American Thinker
by Thomas Lifson
11/28/2018
Excerpt:
The read of the day is Angelo Codevilla’s dose of reality about the nature of our “ally” and “friend” Saudi Arabia, titled “What Is Saudi Arabia to Us?“
Unlike virtually all of the commentary on the killing and dismemberment of Jamal Khashoggi, Codevilla does not pretend that politics in Saudi Arabia are anything but a matter of life-and-death factional conflict among the roughly 5,000 male members of the royal family, descendants of Ibn Saud, the regime’s founder, who seized power with the help of hard-line Wahhabi clerics.
It seems that Saudi Arabia’s rulers murdered an opponent. The U.S. media and political class is shocked, shocked, to find that murder is going on in such precincts. Who did they imagine the Muslim world’s leaders are?
Moreover, our chattering class demands that President Trump do whatever it takes to make sure that they do nothing like that again. Do what? Does anyone really think that swapping sheik A for sheik B would improve their kind’s moral standards? Do they have any idea of what keeps A on top of B, what it would take to switch them, or what the repercussions would be in foreign policy? Are they naifs, idiots, or are they just playing with foreign policy to make life a little harder for Trump? …
Saudi Arabia’s rulers are a subspecies of the desert rats endemic in the region. The ones on the cheese now are of the clan of seven sons out of old king Saud’s favorite wife, Suda, and hence are known as Sudaris. The previous ruler, Abdullah was the only son of another wife. When Abdullah’s birth-order turn came, in 2005, he took the throne thanks only to having mobilized the national guard of bedouins for war against the national army (and everything else) controlled by the Sudaris. Today, when you read about Mohammed bin Salman’s “anti-corruption reforms,” you should know that they target primarily Abdullah’s son and other relatives. In other words, what is going on, including murder, is a purely dynastic power play. But that is Saudi Arabia’s nice side.
View the complete article including image, links and comments at:
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2018/11/at_last_a_little_realism_on_saudi_arabia_.html