29 Mar 2024
Friday 8 January 2016 - 20:30
Story Code : 195955

Fear and loathing in the House of Saud

Desperation does not even begin to describe the current plight of the House of Saud.


Riyadh was fully aware the beheading ofrespected Saudi Shia cleric Nimr al-Nimr was a deliberate provocation bound toelicit a rash Iranian response.

The Saudis calculated they could get away withit; afterall they employ the best American PR machine petrodollars can buy, and are viscerally defended bythe usual gaggle ofnasty US neo-cons.

In a post-Orwellian world "order" where war is peace and "moderate" jihadis get a free pass, a House ofSaud oil hacienda cum beheading paradise devoid ofall civilized norms ofpolitical mediation and civil society participation heads the UN Commission onHuman Rights and fattens the US industrial-military complex tothe tune ofbillions ofdollars while merrily exporting demented Wahhabi/Salafi-jihadism fromMENA (Middle East-Northern Africa) toEurope and fromthe Caucasus toEast Asia.
And yet major trouble looms. Erratic King Salman's move ofappointing his son, the supremely arrogant and supremely ignorant Prince Mohammad bin Salman tonumber two inthe line ofsuccession has been contested even amongWahhabi hardliners.


But don't count onpetrodollar-controlled Arab media totell the story.

English-language TV network Al-Arabiyya, forinstance, based inthe Emirates, long financed byHouse ofSaud members, and owned bythe MBC conglomerate, was bought bynone other thanPrince Mohammad himself, who will also buy MBC.

With oil atless than $40 a barrel, largely thanks to Saudi Arabia's oil war againstboth Iran and Russia, Riyadh's conventional wars are taking a terrible toll. The budget has collapsed and the House ofSaud has been forced toraise taxes.
The illegal war onYemen, conducted withfull US acquiescence, led by who else Prince Mohammad, and largely carried outby the proverbial band ofmercenaries, has instead handsomely profited al-Qaeda inthe Arabic Peninsula (AQAP), just asthe war onSyria has profited mostly Jabhat al-Nusra, a.k.a. al-Qaeda inSyria.


Three months ago, Saudi ulemas called fora jihad not only againstDamascus butalso Tehran and Moscow withoutthe "civilized" West batting an eyelid; afterall the ulemas were savvy enough tomilk the "Russian aggression" bandwagon, comparing the Russian intervention inSyria, agreed withDamascus, withthe 1979 Soviet invasion ofAfghanistan.

US Think Tankland revels inspinning that the beheading provocation was a "signal" toTehran that Riyadh will not tolerate Iranian influence amongShias living inpredominantly Sunni states. And yet Beltway cackle that Riyadh hoped tocontain "domestic Shia tensions" bybeheading al-Nimr does not even qualify asa lousy propaganda script. To see why this is nonsense, let's take a quick tour ofSaudi Arabia's Eastern province.

All Eyes onAl Sharqiyya

Saudi Arabia is essentially a huge desert island. Even though the oil hacienda is bordered bythe Red Sea and the Persian Gulf, the Saudis don't control what matters: the key channels ofcommunication/energy exporting bottlenecks the Bab el-Mandeb and the Straits ofHormuz, not tomention the Suez canal.

Enter US "protection" asstructured ina Mafia-style "offer you can't refuse" arrangement; we guarantee safe passage forthe oil export flow throughour naval patrols and you buy fromus, non-stop, a festival ofweapons and host our naval bases alongsideother GCC minions. The "protection" used tobe provided bythe former British empire. So Saudi Arabia aswell asthe GCC remains essentially an Anglo-American satrapy.
Al Sharqiyya the Eastern Province ofSaudi Arabia holds only 4 million people, the overwhelming majority Shias. And yet it produces no less than80% ofSaudi oil. The heart ofthe action is the provincial capital Al Qatif, where Nimr al-Nimr was born. We're talking aboutthe largest oil hub onthe planet, consisting of12 crisscrossed pipelines that connect tomassive Gulf oil terminals such asDhahran and Ras Tanura.


Enter the strategic importance ofneighboring Bahrain. Historically, all the lands fromBasra insouthern Iraq tothe peninsula ofMusandam, inOman traditional trade posts betweenEurope and India were known asBahrain ("between two seas").

Tehran could easily use neighboring Bahrain toinfiltrate Al Sharqiyya, detach it fromRiyadh's control, and configure a "Greater Bahrain" allied withIran. That's the crux ofthe narrative peddled bypetrodollar-controlled media, the proverbial Western "experts", and incessantly parroted inthe Beltway.

There's no question Iranian hardliners cherish the possibility ofa perpetual Bahraini thorn onRiyadh's side. That would imply weaponizing a popular revolution inAl Sharqiyya. But the fact is not even Nimr al-Nimr was infavor ofa secession ofAl Sharqiyya.

And that's also the view ofthe Rouhani administration inTehran. Whether disgruntled youth acrossAl Sharqiyya will finally have had enough withthe beheading ofal-Nimr it's another story; it may open a Pandora's box that will not exactly displease the IRGC inTehran.

But the heart ofthe matter is that Team Rouhani perfectly understands the developing Southwest Asia chapter ofthe New Great Game, featuring the re-emergence ofIran asa regional superpower; all ofthe House ofSaud's moves, fromhopelessly inept tomajor strategic blunder, betray utter desperation withthe end ofthe old order.

That spans everything froman unwinnable war (Yemen) toa blatant provocation (the beheading ofal-Nimr) and a non sequitur such asthe new Islamic 34-nation anti-terror coalition which most alleged members didn't even know they were a part of.
The supreme House ofSaud obsession rules, drenched infear and loathing: the Iranian "threat".


Riyadh, which is clueless onhow toplay geopolitical chess or backgammon will keep insisting onthe oil war, asit cannot even contemplate a military confrontation withTehran. And everything will be onhold, waiting forthe next tenant of1600 Pennsylvania Avenue; will he/she be tempted topivot back toSouthwest Asia, and cling tothe old order (not likely, asWashington relies onbecoming independent fromSaudi oil)? Or will the House ofSaud be left toits own puny devices amongthe shark-infested waters ofhardcore geopolitics?

The views expressed inthis article are solely those ofthe author and do not necessarily reflect the official position ofSputnik.

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