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The House of Saud’s King Salman devises an high-powered “anti-corruption” commission and appoints his son, Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman, a.k.a. MBS, as chairman.
Right on cue, the commission detains 11 House of Saud princes, four current ministers and dozens of former princes/cabinet secretaries – all charged with corruption. Hefty bank accounts are frozen, private jets are grounded. The high-profile accused lot is “jailed” at the Riyadh Ritz-Carlton.
War breaks out within the House of Saud, as Asia Times had anticipated back in July. Rumors have been swirling for months about a coup against MBS in the making. Instead, what just happened is yet another MBS pre-emptive coup.
A top Middle East business/investment source who has been doing deals for decades with the opaque House of Saud offers much-needed perspective: “This is more serious than it appears. The arrest of the two sons of previous King Abdullah, Princes Miteb and Turki, was a fatal mistake. This now endangers the King himself. It was only the regard for the King that protected MBS. There are many left in the army against MBS and they are enraged at the arrest of their commanders.”
To say the Saudi Arabian Army is in uproar is an understatement. “He’d have to arrest the whole army before he could feel secure.”
Prince Miteb until recently was a serious contender to the Saudi throne. But the highest profile among the detainees belongs to billionaire Prince al-Waleed Bin Talal, owner of Kingdom Holdings, major shareholder in Twitter, CitiBank, Four Seasons, Lyft and, until recently, Rupert Murdoch’s Newscorp.
Al-Waleed’s arrest ties up with a key angle; total information control. There’s no freedom of information in Saudi Arabia. MBS already controls all the internal media (as well as the appointment of governorships). But then there’s Saudi media at large. MBS aims to “hold the keys to all the large media empires and relocate them to Saudi Arabia.”
So how did we get here?
The secrets behind the purge
The story starts with secret deliberations in 2014 about a possible “removal” of then King Abdullah. But “the dissolution of the royal family would lead to the breaking apart of tribal loyalties and the country splitting into three parts. It would be more difficult to secure the oil, and the broken institutions whatever they were should be maintained to avoid chaos.”
Instead, a decision was reached to get rid of Prince Bandar bin Sultan – then actively coddling Salafi-jihadis in Syria – and replace the control of the security apparatus with Mohammed bin Nayef.
The succession of Abdullah proceeded smoothly. “Power was shared between three main clans: King Salman (and his beloved son Prince Mohammed); the son of Prince Nayef (the other Prince Mohammed), and finally the son of the dead king (Prince Miteb, commander of the National Guard). In practice, Salman let MBS run the show.
And, in practice, blunders also followed. The House of Saud lost its lethal regime-change drive in Syria and is bogged down in an unwinnable war on Yemen, which on top of it prevents MBS from exploiting the Empty Quarter – the desert straddling both nations.
The Saudi Treasury was forced to borrow on the international markets. Austerity ruled – with news of MBS buying a yacht for almost half a billion dollars while lazing about the Cote d’Azur not going down particularly well. Hardcore political repression is epitomized by the decapitation of Shi’ite leader Sheikh Al-Nimr. Not only the Shi’ites in the Eastern province are rebelling but also Sunni provinces in the west.
As the regime’s popularity radically tumbled down, MBS came up with Vision 2030. Theoretically, it was shift away from oil; selling off part of Aramco; and an attempt to bring in new industries. Cooling off dissatisfaction was covered by royal payoffs to key princes to stay loyal and retroactive payments on back wages to the unruly masses.
Yet Vision 2030 cannot possibly work when the majority of productive jobs in Saudi Arabia are held by expats. Bringing in new jobs raises the question of where are the new (skilled) workers to come from.
Throughout these developments, aversion to MBS never ceased to grow; “There are three major royal family groups aligning against the present rulers: the family of former King Abdullah, the family of former King Fahd, and the family of former Crown Prince Nayef.”
Nayef – who replaced Bandar – is close to Washington and extremely popular in Langley due to his counter-terrorism activities. His arrest earlier this year angered the CIA and quite a few factions of the House of Saud – as it was interpreted as MBS forcing his hand in the power struggle.
According to the source, “he might have gotten away with the arrest of CIA favorite Mohammed bin Nayef if he smoothed it over but MBS has now crossed the Rubicon though he is no Caesar. The CIA regards him as totally worthless.”
Some sort of stability could eventually be found in a return to the previous power sharing between the Sudairis (without MBS) and the Chamars (the tribe of deceased King Abdullah). After the death of King Salman, the source would see it as “MBS isolated from power, which would be entrusted to the other Prince Mohammed (the son of Nayef). And Prince Miteb would conserve his position.”
MBS acted exactly to prevent this outcome. The source, though, is adamant; “There will be regime change in the near future, and the only reason that it has not happened already is because the old King is liked among his family. It is possible that there may be a struggle emanating from the military as during the days of King Farouk, and we may have a ruler arise that is not friendly to the United States.”
‘Moderate’ Salafi-jihadis, anyone?
Before the purge, the House of Saud’s incessant spin centered on a $500 billion zone straddling Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt, on the Red Sea coast, a sort of Dubai replica to be theoretically completed by 2025, powered by wind and solar energy, and financed by its sovereign wealth fund and proceeds from the Aramco IPO.
In parallel, MBS pulled another rabbit from his hat swearing the future of Saudi Arabia is a matter of “simply reverting to what we followed – a moderate Islam open to the world and all religions.”
In a nutshell: a state that happens to be the private property of a royal family inimical to all principles of freedom of expression and religion, as well as the ideological matrix of all forms of Salafi-jihadism simply cannot metastasize into a “moderate” state just because MBS says so.
Meanwhile, a pile-up of purges, coups and countercoups shall be the norm.
ʾin shāʾallāhu’ – whatever is God’s will. If you do good, you do good to yourselves. (likewise)
If you do evil, you do evil to yourselves.
(Qur’an: Chapter 17, Verse 7).
Thank you for translating this muslim greeting that is used everywhere by muslims.
in shāʾallāhu
This internal fighting between the princes is not a good signal for the future. It will for sure be reflected in the pricing of the Aramco IPO next year. It looks like mess to me and could ignite civil war and more instability in the region. We must keep in mind Saudi Arabia have been the “welfare” office for many struggling nations in the region. The Saudis seem to have more than enough to save their own economy than helping other nations.
the road to peace will come via tehran damascus and baghdad..two down one to go..iran has acted dishonestly since 1979..the gulf rulers may have been corrupt,but the mideast need to have to go deep to ultimate end game..iran played dirty in beirut and syria..secular it may have been of some way,but ultimately it could not go the proud persian way..of destroying arab culture and sociey..
Jared kushners visit has alot to do with what has happened . Rouge factions in saudi have launched attacks in retribution to trumps election and spat with one of the princes. Jared delivered intelligence revealing collusion to overthrow the king and triggered the purge. A rougue saudi prince was behind the vegas shooting.
i agree that Kushners visit is one of the reasons for all this but not for the reasons u say.
Vegas & all other such staged incidents were false flag ops done by YOUR govt working with Mossad- same culprits all the time.
Not to smart your from your side to an openion about what is going in the Middle East. Please do your homework and then give you thoughts to the world.
The house of Al-Saud is coming down after so many years of correption, wars and crimes against humanity lining up with the Zuinists and the American Neo-Con.
The Golden Rule
Karma
3 Fold Rule of Wicca
Etc
Just be nice to each other.
Mahrukh Khan,
Your response worth millions
You only have to look at the guy to see he is pure evil.
Rich Baldochi
Air America flew the headchoppers to safety.
Actually Marxism as you know it is an American invention.
Marx was an economist who analysed financial structures in great detail.
Because his work showed Americas form of capitalism for what it is, the exploitation of the common man, America has vilified a great mind.
Why would any Lebanese want to destroy Hezbollah?
If not for Hezbollah, most of southern Lebanon would have been annexed by Israel many years ago.
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has been in bad shape for a long,long time. The country has been parked in the middle ages from the jump and there love fest with Israel and the United Staes will not save them from the anger of the people of Saudi Arabia. The winner in this little tiff is the country of Iran who is self sufficient in many regards due to all the sanctions they have had to indure since the take down of the hated Shah in 1979. The great Bob Dylan wrote "The times, they are a changing" and for Saudi Arabia that is happening in real time right in front of our eyes!!
Naim Farhat The House of Saud has about 1000 members I have heard though.This power conflict is a family feud.There may be a few who are eliminated ‘in whatever way’ (including being jailed).One of the factions of ‘the family’ is not going away for a while yet.It’s any bodies guest who will eventually end up with the longest knife.
Things are not looking very stable in the Middle East at all at the moment.There seems to be a need for alot of diplomatic intermediaries in the area.Sadly there are very few about these days which points to an excalation of conflict.
…..and that is why Saudi Arabia hates Iran.As someone from the West I could not support the Iranian regime, but in many ways they seem to be emerging as the lesser of the evils.I don’t seem to share the same view of this by my Western elite on this though.Money seems to be the main driving factor in all of this, as always.
Sounds like the CIA wrote this.
Mahrukh Khan: Senseless worshipping of anything is stupid! But cow provides excellent meat, nutritious milk, dairy products , leather and dung for manure! Better than camel! So why not worship it?
So mohammadenism and a shia Name? Lol accept you aint muslim
Without oil all these kings and princes would be milking goats.
Ho hum, another kleptocracy experiencing a power struggle over stolen treasure and human cattle.
This is why the price of gasoline has gone up 20 cents in the past week. Maybe we should have let Saddam Hussein have the place.
Mahrukh Khan *you’re
I like Pepe Escobar’s analysis, even though I am not interested in (and have never liked) Saudi Arabia – a primitive tribal regime with barbaric Islamic laws and absurd restrictions on women.
Paul Archer The biggest problem for Saudis in the eyes of the Muslim world has been their alliance with the USA and lately their cozy relationship with Israel.
Reading Pepe’s article and many others like it clarifies for me the fact that Mr. MBS will have a hell of a time getting the rank and file in SA military to follow his orders.
The foolish prince has declared war on Iran and Lebanon without the means to fight either one and win without directly involving the US and Israel. The Islamic populace will be appalled in the advent of such wars.
Wow how much did Massed pay you for saying so? You must be stupid or mentally ill or both since the rest of the world except USA and Israel thanks both Iran and Russia for defeating ISIS. It was Iran, Hebollah and the Russian airforce that forced the throat slashing rapist terrorists out and freeing Syria and Iraq. Saudi Arabia’s day is numbered.
Recall that the tribal kingdom of Saudi Arabia aren’t from Arabia itself, they were desert warriors originally from Jordan area and the Jordanians are actually from Arabia. The two tribes were causing headache for the brttish so the Brits decided to allocate land to quell the uprising.
Jared Kushner the Israeli agent inside the WH, what a son of a bitch he is trying to ignite Natanyahu’s wet dream of a war between Iran and SA. Muslims slaughtering each other while the Zionists watch jubilantly
A marxist has more moral and ethical character than a satanic Zionist war monger.
A serious ‘family’ feud bodes ill for stability in the region. Oh ,duh, what was I thinking. What regional stability. Peace be upon you! Allahu Akbar.