cooperation Organization as a dialogue partner in March.
China mediated an Iran-Saudi Arabia normalization in March, showing its growing influence in the region.

Although the Biden administration has walked back promises to review its relationship with Saudi Arabia due to human rights abuses, the United States will likely continue to be more mindful of human rights, press freedoms and democratic rights over the long term. This means differences between the United States and Saudi Arabia will remain.

Saudi Arabia and China have expressed some skepticism toward the fast-paced energy transition away from fossil fuels. For example, Saudi Arabia and China aim to achieve net-zero emissions in 2060, which is 10 years later than most Western countries, including the United States. Moreover, the United States has become far less reliant on Saudi oil, whereas Saudi Arabia's exports to Asia now represent 76% of its total oil exports, with China importing between 1.5 to 2 million barrels per day each month.

The United States remains highly unlikely to let Saudi Arabia enrich uranium, reducing the prospects of a deal on the matter. One of the United States' core interests in the Middle East is limiting the proliferation of nuclear weapons. But giving Saudi Arabia the functional ability to enrich uranium makes it more likely that the kingdom will develop nuclear weapons in the future without U.S. permission, exacerbating what would likely be a regional nuclear arms race between Iran, Saudi Arabia and potentially Egypt or Turkey. In 2018, the Saudi crown prince said that his country would ''without a doubt'' develop nuclear weapons if Iran did. However, to do so, Saudi Arabia would need to be able to enrich its own uranium as global enrichment powers like the United States would not transfer enriched uranium to Saudi Arabia for weapons development purposes. Saudi Arabia also does not have the capability to build nuclear power plants itself. And under Section 123 of the U.S. Atomic Energy Act of 1954, the United States can only export nuclear technology to countries that have signed a so-called 123 Agreement with nine nonproliferation criteria that must be met, including a prohibition on enriching or reprocessing without U.S. consent. But while Saudi Arabia could sign such an agreement, the U.S. Congress could overturn it if the deal is seen as not providing enough limits on Saudi nuclear activity.

Several recent 123 Agreements — including with Taiwan, the United Arab Emirates and Vietnam — have included a so-called ''gold provision'' in which the country involved agrees to forgo enriching or reprocessing uranium. In 2018, when then-President Trump was rumored to be exploring a potential weak 123 Agreement with Saudi Arabia, bipartisan legislation was quickly introduced to increase potential oversight of any such deal. This would likely occur again if the White House pursues a new 123 Agreement with Riyadh that doesn't include a ''gold provision'' or is otherwise widely seen as weak.

Without a nuclear deal involving enrichment, Saudi Arabia will likely demand concrete U.S. security guarantees, but several obstacles may keep them from materializing. If Saudi Arabia were to give up control of enrichment, it would still need a deterrent to protect itself from the nuclear threat posed by Iran, which has shown no interest in giving up its enrichment rights in nuclear talks with the West. But the only way for Saudi Arabia to establish the same level of deterrence would be through signing a defense treaty that brings the kingdom under the U.S. nuclear shield. However, Saudi Arabia and the United States have different values, government systems and levels of personal freedom, unlike virtually every other country with which the United States shares a defense treaty. A defense deal would also require the United States to place a significant amount of trust in the soon-to-be 38-year-old Crown Prince Mohammed, who has already in Washington's eyes proven to be a troublesome partner and reckless in some of his foreign policy endeavors (including the 2017-21 blockade and embargo of neighboring Qatar, home to the United States' Al Udeid Air Base, forward headquarters for the United States Central Command, or CENTCOM). Additionally, two-thirds of the U.S. Senate would need to approve a defense treaty with Saudi Arabia, which would be a tall order given that Congress has been more critical of the kingdom in recent years than the White House.

If it can't reach an agreement with the United States, Saudi Arabia may entertain a nuclear pact with China, but inking such a deal may still prove too risky for both Riyadh and Beijing. If the United States and Saudi Arabia do not reach an agreement on nuclear or defense agreements, the mega-deal with Israel may fall apart. To fulfill its desire for a nuclear deterrent, this could see Saudi Arabia turn toward China, which would not enforce as many proliferation restrictions as part of a nuclear deal compared with the United States. But such a deal has remained elusive, despite Riyadh and Beijing having had multiple opportunities to reach a nuclear agreement in recent years amid slowing talks with the United States and its allies. This is in part because China does not want to exacerbate a nuclear arms race in the Middle East (the source of most of China's crude oil imports), which means that even if Beijing allows Riyadh to be involved in the enrichment process, it may seek an informal promise from Saudi Arabia to not enrich uranium for military purposes. Moreover, a nuclear agreement with China would undermine Saudi Arabia's vital defense ties with the United States. While China is a growing economic partner, Saudi Arabia's overall defense relationship with China remains relatively limited and is nowhere near the level where it could adequately replace the kingdom's robust defense partnership with the United States. Given this, Riyadh may decide that it's better off not angering Washington than signing a deal with China.

Saudi Arabia could also try to sign an agreement with another enrichment power, but most other exporters of nuclear technology, like South Korea, would also require limitations on Saudi Arabia's enrichment capabilities. While Russian nuclear power company Rosatom may be willing to forego strict enrichment limits, Western sanctions would make cooperation with Russia difficult for Saudi Arabia.

[ya]

The Western response to Chinese belt and road, as proposed in the G20 (where Biden and Saudi MBS shook hands as opposed to the fist bump) is a sea and rail route to Europe.

[Crafty_Dog]

BTW, this would eliminate Yemen as a choke point to the Suez Canal.

[Crafty_Dog]

October 5, 2023
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Saudi Arabia’s Strategy Behind Israel Normalization Talks
Iran plays a key role in Saudi thinking here.
By: Kamran Bokhari
Saudi Arabia’s efforts to forge diplomatic ties with Israel represent a new element in the kingdom’s ongoing campaign to manage regional instability. In exchange for normalizing relations, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is hoping to extract concessions for the Palestinians in the West Bank so that they can limit the turmoil that many expect will soon erupt within the Palestinian Authority. The last thing the Saudis want is for Palestinian militant group Hamas to exploit this situation and expand its control beyond the Gaza Strip, which would work to the advantage of Riyadh’s principal adversary, Iran. The challenge, however, is that mainstream Palestinian politics, centered on Hamas rival Fatah, is approaching an inflection point, making it extremely difficult to achieve substantive progress on this front.

Israel
(click to enlarge)

On Sept. 26, Saudi Arabia appointed its first ambassador to the Palestinian Authority. The move comes amid negotiations between the Saudis and Israelis on the establishment of diplomatic ties, which both MBS and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu confirmed in late September. In an interview with Fox News, the Saudi crown prince made his first public comments on the talks, saying negotiators were getting “closer to an agreement,” which he described as “the biggest historical deal since the Cold War.” Netanyahu confirmed the remarks and added that the two countries were on the cusp of “a historic peace.”

MBS’ most telling comment in the interview came when he was asked to shed light on what normalized relations would mean for the Israeli-Palestinian dispute. The future king, who also became prime minister a year ago after his father relinquished executive authority, said the Saudis and Israelis needed to resolve their differences on the Palestinian issue and, when pressed for more details, added only that he was working to “reach a place that will ease the life of the Palestinians.” This is a far cry from Riyadh’s official position since the 2002 Arab League summit in which former King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz offered Israel full diplomatic ties with all 22 Arab League members in exchange for the establishment of a sovereign Palestinian state on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip and Israel’s withdrawal from the two territories, which it had seized in the 1967 war.

The shift in the Saudi position is understandable in light of the massive changes that have taken place in the two decades since then. Prior to the summit, many, including in Riyadh, had hope that an agreement could be reached, despite the failure of the 2000 Camp David talks between late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and Israeli then-Prime Minister Ehud Barak as well as the outbreak of the Second Intifada that same year. But the Israeli and Palestinian political landscapes were in flux, which undermined any efforts toward a negotiated settlement to the decades-long conflict. The right-of-center Likud party, led by former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, had come to power, and on the Palestinian side, the radical Islamist Hamas movement was mounting a campaign of suicide attacks in Israel.

Hamas’ surge was made possible by Fatah’s decline, which was accelerated by Arafat’s death in 2004. That same year, Israeli intelligence, which had penetrated Hamas, conducted a series of targeted attacks eliminating many of its leaders and its ability to conduct terrorist attacks inside Israel. The following year, Israel unilaterally withdrew from the Gaza Strip, which aided Hamas’ efforts to emerge as a major competitor to Fatah. Hamas’ victory in the Palestinian legislative elections in 2006 set the stage for what has become an irreconcilable divide among the Palestinians, with Hamas controlling Gaza and Fatah ruling in the West Bank under the aegis of the internationally recognized Palestinian Authority.

Under these circumstances, any efforts toward a negotiated settlement by default will be centered on the West Bank. But even the West Bank could not form the nucleus of a future Palestinian state because of two key factors: the growth of Jewish settlements where some 700,000 Israelis reside, and the Palestinian Authority’s decline due to widespread corruption and factionalism among the Fatah elite. The 87-year-old president of the PA, Mahmoud Abbas, who also leads Fatah and the Palestine Liberation Organization, has sat at the apex of this autocratic edifice since he took over from Arafat 18 years ago. The fact that the three major Palestinian entities will soon be looking for a successor could plunge the West Bank into a crisis and create a vacuum that Hamas is eyeing as a historic opportunity to dominate the Palestinian political landscape.

Israel's Annexation Plan
(click to enlarge)

Cognizant of this state of affairs, MBS rather candidly said he was seeking some concessions from the Israelis that would improve conditions for Palestinians. His comment reflects the fact that the feud between Hamas and Fatah is no longer at the center of intra-Palestinian divisions, which have deteriorated to the point where even the future of the PA in the West Bank is mired in uncertainty. Thus, the Saudis have returned to managing the Palestinian issue after a 16-year break, which began following their failed effort to mediate between Hamas and Fatah in February 2007. Since then, Israeli-Palestinian negotiations have seen little progress, largely because of the power struggle between the two Palestinian groups.

Meanwhile, Riyadh had been consumed with other critical issues such as the regional instability created by the 2011 Arab uprisings, the jihadist threat (especially from the Islamic State), the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood (especially in Egypt), Iranian expansionism and Turkey’s efforts to re-establish its influence in the Arab world. Many of these issues are no longer as pressing as they once were, though the threat posed by Iran, with which the Saudis have also agreed to normalize ties, remains a key concern.

Arab Countries that Recognize Israel
(click to enlarge)

Notably, the Iranian threat is one of the main motivators behind a potential Saudi-Israeli deal. The 2020 Abraham Accords, which led several of Saudi Arabia’s Arab allies to normalize relations with Israel, couldn’t have taken place without Saudi approval. The agreements were actually seen as a precursor to an eventual Saudi-Israeli deal. Unlike these other Arab states, however, the Saudis cannot establish relations with Israel without somehow addressing the Palestinian issue. But the Saudis realize that trying to get the Palestinians even limited autonomy is going to prove extremely difficult. They are therefore trying to reach an arrangement that minimizes Hamas’ ability to benefit from the emerging chaos in the West Bank, which Iran would certainly exploit.

[Crafty_Dog]

https://www.dailywire.com/news/saudi-arabia-publicly-acknowledges-defending-israel-from-iranian-attacks-reports?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=benshapiro&fbclid=IwAR1ra5h-fBJ7tq8gNYhgWhQXtZYfgtJJnQqy8U6lrWKdXiJ8KAGwE4qqmK0 

[Crafty_Dog]

Geopolitical Futures
June 10, 2024
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Saudi Arabia's Quest for Peace With Israel
The Saudi crown prince is hopeful for a deal, though the Saudi people are skeptical.
By: Hilal Khashan
Saudi Arabia has always sought peace with Israel, although it dreaded the consequences of publicizing its intent. In 1965, the Arab public ridiculed Tunisian President Habib Bourguiba when he proposed to resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict based on the United Nations' 1947 partition plan. Given the slow-paced and cautious Saudi foreign policy and its aversion to making dramatic decisions, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman realized the need to prepare the Saudi people for active peace with Israel after decades of vilifying Jews and condemning Israel's existence. He delegated the task of re-socializing the population to the local media, invariably reflecting and rationalizing official foreign policy shifts.

This paper traces the origins of Saudi peace endeavors with Israel even before the state's establishment in 1948 and MBS' hopes for normalization. It then sheds light on the Saudi people's opposition to peace with Israel, which mandated the government's decision to use the local media to convince them of the merits of peace, given the Saudi royals' traditional emphasis on securing broad consensus before making consequential decisions.

Saudi Peace Track

Palestine caught the attention of Ibn Saud amid the rising strife between Arabs and Jews in the 1930s. However, given his preoccupation with consolidating his rule in Arabia and maintaining relations with Britain and the United States, he was uninterested in what happened there. Despite Ibn Saud's Wahhabi legacy and its blatant hostility not only to Christians and Jews but also to other Islamic groups, he determined his position on the Jews and Zionism based on protecting the strategic interests of his kingdom in the Arabian Peninsula, as he had no ambitions to expand the scope of his rule outside it. Palestine did not mean a lot to him. One of the essential principles of Ibn Saud's policy was cooperation with Britain and the United States to ensure that the balance of power in the Middle East would not tilt in favor of his Hashemite rivals in Iraq and Jordan at the expense of his fledgling kingdom.

Ibn Saud resisted making any sacrifices on behalf of the Palestinians that might harm Saudi Arabia, and his aid to the Palestinians consisted of minimal money and weapons, which he sent secretly to them. Ibn Saud believed in the possibility of coexistence between Arabs and Jews with the help of Britain, which was responsible for regional security. In the 1940s, Ibn Saud worked within the Arab League to reject proposals that would harm the interests of the United States and Britain, avoided commitments to provide significant aid to the Palestinians, and opposed war against the Jews. In 1948, when Israel declared its independence and the Arab League armies invaded Palestine, Ibn Saud contented himself with symbolic participation by sending a small, untrained contingent under Egyptian command, which contributed little to the Arab war effort. The dramatic regional developments after the defeat of the Arab armies prompted Ibn Saud to cease interference in the Arab-Israeli conflict.

The Saudi leadership subtly welcomed Egypt's signing of the Camp David Peace Accords with Israel in 1978. Nevertheless, the success of the Iranian Revolution in 1979 and Tehran's efforts to export it to the Arab region triggered the Iraq-Iran war in 1980. The Saudis began to see Iran, not Israel, as their biggest strategic security threat. In 1981, then-Saudi Crown Prince Fahd presented a peace proposal at a summit in Morocco that included establishing a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza, with East Jerusalem as its capital, in exchange for providing guarantees for peace among all countries in the region. However, the summit ended abruptly four hours after its start due to the refusal of Syria, Iraq, Algeria and Libya to accept the security of Israel. The gathering reconvened a year later and implicitly recognized Israel's right to exist, provided it agreed to establish a Palestinian state and dismantle West Bank settlements.

Twenty years later, Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah presented an initiative at the Beirut summit that demanded Israel's withdrawal from the Golan Heights and the establishment of a Palestinian state in exchange for comprehensive normalization. However, Syria objected to normalization and substituted it with peace because normalization belongs to the people and not to governments.

Peace and Its Discontents

In 2016, MBS launched Vision 2030 to transform Saudi Arabia economically, culturally and socially. Soon after King Salman designated him as crown prince, he set out to consolidate his domestic powers and pursue the challenging task of modernization through economic diversification away from oil, which had eluded Saudi kings since 1970. He believed in the necessity of making peace with economically developed and technologically vibrant Israel to fulfill his desire to transform Saudi Arabia into a modern country. However, MBS became concerned about the Saudis' reaction to making peace with Israel. His fears came true with the publication of a recent public opinion poll.

The survey, carried out by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy a few weeks after Hamas' October attack, showed that most respondents saw Israel as a weak and divided state. The overwhelming majority of them believed the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas was a victory for Arabs and Muslims. Almost all respondents also agreed on the necessity for Arab and Islamic countries that recognize Israel to immediately sever all diplomatic, political and economic relations with it. Strikingly, only 16 percent of Saudi respondents said that Hamas should stop calling for the destruction of Israel and accept a two-state solution based on the 1967 borders.

The Media Joins In

Saudi newspapers do not hide the kingdom's desire to achieve peace with Israel because it is in line with the country's initiatives since 1981, which Riyadh associates with achieving a just, comprehensive and sustainable solution to the Palestinian issue. Saudi media condemned what Hamas did last October, stressing that Hamas must understand that Arabs reject it. Saudi Arabia views Hamas as living in a grand illusion, including the futility of its project to establish a Palestinian state from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. Some Saudi newspapers compared the Hamas attack on Oct. 7 to the 9/11 attacks, proposing that there was a hidden goal for Hamas to sabotage Saudi intentions to solve the Palestinian problem. Saudi media discourse shows solidarity with Gaza's civilians and demonization of Hamas. It also criticizes the extremeness of the Israeli military campaign, even though the Saudi Al Arabiya TV channel extensively covered the horrific stories of the victims of the Hamas attacks. Saudi criticism of Israel does not hide the fact that according to research firm Oil Change International, Saudi Arabia sent 151 oil shipments to Israel during the first six months of the war.

The Saudi media presents itself as merely an observer of the war in Gaza, yet tacitly suggests that the kingdom keeps the door open for normalization with Israel and that the ball is in its court. The Saudi media focuses on legitimizing normalization with Israel, whose preconditions vacillate between Palestinian statehood and improving the Palestinians' quality of life.

What is striking is the frequent appearance of Israeli officials and analysts on Al Arabiya, which is an implicit indicator of Israel's gradual introduction into the Saudi public. Most Saudis do not know anything about Israel other than what they have learned over the decades since its establishment and the emergence of the refugee problem. The late King Faisal's portrayal of Zionists, in addition to communists, as perpetrators of a cosmic conspiracy played a significant role in shaping the Saudi collective consciousness about Jews in general and Zionism in particular. The Saudi media never mentioned Israel except to warn against it, while the Saudi educational curricula ignored its existence and took its name off the map.

Unlike the Qatar-based Al Jazeera, Al Arabiya has adopted a moderate stance toward Israel. In the past few years, former Saudi officials and pro-government social media influencers have publicly criticized the Palestinians for wasting opportunities to solve the conflict, sharing sharp posts saying "Palestine is not my issue."

A prominent Saudi journalist and advocate of normalization claimed that Israel is living in a post-9/11 atmosphere and that there is currently no room for reason in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s calculations. The journalist stressed that Netanyahu should not waste the unprecedented opportunity for peace with the kingdom. However, after the storm of post-Oct. 7 repercussions subsided, he expressed optimism about the future. The journalist mocked the senseless wars caused by Hamas since Israel's withdrawal from Gaza in 2005 and even all the Arab-Israeli wars since 1948. He expressed dissatisfaction with the behavior of some Arab academics and intellectuals who failed the test of reason.

Saudi media expressed the need to forge peace with Israel as quickly as possible, warning that the details of the agreement could derail normalization. These details lie in direct talks between Israel and the Palestinians, which could extend for years. The Saudis are fully aware that Israel will not accept Palestinian statehood based on the failure of the peace processes between the two parties, starting with the Camp David Accords in 1978, the Oslo Accords in 1993, and the Middle East Quartet's 2003 Roadmap for Peace. Therefore, Saudi media advocates peacemaking as soon as possible and separates it from the Palestinian statehood track.

The Peace Drive Goes On

Saudi Arabia will not forgive Hamas for jeopardizing normalization talks with Israel. MBS bases his country's foreign policy on the principle of Saudi Arabia first. Therefore, despite the number of Palestinian civilian deaths due to the war, no red lines stand in the way of his strategic choice to normalize relations with Israel, regardless of what happens in Gaza or the possibilities of establishing a Palestinian state. However, MBS faces a domestic challenge due to growing Saudi popular support for Hamas, which has come to embody resistance to Israel.

Saudi Arabia can significantly influence the U.S. to stop the war. But it has refrained from doing so, focusing instead on exploiting the war to pursue its interests. The Saudis want to sign a defense agreement with the United States and revive peace negotiations with Israel to establish a joint economic partnership and fulfill some of its development goals, which have hit a snag recently.

The Saudis do not trust the ability of the inherently corrupt Palestinian Authority to reform itself, which is what Western countries demand as a prerequisite for talks on a two-state solution. Saudi media, which insists on making peace today and not tomorrow, indicates that the Palestinian Authority is not aware of the seriousness of the situation and doubts its ability to engage in successful negotiations. Lack of faith in the self-serving Palestinian leadership justifies Saudi Arabia's signing a peace agreement with Israel and placing the blame on the Palestinians for the failure of their statehood project.

[ccp]

"The Saudis do not trust the ability of the inherently corrupt Palestinian Authority to reform itself"

but the Bamster, Sullivan, and Blinks know better