With the tacit backing of his father, Saudi Arabia’s 32-year-old crown prince has established himself as the most powerful figure in the Arab world, rushing into confrontations on all sides at once.
Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman ordered the arrest of 11 princes in his royal family and nearly 200 members of the Saudi business elite, and has begun to take power from the kingdom’s conservative clerics. He has blockaded neighboring Qatar, accused Iran of acts of war and encouraged the resignation of Lebanon’s prime minister. And in Yemen, his armed forces are fighting an Iranian-aligned faction in an intractable war that created a humanitarian crisis.
The crown prince has moved so quickly that American officials and others worry that he is destabilizing the region. Signs of potential blowback are growing.
Investors, nervous about his plans, have been moving money out of the kingdom. Prince Mohammed has sought to counter the capital flight by squeezing detainees and others to surrender assets. He has presented the arrests as a campaign against corruption, but his targets call it a shakedown, and he has turned for advice to a former Egyptian security chief who has been pilloried at home for brutality and graft.
The market, connecting the dots: there is some chatter that part of the reason for the Dow 30 (US stock market) to be pulling back at the moment is that the Saudi government -- facing a financial crisis -- and individual princes (as noted above) may be liquidating some of their vast holdings in the US stock market. My hunch is we could see more about this as time goes on.
Comment: based on how family feuds played out in British history, I'm not convinced that we have seen the end of the "silent civil war" in Riyadh. Just saying.
More from the Times article on Prince Salman:
But analysts around the region debate whether the headlong rush might be driven more by a desire to consolidate power before a possible royal succession, desperation for cash to pay for his plans or simply unchecked ambition to put his stamp on the broader Middle East. And despite President Trump’s enthusiasm for the prince, some in the State Department, the Pentagon and the intelligence agencies say they fear that his impulsiveness could both set back his own goals and destabilize the region.
Remember: Saudi recently bought a huge amount of military hardware from the United States. It might be liquidating equity holdings for cash to help pay for some of this hardware.“He’s decided he doesn’t do anything cautiously,” said Philip Gordon, the White House Middle East coordinator under President Barack Obama. But, Mr. Gordon said, “if the crown prince alienates too many other princes and other pillars of the regime, pursues costly regional conflicts and scares off foreign investors, he could undermine the prospects for the very reforms he is trying to implement.”
Revolutionary Guards:
Even though discussions between Baghdad and Tehran have been conducted between oil ministry officials and the Chamber of Commerce, the Revolutionary Guards are poised to step in.
"Any oil transaction between Iran and Iraq should be approved by the Revolutionary Guards, not the oil ministry." said Reza Mostafavi Tabatabaei, president of London-based ENEXD, a firm involved in the energy equipment business in the Middle East.
Those dealings are overseen by the desk responsible for Iran's investments in Iraq at the president’s office and are run by the Revolutionary Guards.
The pipeline project will be the Revolutionary Guards' reward to the Kurds for helping with the recapture of Kirkuk, said Tabatabaei.
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Tea Leaves Suggest It's Not Going To Be A Bright, Bright Sunshiny Day
At Least Not For The Kurds
From Reuters via Rigzone: oil is seen as the real prize of Iran's Kurdish adventure. Where we stand now:
- ISIS is defeated
- Saudi Arabia is in a fight for its life, economically and militarily
- Iran has Saudi Arabia surrounded
- Iran's star was rising under previous administration
- President Trump's first foreign trip was to Saudi Arabia
- US renews tough talk on Iran
- Kurds defeated in their attempt for independence
"The Kurdish dream of being a big oil exporter is in tatters," said a source close to the government in Erbil, who predicted that "Iran will be king of the game".
The Kurds' bid for independence angered Turkey and Iran, which both have large Kurdish populations and condemned the referendum as destabilising the region. The United States also called on Kurdistan to scrap the vote.
But it was probably internal Kurdish divisions which doomed the referendum to failure, local political sources believe. Oil was at the heart of this dispute.
- Iran helped Iraq stop the Kurds
- what did Iran gain? oil --
Iraq has agreed for the first time to divert crude from Kirkuk province, which it retook from the Kurds, to Iran, where it will supply a refinery in the city of Kermanshah.who loses? Turkey.
The pipeline would replace existing export routes for crude from northern Iraq via Turkey and the Mediterranean and would be a blow to Ankara's hopes of becoming an energy hub for Europe.
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Best Posting In The World?
Wow, this did not happen during President Obama's administration and certainly would not have happened during a Hillary administration.
From US Defense News: US breaks ground for new permanent base in Israel --
Women Of The Israeli Defense Forces
From US Defense News: US breaks ground for new permanent base in Israel --
U.S. and Israeli officers broke ground in Israel on Monday for a permanent U.S. Army base that will house dozens of U.S. soldiers, operating under the American flag, and charged with the mission of defending against rocket and missile attack.
I would go there for the music. LOL.The American base, officers in Israel say, will be an independent facility co-located at the Israel Defense Forces Air Defense School in southern Israel, near the desert capital of Beersheba. Once completed, the base will house U.S. operational systems to identify and intercept a spectrum of aerial threats, along with barracks, recreational and other facilities required to support several dozen American air defenders.
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