Saudi Arabia’s Saturday Night Massacre

This weekend, while we here in the US were focused on the upcoming election and President Trump’s visit to Asia, a powerful drama with vast geopolitical implications played out in Saudi Arabia.

Mohammad bin Salman, the king’s son, is the de facto ruler of the country and has been making increasingly aggressive moves in an attempt to shift Saudi Arabia from its status as an ultraconservative oil-producing nation to a 21^st-century manufacturing superpower with social mores to match. In doing so he has greatly perturbed a broad swath of the Saudi elite – many of them his near and distant royal family brethren – as well as the fundamentalist Wahhabi clergy.

Reports: Houthi missile hits military base near Saudi capital

An emboldened and belligerent Iran, that got everything it wanted out of the Obama administration, is clearly preparing for and provoking war:

 

Scud missile variants are being used by the Iran-backed Houthis.

 

A surface-to-surface missile launched by Iran-backed Houthi rebels hit a Saudi military camp near Riyadh on Feb. 5, according to regional news reports.

The Saudi Ministry of Defense has not commented on the incident, but a number of local citizens reported on Twitter that the missile hit a military camp in the town of al-Muzahimiyah, 40 kilometers west of Riyadh.

The Coming Fracture Of Saudi Arabia

 

The Bible’s book of Galatians, VI teaches, «as you sow, so shall you reap». And for Saudi Arabia, which has overtly and covertly supported rebellions in Libya, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Ethiopia, Philippines, and Lebanon that have led to civil wars and inter-religious strife, the day of reckoning may soon be at hand. The present Saudi king, Salman bin Abdul Aziz, is the last of the sons of the first Saudi king, Abdul Aziz al Saud, who will ever sit on the Saudi throne. After Salman dies, Saudi leadership will pass to a new generation of Saudi royals. But not all the descendants of the first Saudi king are happy about how the future succession may turn out.

Saudi Arabia risks destroying Opec and feeding the Isil monster

‘Saudi Arabia is acting directly against the interests of half the cartel and is running Opec over a cliff,’ says RBC

The rumblings of revolt against Saudi Arabia and the Opec Gulf states are growing louder as half a trillion dollars goes up in smoke, and each month that goes by fails to bring about the long-awaited killer blow against the US shale industry.

Algeria’s former energy minister, Nordine Aït-Laoussine, says the time has come to consider suspending his country’s Opec membership if the cartel is unwilling to defend oil prices and merely serves as the tool of a Saudi regime pursuing its own self-interest. “Why remain in an organisation that no longer serves any purpose?” he asked.