THESE ARE
THE SHITBAG MUSLIMS WHOSE BORDERS WE HAVE DEFENDED FOR TWO YEARS. THE VERY
SHITBAG SAUIDIS THAT THE BUSH CRIME FAMILY STARTED TWO WARS TO PROTECT AFTER
THE SAUDIS INVADED US 9-11
MBS: The
Rise to Power of Mohammed bin Salman
Ben
Hubbard. Random House/Duggan, $28 (384p) ISBN 978-1-9848-2382-3
Journalist Hubbard debuts with an incisive
portrait of modern Saudi Arabia and 34-year-old crown prince Mohammed bin
Salman, better known by his initials MBS. Though much about MBS’s early years
remains unknown, Hubbard details his close relationship with his father, the
governor of Riyadh, following the untimely deaths of two of MBS’s older
half-brothers, and his willingness to threaten with violence those who don’t
fall in line. After his father’s ascension to the throne in 2015, MBS took
control of the royal court and became minister of defense. He implemented
ambitious social and economic reforms, including rolling back the kingdom’s ban
on women drivers, and courted Western investors with plans to build a $500
billion “smart city” near the Red Sea. He also declared war on the Houthi
rebels in Yemen, escalated tensions with Iran and Qatar, detained hundreds of
ministers and royal family members in the Ritz-Carlton hotel in a move billed
as an anti-corruption push, and empowered underlings to aggressively silence
dissidents—a campaign that led to the slaying of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in
Saudi Arabia’s Turkish consulate in 2018, severely damaging MBS’s international
reputation. Hubbard enriches the narrative with informed discussions of Saudi
history and culture, illuminating the kingdom’s complex blend of religious
fundamentalism and technological ambition. This deeply researched and vividly
written account provides essential insight into a figure poised to lead the
region for the next half century. (Mar.)
Saudi Arabia's crown prince responds to coronavirus by getting rid
of enemies
David A. Andelman
So what does he do? He takes a leaf out of President Donald
Trump's playbook by getting rid of some of his most (allegedly) troublesome
opponents. Instead of a simple purge, however, the crown prince, known by his initials,
MBS, took the far more dramatic
step of arresting his cousin, Prince Mohammed bin Nayef; his uncle,
Prince Ahmed bin Abdelaziz, as well as one of Nayef's brothers and one of
Abdelaziz's sons. The first two have been charged with treason, which carries
the death penalty. The crown prince was already in hot water for allegedly
ordering the execution-style slaying of Washington Post columnist
Jamal Khashoggi. But with this escalation, the Saudi leader is
pushing the boundaries once again to see what exactly he can get away with.
All these issues have been brewing for some time. The crown
prince has given no quarter in five years of war in Yemen, which has turned
very much into a proxy war with Iran — each power supporting
opposing factions for control of this strategic corner of the Arabian
peninsula.
The Saudis have long been watching anxiously as demand for oil ratcheted down and
new energy sources, particularly from the United States, have come online. With
the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, demand for oil has plunged even further.
To hold prices in line, the Saudis called an emergency meeting
last week of the OPEC oil cartel to lower production
quotas. Russia balked at OPEC's demand, led by Saudi Arabia, to cut 1.5
million barrels a day in output and stabilize prices at $40 a barrel. Putin has
no problem with low oil prices, since Russia's cost of production is under $20 a barrel. But he would like to
see America's fracking efforts — an already costly proposition to — become
uneconomical.
Without a deal, Saudi Arabia said it would sell oil to China for a discount and
potentially raise its own output by as much as 2 million barrels a day — moves
that would result in flooding the market with oversupply. Oil prices around the
world plummeted more than 25 percent Monday to $31 a barrel. Since oil still
underpins the Saudi economy, accounting for 50 percent of its GDP and
some 70 percent of its export earnings, this is a serious gamble for the crown
prince, who has pledged to modernize and diversify his country's financial
future.
And then along came the coronavirus. Here the crown prince has
been forced to make some of the toughest decisions of his career. The one that
has already sent shock waves through the Islamic world was his decision to suspend the year-round umrah pilgrimage
in which as many as 20 million faithful — most from Saudi Arabia itself — take
part every year. This has also raised the question of whether the annual hajj
pilgrimage, which attracts millions Muslims more from every corner of the
globe, would be allowed at the end of July.
Throughout, criticism of the crown prince has
quietly been mounting at home. He wants desperately to succeed his father on
the throne; King Salman is now 84 and said to be
frail. Still, the day after the arrest of the four princes stunned the kingdom,
the king was shown in photos released by the royal
palace to be in good health, receiving foreign ambassadors and reading state
documents. Perhaps the king is anxious to remain in power to welcome world
leaders to the G-20 summit in Riyadh in November.
What has allowed the crown prince such a free hand? Certainly he
has benefited from the unalloyed support of his father, who seems to accept his
son's overt power grabs. Unanimity is vital since the next king is not chosen
until the previous one has died. The crown prince clearly wants nothing left to
chance.
But he also has innumerable enablers — world leaders and
business leaders alike — who have repeatedly failed to confront the leader. Amazon's Jeff Bezos was photographed
beaming next to him not long before the crown prince was revealed to have
ordered the disastrous hacking of Bezos' cellphone.
Trump is a particularly bad offender. Trump has never fully accepted the
conclusions of his own intelligence system that the crown prince personally
ordered the savage murder and dismemberment of Khashoggi. Not
surprisingly, Trump said nothing about the arrest of the four senior royals
this past weekend.
But the crown prince's manipulations — and Trump's inaction —
have a price. In the early morning hours on Tuesday, the prince and Trump talked
on the phone, according to a White House official. Hours later, the
Saudi prince flooded the oil market, hammering world stock, bond and currency
markets.
This price war, of course, has implications for Trump's own
re-election in November — especially if it threatens the American oil industry,
which employs some 9.8 million American workers and is
projected to add as many as 1 million more U.S. fracking jobs in the next five
years.
The crown prince and Trump are currently facing a very similar
set of challenges: The coronavirus threatening Americans at home and Muslims in
Mecca and Medina; oil price and supply disruptions affecting the economies of
both nations; unresolved and increasingly expensive wars respectively in
Afghanistan and Yemen.
Perhaps now is the time to begin to break that circle of
dependency before an impending crisis becomes a real crisis.
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