Saudi General Reportedly Tortured To Death After Refusing To Fork Over His Fortune

Rumors that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman has hired mercenaries to torture recalcitrant royals and officials sleeping in the ballroom of the Ritz Carlton in Riyadh have been circulating since shortly after last month’s “corruption crackdown” naked cash grab.

Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman

Now, Middle East Eye reports that one of MbS’s guests has reportedly died under torture rather than fork over his money and assets to his domineering relative. He was reportedly beaten and tortured so bad his family members had difficulty recognizing his body.

Major general Ali Alqahtani, who was detained in early November as part of an alleged anti-corruption drive, had been working in the royal guard forces.

 

He was the manager of the private office of Prince Turki Bin Abdullah, the son of former king Abdullah Bin Abdulaziz, according to the newspaper.

 

Alqahtani died on 12 December after being tortured with electric shocks, and his family struggled to recognise him after receiving his body, according to sources, the newspaper reported.

We know this might come as a shock to some – Tom Friedman and the New York Times said MbS was such a nice guy! But that doesn’t change the fact that he is effectively extorting members of his own family to help plug a gaping hole in the Saudi government’s budget, willfully employing violence when necessary in a fashion that would make Tony Soprano proud. Case in point: Yesterday, we noted that the Saudi government had reportedly made Prince Alwaleed bin Talal – one of the world’s richest men - an offer he cannot refuse: Either fork over $6 billion to the Treasury, or spend the rest of his life being strung upside down and tortured by foreign mercenaries.

Back when oil was at $100 and above, the Saudi economy was firing on all cylinders, and nobody even dreamed that the crown jewel of Saudi Arabia - Aramaco - would be on the IPO block. But official data released earlier this week showed the Saudi economy contracted this year for the first time in eight years. It’s estimated to have shrunk by 4% as thousands of state-subsidized jobs have disappeared.

But despite the contraction, the Saudis have announced a radically expansionary budget for 2018. The government is forecasting spending at 978 billion riyals ($260.8 billion), up 10% on 2017 estimates, as the royal family’s proxy war against Iran in Yemen enters its third year.

Even though oil prices are seemingly stuck at $50 a barrel, the Saudi government knows that its survival depends in part on placating the country’s citizens, who’ve grown accustomed to the trappings of a lavish welfare state.

This goes back to one of the reasons MbS has been able to get away with his crackdown: millions of regular Saudis have lauded MbS’s treatment of his fellow royals, seeing it as their long-overdue comeuppance.

Given that political opposition to the Crown Prince – who is expected to soon succeed his ailing father as king.

Saudi Media Releases Propaganda Film Showing Invasion Of Iran

It’s been a little over three weeks since Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MbS) called the Supreme Leader of Iran “the new Hitler of the Middle East”, escalating the war of words and ultimately launching the next leg up in the infowar between both countries.

And now the Saudi media, building on that rhetoric, just published a powerful short 3D-animated film depicting the Saudi military invading and conquering Iran.

Al-Riyadh newspaper on Friday said the video called “Saudi Deterrent Force”- was created by “young people from Saudi Arabia”, which it “depicts reality and the prestige of the Saudi Armed Forces” invading Iran by air, land, and sea.

Further, Al-Riyadh noted, “the 5-minute film tells the operational reality of how the Saudi armed forces” plan to use advanced technologies from the United States, such as weapons, aircraft, ships, and tanks in an upcoming operation against Iran.

The film “Saudi Deterrence” not only revealed the defensive power of Saudi Arabia, but went beyond the detection of strategic missile system “East Wind”, which exceeds the range of 12 thousand kilometers, and can thus reach the Iranian military bases and nuclear reactors, F15, Taifon, Tornado and AWACS, as well as strategic Abrams tanks, high-armed naval frigates and the Air Defense System of Patriot batteries  

Meanwhile, The New Arab said the short film has been widely “mocked” on social media as nothing more than propaganda from MbS. The film shows MbS in a control room orchestrating air, land, and sea missions, while the military has very little resistance against Iranian troops. At the end, the film shows the Saudi army taking control of Tehran, where the Iranian civilians are thanking the Saudis for the liberation.

A furious tweetstorm was unleashed on Twitter after the video was published on YouTube. One Twitter user said, “In the delusional world of Saudi Arabia, Saudis invade Iran, take over the country and are greeted as liberators by Iranians who hold MbS posters. You can’t make this shit up. Try not to laugh,”

In the delusional world of Saudi Arabia, Saudis invade Iran, take over the country and are greeted as liberators by Iranians who hold MBS posters.

You can"t make this shit up. Try not to laugh. pic.twitter.com/9rOSoPVsJu

— Serge (@Zinvor) December 17, 2017

Another user said (translated in Bing), “Fail and you still nfshlon in Yemen in the face of the resilience of the people and their resistance in the face of aggression and your siege you and with you, and you think you are able to make a victory over Iran? Finished with the Yemen and then just go to Iran if you have capacity and uptime is not actually animated, bin Salman. If you’re brave, offering.”

????? ??? ???? ?????? ?? ????? ?? ??? ???? ??? ????????? ?? ??? ??????? ??????? ???? ??? ????? ?????? ???? ?????? ?? ?????? ????? ??? ????? ? ?????? ?? ????? ??? ?? ?????? ??? ????? ?? ???? ????? ?????? ?????????? ????? ???? ???? ?????? ?? ?? ?????.. ?? ??? ????? ?????

— ???? ???? ???? ???? (@Guevara_lb) December 17, 2017

The New Arab describes tension in the region is building between the two countries, especially after the latest missile launch striking Saudi Arabia from Yemen’s Houthis (backed by Iran).

Iran and Saudi Arabia have been engaged in a regional battle for dominance being fought by proxies across the region. Last month, Saudi Arabia’s crown prince accused Iran of committing an “act of war” by arming Yemen’s Houthis after a rebel missile reached Riyadh. It provoked a heated war of words with Tehran.

The war drums beat between Saudi Arabia and Iran, however, in the meantime, sit back, grab some popcorn, and enjoy the infowar waged between both countries.

Trump Walks A Tightrope with Mideast Peace Plan

Authored by Tom Luongo,

For months I’ve been telling you that the framework for a Middle East Peace Plan is in process.

Donald Trump dropped a nuclear bomb on the world the other day by announcing the U.S. would recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, ending more than 50 years of virtue-signaling over what is, in fact, fact.

And right after that announcement Trump told the Saudi Arabians to end the blockade against Yemen.  And in less then a day Israelis went from cheering Trump’s name to being confused.

I spent a long time on the phone with a Jewish friend of mine who couldn’t understand what this was about.  Saying he couldn’t understand why Trump did this when the Saudis had already done so much.

And he should have known better.

What have the Saudis done to this point that should absolve them of having to do more to right their wrongs.  Mohammed bin Salman’s purge and gangster-esque shakedown of his rivals withing the royal family are a good start.

But, he has a lot of work to do to right his wrongs in Yemen… and Syria… and Qatar.  Because in all of these operations the Saudis were the aggressor, certainly in Yemen and Qatar and they’ve dragged us into these conflicts against our will because he misinterpreted Trump’s pledge to Saudi Arabia during his initial visit this summer.

This call to end the blockade in Yemen was a simple give and take with Iran and the Shia.  It doesn’t balance out the move to recognize Jerusalem but it does move the U.S. in the right direction in  defining the limits to which it will back both Israel and Saudi Arabia.

Follow that up with the report from Reuters this morning that in his phone call to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas that this recognition is only the first step.

Trump told Abbas, a Western-backed moderate, that the final peace blueprint would offer the Palestinians an important settlement that they would be pleased with, but did not provide specifics, the sources said.

 

Abbas told Trump in response that any peace process must result in the Palestinians having their capital in East Jerusalem, a Palestinian official said. Israel captured East Jerusalem in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war and later annexed it in a move not recognized internationally.

Trump’s no dummy.  He knows that concessions will have to be made to get any kind of deal done.  But, Jerusalem was never on the table in any practical sense and it existed as an excuse to continue the conflict indefinitely and eventually grind Israel off the map.

Trump just ended that open wound and took it off the table.  And with that one move he calls everyone’s bluff about what their real intentions are.

“Do you want peace?” “Great.  Let’s make a deal.  But you aren’t going to get everything you want.”

By the way, neither is Israel.  Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his merry band of neocons are going to be just as disappointed as bin Salman was when he was dressed down by both Trump and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson over his blockade of Qatar in June.

For anyone who thinks that Trump just gave Israel the green light to go to war with the Arabs is not thinking this through.  We ultimately guarantee both Israel’s and Saudi Arabia’s security.  And if Trump demonstrates his ability to keep them both on a short leash, the Arabs will come to the table and talk.

The official said the plan, which he described as comprehensive and going beyond frameworks put forth by previous U.S. administrations, would likely be unveiled before the middle of next year.

 

A key test of keeping the peace efforts on track will be whether Abbas goes ahead with a scheduled meeting with U.S. Vice President Mike Pence when he visits the region in mid-December.

He will.  And Israel will stop striking out in every direction, as my friend Halsey English put it the other night, “bombing every truck over the size of an SUV that’s headed from Iran to Lebanon.”

And the U.S., thanks to Trump the U.S. is now publicly committed to Israel in a healthy way for the region, not just the big banks, big oil and AIPAC.

And as Halsey also pointed out, the entire region is scared enough of the Russians that they will have no problem getting the Iranians and Hezbollah to behave.  That’s why Russia isn’t leaving Syria.  And it’s why the Iranian Republican Guard will.

And Trump isn’t leading us into war but rather a rather sophisticated peace deal that will confound every conventional analyst on the subject.

Watch the first 20 minutes of this show to get the whole thing laid out in full.

Expect Desperate, Insane Behavior From Government In 2018 - Part 3

Authored by Mike Krieger via Liberty Blitzkrieg blog,

In the first two installments of this series, I discussed the potential for the U.S. federal government to make some spectacularly foolish moves against its own people in the realms of cannabis and Bitcoin.

My basic assumption is that government tends to despise freedom, and that “leaders” of an empire in decline like the U.S. are particularly vulnerable to very bad decisions.

Government propagandists constantly instruct the public that they need to be fearful of their neighbors or some guy in a cave overseas (who they probably funded in the first place), when they themselves tend to be the most unethical, corrupt thieves of all. It’s a very clever scam.

If you want to ban Bitcoin because of money laundering, crime and violence, we should really ban government first.

— Michael Krieger (@LibertyBlitz) December 6, 2017

With that in mind, today’s post will zero in on what I consider to be the greatest threat to world peace going into 2018. While I remain unsure as to what the U.S. government may attempt when it comes to cannabis and Bitcoin, I’m far more concerned about the prospects of Donald Trump entangling this nation in an escalating and increasingly disastrous conflict in the Middle East. The signs are everywhere, and it’s all becoming very obvious. In fact, I’ve probably written more articles on this topic than any other in 2017.

Rather than rehash everything I’ve already said, below are links to my October series on the matter:

Empire Destroying Wars Are Coming to America Under Trump – Part 1

Empire Destroying Wars Are Coming to America Under Trump – Part 2

Empire Destroying Wars Are Coming to America Under Trump – Part 3

Confrontation with Iran has been the holy grail of neocons for decades, but it’s become increasingly likely under Trump, as I detailed above. Since I wrote those articles, the situation has only escalated and Trump has decided to attach himself even more clearly to the hip of crazed Saudi princeling Mohamed bin Salman (MBS) and Israel. It’s become obvious that Trump sees both Israel and Saudi Arabia as direct extensions of the U.S., and is quite willing to sacrifice his own country to protect their position. In prior posts, I spent most of my time focused on why I thought Trump would go in such a non-MAGA direction. Today’s post will focus on why I think it’ll be such a historical failure.

Conventional wisdom says that a dedicated alliance of the U.S., Israel and Saudi Arabia is an unstoppable force in the Middle East. Trump’s bought into this view hook, line and sinker, which is why he’s willing to go all in on such a foolish showdown with Iran. I’m going to take the complete other side of that view, and assert than a more aggressive posture against Iran in the Middle East will lead to another huge fail, sparking a more serious collapse in the U.S. empire and ultimately Iranian domination of the region. Crazy, you say? I also heard Brexit had no shot and that Trump couldn’t win. When it comes to conventional wisdom at this point in the historical cycle, I want to be short.

Why do I think this? First of all, the U.S. simply doesn’t have the position it thinks it has in the world any longer. The moral authority, irrespective of whether it was ever deserved in the first place, is gone. Disastrous and bloody wars based on lies and media propaganda have been exposed for the world to see, and many allies won’t be willing to go along with an unnecessary Saudi/Israel/USA mission against Iran. Empires always make increasingly stupid decisions toward the end driven by hubris and a lack of self-awareness. The U.S. is no different.

Second, the U.S. would be getting in bed with a complete and total lunatic when it comes to de facto Saudi leader MBS. Pretty much everything this guy touches turns to shite, with his campaign in Yemen and attempt to isolate Qatar being prime examples. Now with his mass arrests of Saudi princes and other powerful people/family members in a quest to firm his position, he’s lost even more credibility in the region and created a slew of dangerous enemies, who will never forget what he did to them.

And remember to NEVER humiliate a bedouin in public. pic.twitter.com/iwbHyEiZZB

— NassimNicholasTaleb (@nntaleb) November 10, 2017

MBS is far, far weaker both internally and externally than he realizes. He thinks he’s this grand figure who’s destined to bring glory to himself and Saudi Arabia in the region, but he’ll end up accomplishing the exact opposite. In addition to all the the dangerous mistakes I’ve already mentioned, he recently made the biggest mistake of all by bringing the Saudi-Israeli alliance public for the world to see.

Here’s a little snippet from an NBC News article published last month to give you a little sense of what’s going on:

For Israel, Saudi Arabia’s growing willingness to confront Iranian influence in the Middle East presents an opening for an awkward alliance. As the kingdom’s dynamic new crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, tries to rally an anti-Iran coalition, Israel — with the blessing of the Trump administration — is presenting itself as a willing and able partner.

 

The appetite for cooperation between two of America’s closest allies in the Middle East has grown in recent years as their security interests have dovetailed. Both Israel and Saudi Arabia view Iran’s growing influence in the region as an existential threat and want to squash militant Islamist groups like ISIS and Iran’s main proxy, Hezbollah.

 

A U.S. official who witnessed a Saudi and Israeli official hold a closed-door meeting together recently said such informal meetings have been taking place for “at least five years.”

Remember, MBS has an undeservedly huge head and thinks of himself as some brilliant strategician. He thinks by publicly cozying up to Israel he’ll gain the total support and blessing of the Trump administration for whatever insane crusade his twisted mind can envision. In that sense, he’s correct, but I’m of the opinion he loses a lot more than he gains by going down this route. 

Everything this princeling does is shortsighted and driven by impulsive arrogance. He just gave the biggest gift possible to Iran by becoming close to Israel, because the average person on the street in the region will see this as a massive betrayal. The Iranian leadership gets this. As Reuters reported:

(Reuters) – Iranian President Hassan Rouhani urged Muslims on Tuesday to disrupt what he called a plot by unnamed countries in the region to build ties with Israel.

 

He gave no more details on the states. But an Israeli cabinet minister said last month that his government had covert contacts with Saudi Arabia linked to their common concerns over Tehran.

 

“Some regional Islamic countries have shamelessly revealed their closeness to the Zionist regime (Israel),” Rouhani said in a speech broadcast live by state TV.

 

“I am sure that the Muslims around the world will not let this sinister plot bear fruit.”

This entire thing is setting up to be the graveyard of the U.S. empire. Recall what I wrote in my October post:

It’s sad to say it, but over the course of the 21st century the U.S. government has exposed itself as a corrupt bully, not just to the outside world, but also to its own people. Moreover, those in positions of power and influence in America either don’t recognize this reality or don’t care. It’s this sort of disconnected hubris combined with rampant internal corruption that is the true graveyard of empires. I think both allies and enemies abroad have had enough, and given the right opportunity, will let the U.S. sink.

With that in mind, read the following from Reuters:

France rejected the “unilateral” decision while appealing for calm in the region. Britain said the move would not help peace efforts and Jerusalem should ultimately be shared by Israel and a future Palestinian state. Germany said Jerusalem’s status could only be resolved on the basis of a two-state solution.

 

Trump upended decades of U.S. policy in defiance of warnings from around the world that the gesture risks aggravating conflict in the tinderbox Middle East.

 

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, in a pre-recorded speech, said Jerusalem was the “eternal capital of the State of Palestine” and that Trump’s move was “tantamount to the United States abdicating its role as a peace mediator.”

 

Lebanese President Michel Aoun said Trump’s Jerusalem decision was dangerous and threatened the credibility of the United States as a broker of Middle East peace. He said the move would put back the peace process by decades and threatened regional stability and perhaps global stability.

 

Qatar’s foreign minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani, said Trump’s undertaking was a “death sentence for all who seek peace” and called it “a dangerous escalation”.

 

Turkey said Trump’s move was “irresponsible”.

 

Iran “seriously condemns” Trump’s move as it violates U.N. resolutions on the Israel-Palestinian conflict, state media reported. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said earlier in the day that the United States was trying to destabilize the region and start a war to protect Israel’s security.

If the decision on Jerusalem ends up inflaming the region in aa major way, the entire world will see Trump and the U.S. as directly responsible. This will further the perception amongst allies that the U.S. is a global problem, and raise the likelihood that any military adventure in the region instigated by the U.S., Saudi Arabia and Israel will fail spectacularly. This trio will increasingly look like an alliance of rogue states to most of humanity.

While I’m already sufficiently concerned about the likelihood of another stupid escalation in the Middle East by Trump, there are milestones I’m looking out for to let me know it’s about to get really bad. At the core of any major disaster will be Senator Tom Cotton, a rabid neocon who I unequivocally believe is the most dangerous, anti-freedom person in the U.S. Congress. He reminds me of an American Mohamed bin Salman, and his elevated prominence around Trump earlier this year is what got me increasingly concerned in the first place.

If Cotton takes on a more senior role in the Trump administration, such as a rumored position as CIA director, you can bet the farm that U.S. foreign policy is about to take the most dangerous turn since George W. Bush. Tom Cotton is a neocon on steroids, and seems to genuinely love conflict and authoritarianism. To get a better sense of what sort of person he is, take a look at him taking Twitter legal counsel to task. He believes U.S. companies act as an active arm of state intelligence.

If that doesn’t send a shiver down your spine, I don’t know what will.

Tom Cotton policy on anything represents a guaranteed nightmare for America and its people. If Trump promotes him in any way, prepare for almost unimaginable foreign policy disaster.

*  *  *

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"Gnomes Of Zurich" In Panic As Saudi Corruption Crackdown Sparks Flood Of Money Laundering Inquiries

There are two divergent views on the crackdown on corruption by Saudi Arabia’s crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman (MBS), which led to the arrest and detention of 200 princes, ministers and former ministers.

On one hand, it was a masterstroke which will earn political capital with the Saudi people and catalyse an Arab Spring in which MBS is a modernizing reformer who will liberalise Islam.

 

On the other, it was nothing other than a cynical and desperate attempt to tighten his grip on power and weaken competing clans within the ruling family (especially sons of former King Abdullah) as the nation risks splitting apart due to political and economic fissures. Last week, we noted that former head of the National Guard and senior member of the Abdullah clan, Prince Miteb bin Abdullah, purchased his freedom for a cool $1 billion.

If you put yourself in the position of being a Saudi prince or wealthy Saudi official, whatever your opinion of MBS’s motivation, you would be forgiven for taking additional measures to make it harder for his henchmen to seize your wealth if you found yourself in the crosshairs.

Alternatively, if you suddenly need to write a check for, let’s say $1 billion, it might require some questions, a few portfolio adjustments and lots of paperwork. Switzerland has been a popular place for wealthy Saudis to store their wealth since the 1970s and MBS’s crackdown is already rippling through the offices of Swiss-based private banks. In fact, there has been a flood of submissions regarding potential money laundering. According to the Financial Times.

Switzerland’s banks have begun reporting suspicious account activity among some of their Saudi Arabian clients to the Swiss Money Laundering Reporting Office, part of the federal police service, according to people close to the situation. Lawyers acting for the banks have submitted information over the past week and expect several dozen submissions to be made in total, said two people involved in the process.

The exercise reflects the banks’ nervousness about being found in breach of rules governing money laundering and corruption. It follows the arrest last month of more than 200 people, including some of Saudi Arabia’s richest businessmen and princes. They were detained at the Ritz-Carlton hotel in Riyadh as part of an anti-graft operation launched by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the kingdom’s powerful heir apparent.

Our suspicion is that Swiss banks are being hypersensitive given their history as safe havens for ill-gotten gains and the parabolic reach and power of financial regulators these days. At the same time, we doubt that some of their Saudi clients would, or could, tolerate much probing as to the source of some of their assets. Furthermore, the belief that some of these assets were acquired illegally – at least under MBS’s “new” definition which has overturned previously normal business practice – will have been heightened by enquiries from the Saudi regulator asking whether any of the 200 arrestees have credit facilities or safety deposit boxes. We can only imagine how this must have sent the “Gnomes of Zurich” into a state of mass panic. The FT continues.

While Swiss banks strive to protect client confidentiality, they are obliged to report suspect transactions. So far the account reports have not led to action by Swiss authorities, such as searches or freezing accounts. Saudi officials must submit a formal request if they want access to the data, which is being analysed by the Swiss authorities.“

As is standard procedure, incoming information is currently being assessed,” the office of the Swiss attorney-general told the Financial Times. “At this time, criminal proceedings in this connection have not been opened. ”Swiss bankers also say they have begun to prepare cash transfers on behalf of clients, as princes and business people seek to settle allegations against them. The crown prince is seeking to recover at least $100bn through the crackdown in “systematic corruption and embezzlement” that took place over several decades.

If MBS redefines "illegal", will prosecutions be forthcoming? Time will tell. An unnamed source told the FT that the process of looking into recent activity in Saudi accounts is similar to those which followed the allegations of corruption regarding the scandals at Fifa, soccer’s governing body, and Petrobras, the state-owned Brazilian oil company. Not surprisingly, the major Swiss banks are not appreciating the media attention.

Large volumes of Saudi money are held in the Alpine country, much of it old wealth. “It’s been here for 30 or 50 years, it’s not nouveaux riches,” said the person familiar with the process. The banks were coy about the issue. Credit Suisse said: “With regards to the recent developments in Saudi Arabia, so far there are no implications on our business, but we will continue to monitor the situation closely.” UBS declined to comment on its clients.

We will be fascinated to watch what comes to light as MBS opens this particular can of worms (if it’s made public) which, according to the FT, might draw in past actions of some bankers.

The FT reported 10 days ago that Prince Mohammed had brought in western investigators to work alongside finance ministry officials as they parse documents to analyse the extent of alleged corruption and prospective penalties. Foreign bankers have also been brought in for questioning.

Who would have thought bankers might facilitate a bit of wrongdoing on the part of wealthy Saudis.

The Man Behind The Oil Price Rally

Authored by Dan Dicker via OilPrice.com,

The OPEC meeting is over and the cartel has extended production cuts throughout 2018. The decision is obviously crucial to supporting oil prices, but perhaps an even bigger story is the relentless strategy from the young Saudi Prince, Mohammed bin Salman, being played out both inside OPEC and in his own country. And oil is the key to it all.

Last Sunday premiered the newly formed Islamic anti-terrorism coalition, putting together leaders from Sunni Arab nations to denounce and combat fundamentalist terrorism throughout the Middle East and the world. It was another bold initiative towards the West of the young and energetic Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, coming on the heels of other bold moves that have looked to consolidate political and religious power in the Kingdom.

Together, all of these initiatives couldn’t be more transparent. They represent a movement of the most economically powerful nation in OPEC towards social, cultural and economic change, the realization of the Saudi “Vision 2030”. It is a top-down Arab Spring movement that likely has a better chance of success than the populist movements that resulted in more chaos than change in 2010.

However, the ultimate success for Vision 2030 will rely upon achieving the main economic goal of this revolution – the divestiture of Saudi Arabia from the singularity of oil revenues. Because we know that ultimately money – and lots of it – will be needed to drive the engines for change, we get a far better picture of just how important these latest production extensions agreed to in Vienna were for the young Prince.

And here we’re brought back to the upcoming IPO of Saudi Aramco, still on tap for 2018.

Even the planned 5 percent offering of the Saudi state oil assets could yield an instantaneous $100 billion dollars, if the $2 trillion-dollar valuation of Saudi Aramco is accurate. That’s a lot of capital to start the process of rebuilding a Saudi economy from one that is now virtually completely reliant upon the State. 75 percent of the Saudi public is under 35 years old, and they are starving for a new economic infrastructure that will bring job opportunities, cultural diversity, music, education – global access of all kinds – the kind of freedoms that the 2010 Arab Spring uprisings were supposed to deliver. Only this time, the push for change is coming from the top down, not as a populist movement from the people upwards.

It’s hard to overstate the importance of this story for us as energy investors going forward, as it will dominate Middle East geopolitics for decades.

And the bottom line is this – it all comes down to oil.

At a $40-barrel price, the IPO will be a complete bust, and without that economic power from oil diversification, the push forward on all the other social and cultural changes the youth are yearning for in Saudi Arabia, (and in the rest of the Arab world) is guaranteed to fail.

At $75, or better still $100 a barrel – the Prince will wield the economic power to enter the Western capital markets as a player who has executed a brilliant and revolutionary plan on his way to the Saudi throne, where he will sit for decades. He will be able to avoid the likely rebound of angry cousins and conservative clerics an economic failure of a weak IPO will surely bring.

It’s enough to say that the balance of Middle East politics, from Iraq and Iran to Israel, all will be determined by the outcome of the Crown Prince’s grand strategy.

And all of it relies on a very, very high price for oil. That should inform us to a great degree on how we should be investing right now.

"Groveling In Excrement": Thomas Friedman Mercilessly Mocked For Bizarre Saudi Puff Piece

On the same day that New York Times columnist Thomas "suck on this" Friedman penned what reads like a fawning hagiography of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, and which glowingly presents the soon to be king as a modernizing reformer intent on liberalizing Islam, Human Rights Watch issued a report exposing a new Saudi counterterrorism law as little more than a dictator"s tool for crushing dissent.

The new law, published on November 1 of this year, replaces a 2014 law which defined specific acts of terror and corresponding sentencing guidelines; however, the November decree is described as incredibly vague and broad in its application while allowing for severe consequences for so much as criticizing the king or crown prince. The kingdom has long aggressively rooted out dissent, arresting and prosecuting individuals for engaging in protest, even if merely on social media.

According the Human Rights Watch (HRC) report:

It includes criminal penalties of 5 to 10 years in prison for portraying the king or crown prince, directly or indirectly, “in a manner that brings religion or justice into disrepute,” and criminalizes a wide range of peaceful acts that bear no relation to terrorism.

The law also brings terror-related cases under the direct administrative oversight of the king. HRW provides examples of the types of vague protest related activities that Saudi Arabia can now deem "terrorism":

The new law, however, does not restrict the definition of terrorism to violent acts. Other conduct it defines as terrorism includes “disturbing public order,” “shaking the security of the community and the stability of the State,” “exposing its national unity to danger,” and “suspending the basic laws of governance,” all of which are vague and have been used by Saudi authorities to punish peaceful dissidents and activists. Prominent human rights activists Abdullah al-Hamid and Mohammed al-Qahtani are serving 11-year and 10-year sentences respectively, based on charges that contain similar language. Human rights activist Essam Koshak is currently on trial on similar charges.

Though HRW has consistently shown itself to be merely critical of countries and regimes considered enemies of the West (for example rarely criticizing US/UK allies while focusing on Syria or Russia), the report comes amidst growing public awareness of the long ignored and forgotten Saudi-US bombing of Yemeni civilians, and consequent humanitarian disaster still unfolding.

Even less known is that fact that Saudi Arabia recently flattened an entire civilian town, Awamiya, in the country"s restive Shia-dominated east in a sectarian driven campaign to crush dissent with overwhelming military force. The siege of Awamiya last summer was well documented, with Saudi war crimes caught on video, yet fawning pro-Saudi journalists in major newsrooms in the West have never so much as raised the issue with the Saudis or their US State Department backers.

But of course, most astute observers of developments in the Saudi kingdom of horrors hardly need convincing that Saudi"s rulers are among the most backwards and repressive on earth, which makes Thomas Friedman"s interview and column on MbS all the more absurd and laughable.

Over multiple courses of lamb in Riyadh, the Saudi Crown Prince easily convinced Tom Friedman that he"s a genuine reformer, mega-popular dude, and an all around super awesome guy https://t.co/dn2MgLECfU?

— Avi Asher-Schapiro (@AASchapiro) November 24, 2017

In honor of Thomas Friedman’s latest love letter to Saudi here is 70 years of the NY Times describing #Saudi royals in the language of #reform.

— Abdullah Al-Arian (@anhistorian) November 24, 2017

In Dante"s Inferno the second pit of the eighth circle of hell is occupied by sycophants, groveling in excrement that represents the insincere flattery of their words. There’s not, we will likely find out, a pit deep enough—nor feces potent enough—suitable for Thomas Friedman. https://t.co/5vUpE4UgUK

— Adam H. Johnson (@adamjohnsonNYC) November 25, 2017

Friedman is now being roundly mocked on social media, and surprisingly even among some mainstream media pundits who tend to me more reserved in their sycophant tendencies.

I get that people don"t like that Tom Friedman interview with MbS. Curious, though: What should the crown prince of Saudi Arabia do instead?

— Blake Hounshell (@blakehounshell) November 24, 2017

*****

Below are some of the more obscene and comical highlights from Friedman"s "Saudi Arabia"s Arab Spring, at last".

Friedman introduces the current MbS crackdown as "the most significant reform process underway in the Middle East today:

I never thought I’d live long enough to write this sentence: The most significant reform process underway anywhere in the Middle East today is in Saudi Arabia. Yes, you read that right. Though I came here at the start of Saudi winter, I found the country going through its own Arab Spring, Saudi style.

Friedman gets worn out by the "fire hose of new ideas" from the late night session with the charming young dictator:

After nearly four hours together, I surrendered at 1:15 a.m. to MBS’ youth, pointing out that I was exactly twice his age. It’s been a long, long time, though, since any Arab leader wore me out with a fire hose of new ideas about transforming his country.

The kingdom"s recent spate of mass arrests, which now include allegations of torture and asset shakedowns by the state, is based in the supposedly heroic vision of noble-minded MbS: 

...his government arrested scores of Saudi princes and businessmen on charges of corruption and threw them into a makeshift gilded jail — the Riyadh Ritz-Carlton — until they agreed to surrender their ill-gotten gains. You don’t see that every day.

And apparently Friedman knows what the "silent majority" thinks while being entertained at one of the royal family"s private palaces:

The Saudi silent majority is clearly fed up with the injustice of so many princes and billionaires ripping off their country. While foreigners, like me, were inquiring about the legal framework for this operation, the mood among Saudis I spoke with was: “Just turn them all upside down, shake the money out of their pockets and don’t stop shaking them until it’s all out!”

With zero substantive evidence, we are assured MBS is a liberalizing and moderating force who will deliver universal human rights and equality to the Wahhabi kingdom:

MBS is on a mission to bring Saudi Islam back to the center. He has not only curbed the authority of the once feared Saudi religious police to berate a woman for not covering every inch of her skin, he has also let women drive. And unlike any Saudi leader before him, he has taken the hard-liners on ideologically. As one U.S.-educated 28-year-old Saudi woman told me: MBS “uses a different language. He says, ‘We are going to destroy extremism.’ He’s not sugarcoating. That is reassuring to me that the change is real.”

"It blew my mind" says Friedman:

But as someone who has been coming here for almost 30 years, it blew my mind to learn that you can hear Western classical music concerts in Riyadh now, that country singer Toby Keith held a men-only concert here in September, where he even sang with a Saudi, and that Lebanese soprano Hiba Tawaji will be among the first female singers to perform a women-only concert here on Dec. 6.

"Perfect is not the menu" concludes Friedman as the Saudis kill and maim tens of thousands of Yemeni civilians just across the border:

But can MBS and his team see this through? Again, I make no predictions. He has his flaws that he will have to control, insiders here tell me. They include relying on a very tight circle of advisers who don’t always challenge him sufficiently, and a tendency to start too many things that don’t get finished. There’s a whole list. But guess what? Perfect is not on the menu here. Someone had to do this job — wrench Saudi Arabia into the 21st century — and MBS stepped up. I, for one, am rooting for am rooting for him to succeed in his reform efforts. 

MBS a liberal icon of "moderate" Islam:

Indeed, MBS instructed me: “Do not write that we are ‘reinterpreting’ Islam — we are ‘restoring’ Islam to its origins — and our biggest tools are the Prophet’s practices and [daily life in] Saudi Arabia before 1979.” At the time of the Prophet Muhammad, he argued, there were musical theaters, there was mixing between men and women, there was respect for Christians and Jews in Arabia. “The first commercial judge in Medina was a woman!” So if the Prophet embraced all of this, MBS asked, “Do you mean the Prophet was not a Muslim?” 

Friedman concludes by quoting an anonymous woman on "hope" and "change" and a clichéd line, "anything is possible":

And the fact that starting in June that will never again be so “gives me so much hope. It proves to me that anything is possible — that this is a time of opportunity. We have seen things change and we are young enough to make the transition.”

Is A Saudi-Israeli Friendship Driving The Rest Of The Middle East Together?

Authored by Federico Pieraccini via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

Through its top official, Prince Mohammad bin Salman (MBS), Saudi Arabia continues a wave of internal arrests, having seized nearly $800 billion in assets and bank accounts. A few days later, MBS attempted to demonstrate his authority by summoning Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri to Saudi Arabia, where he was forced to resign on Saudi state TV. Trump tweeted support for Bin Salman"s accusations against Iran and Hezbollah, and the future Saudi king even obtained Israel"s secret support. Iran, meanwhile, denies any involvement in Lebanon"s domestic affairs or involvement with the ballistic missile launched by Houthi rebels towards Riyadh’s King Khalid International Airport a few days ago. Meanwhile, Trump, Putin and Xi met recently and seem to have decided the fate of the region in an exercise of realism and pragmatism.

News that upends the course of events has now become commonplace over the last few months. However, even by Middle East standards, this story is something new. The affair surrounding Lebanon’s Prime Minister Hariri generated quite a bit of commotion. Hariri had apparently been obliged to announce his resignation on Saudi Arabia"s Al Arabiya news channel while being detained in Riyadh. His most recent interview seemed to betray some nervousness and fatigue, as one would expect from a person under enormous stress from forced imprisonment. In his televised resignation statement, Hariri specified that he was unable to return to Lebanon due to some sort of a threat to his person and his family by operatives in Lebanon of Iran and Hezbollah. The Lebanese security authorities, however, have stated that they are not aware of any danger faced by Hariri.

In an endless attempt to regain influence in the Middle East, Saudi Arabia has once again brought about results directly opposite to those intended. Immediately after receiving confirmation that the resignation had taken place in Saudi Arabia, the entire Lebanese political class demanded that Hariri return home to clarify his position, meet with the president and submit his resignation in person. Saudi actions have served to consolidate a united front of opposition factions and paved the way for the collapse of Saudi influence in the country, leaving a vacuum to be conveniently filled by Iran. Once again, as with Yemen and in Syria, the intentions of the Saudis have dramatically backfired.

This Saudi interference in the domestic affairs of a sovereign country has stirred up unpredictable scenarios in the Middle East, just at the time that tensions were cooling in Syria.

Hariri"s detention comes from far away and is inextricably linked to what has been happening over the past few months in Saudi Arabia. Mohammed bin Salman, son of King Salman, began his internal purge of the Kingdom’s elite by removing from the line of succession Bin Nayef, a great friend of the US intelligence establishment (Brennan and Clapper). Bin Nayef was a firm partner of the US deep state. Saudi Arabia has for years worked for the CIA, advancing US strategic goals in the region and beyond. Thanks to the cooperation between Bandar bin Sultan Al Saud, Bin Nayef, and US intelligence agencies, Washington has for years given the impression of fighting against Islamist terrorist while actually weaponizing jihadism since the 1980s by deploying it against rival countries like the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, the Iraqi government in 2014, the Syrian state in 2012, and Libya’s Gaddafi in 2011.

MBS has even detained numerous family-related princes, continuing to consolidate power around himself. Even Alwaleed bin Talal, one of the richest men in the world, ended up caught in MBS’s net, rightly accused of being one of the most corrupt people in the Kingdom. It is speculated that family members and billionaires are detained at the Ritz Carlton in Riyadh, with guests and tourists promptly ejected days before the arrests began. Mohammed bin Salman’s actions are not slowing down, even after seizing $800 billion in accounts, properties and assets.

MBS is intensifying his efforts to end the conflict in Yemen, which is a drain on Saudi finances, lifting the naval blockade of the Port of Aden. Not only that, the two main Syrian opposition leaders, Ahmad Jarba and Riyadh Hijab, have been arrested by Riyadh in an effort to demonstrate to Putin the good will of MBS in seeking to resolve the Syrian conflict. Not surprisingly, King Salman, in a frantic search for a solution to the two conflicts that have lashed his reputation as well as the wealth and alliances of the Saudi kingdom, flew to Moscow to seek mediation with Putin, the new master of the Middle East.

MBS has undertaken an anti-corruption campaign for international as well as domestic purposes. At the national level, the collapse of oil prices, coupled with huge military spending, forced the royal family to seek alternatives for the future of the Kingdom in terms of sustainability, earnings and profits. MBS’s Vision 2030 aims to diversify revenue in order to free Saudi Arabia from its dependence on oil. This is a huge ask for a nation that has been thriving for seventy years from an abundance of resources simply found under its ground. This delicate balance of power between the royal family and its subjects is maintained by the subsidies granted to the local population that has allowed the Kingdom to flourish in relative peace, even during the most delicate periods of the Arab Spring in 2011. There is an underlying understanding in Saudi Arabia that so long as the welfare of the population is guaranteed, there should be no threat to the stability of the royal family. It is no wonder that after losing two wars, and with oil prices at their lowest, MBS has started to worry about his future, seeking to purge the elites opposed to him.

The Kingdom’s reality is quickly changing under MBS, the next Saudi king, who is trying to anticipate harder times by consolidating power around himself and correcting his errors brought on by incompetence and his excessive confidence in the Saudi military as well as in American backing. The ballistic missile that hit Riyadh was launched by the Houthis in Yemen after 30 months of indiscriminate bombing by the Saudi air force. This act has shown how vulnerable the Kingdom is to external attack, even at the hand of the poorest Arab country in the world.

In this context, Donald Trump seems to be capitalizing on Saudi weakness, fear, and the need to tighten the anti-Iranian alliance. What the American president wants in return for support of MBS is as simple as it comes: huge investments in the US economy together with the purchase of US arms. MBS obliged a few months ago, investing into the US economy to the tune of more than $380 billion over ten years. Trump"s goal is to create new jobs at home, increase GDP, and boost the economy, crucial elements for his re-election in 2020. Rich allies like Saudi Arabia, finding themselves in a tight fix, are a perfect means of achieving this end.

Another important aspect of MBS’s strategy involves the listing of Aramco on the NYSE together with the switch to selling oil for yuan payments. Both decisions are fundamental to the United States and China, and both bring with them a lot of friction. MBS is at this moment weak and needs all the allies and support he can get. For this reason, a decision on Aramco or the petroyuan would probably create big problems with Beijing and Washington respectively. The reason why MBS is willing to sell a small stock of Aramco relates to his efforts to gin up some money. For this reason, thanks to the raids on the accounts and assets of the people arrested by MBS, Saudi Arabia has raised over $800 billion, certainly a higher figure than any sale of Aramco shares would have brought.

This move allows MBS to postpone a decision on listing Aramco on the NYSE as well as on whether to start accepting yuan for payment of oil. Holding back on the petroyuan and Aramco’s initial public offering is a way of holding off both Beijing and Washington but without at the same time favouring one over the other. Economically, Riyadh cannot choose between selling oil for dollars on the one hand and accepting payment in another currency on the other. It is a nightmare scenario; but some day down the road, the Saudi royals will have to make a choice.

The third party to this situation is Israel in the figure of Netanyahu, Donald Trump"s great friend and supporter right from the beginning of his electoral campaign. Trump"s victory brought positive returns to the investment the Israeli leader had made in him. Ever since Trump won the election, the US has employed harsh words against Iran, turning away from the positive approach adopted by Obama that managed to achieve the Iran nuclear deal framework. Nevertheless, the Israeli prime minister has had to deal with numerous problems at home, with a narrow parliamentary majority and several members of his government under investigation for corruption.

Donald Trump pursued a very aggressive policy against Tehran during the election campaign, then went on to annul the Iran nuclear deal a few weeks ago. The decision is now for Congress to certify, with a difficult mediation between European allies (other than China and Russia), who are opposed to ending the deal, and the Israelis, who can count on the support of many senators thanks to their lobbying efforts. Israel, for its part, sees in Saudi Arabia and MBS the missing link between Saudi Wahhabism and Israeli Zionism. Various private cablegrams leaked to the press have shown how Israeli diplomats around the world were instructed to support Saudi  accusations of Iran interfering in Lebanon"s internal affairs.

The interests of MBS and Netanyahu seem to dovetail quite nicely in Syria and Yemen as well as with regard to Iran and Hezbollah. The two countries have a common destiny by virtue of the fact that neither alone can deal decisively with Hezbollah in Syria or Lebanon, let alone Iran. Rouhani himself has said that Iran fears American strength and power alone, knowing that Saudi Arabia and Israel are incapable of defeating Tehran.

Trump"s approval of the arrests carried out by MBS is based on a number of factors. The first involves the investments in the economy that will be coming America’s way. The other, certainly less known, concerns the subterranean battle that has been occurring between the Western elites for months. Many of Clinton’s top money sources are billionaires arrested by MBS, with stock options in various major banks, insurance companies, publishing groups, and American television groups, all openly anti-Trump. In this sense, the continuation of Trump"s fight with a portion of the elite can be seen with the halting of the merger of AT&T and Time Warner involving CNN.

Trump seems to be accompanying Saudi and Israeli urgings for war with multiple intentions, potentially having a plan for a broader, regional and global agreement between the parties.

At a regional level, Trump first supported the Saudi crusade against Qatar, resolved with Riyadh not getting Qatar to accede to any of its advanced demands. During the crisis, Doha approached Tehran and Moscow, who immediately took advantage of the situation to establish trade relations and commence negotiations with Qatar to tame its terrorist influence in the region, especially in the Syrian conflict. Turkey and Qatar have practically announced a military alliance, cementing a new front that includes China, Russia, Iran, Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, and Qatar, now potentially all on the same side of the barricades, opposed to Saudi dictates and Israel’s efforts to foment war with Iran.

With the US withdrawal from the region, as is increasingly evident from Trump"s reluctance to embark on a Middle East conflict, Israel and Saudi Arabia are increasing their desperate cries against Iran, observing how the gains of the resistance axis have led Tehran to dominate the region with its allies. The visit of King Salman to Russia, and the four meetings between Putin and Netanyahu, give the idea of which capital is in charge in the region. This all represents an epochal change that further isolates Riyadh and Tel Aviv, two countries that represent the heart of chaos and terror.

The Saudi attempt to isolate Qatar has failed miserably, and the continuous effort to paint Iran as the main cause of tension in the region seems to have reached a point of no return, with the latest stunt involving Hariri. Sunnis, Christians and Shiites agree on one point only: that the premier must return home. Riyadh hopes to light the fuse of a new civil war in the region, with Israel hoping to take advantage of the chaos brought about by an attack on Hezbollah. This is not going to happen, and the disappointment of the House of Saud and the Israeli prime minister will not change anything. Without a green light from Washington and a promise from Uncle Sam to intervene alongside his Middle East allies, the Israelis and Saudis are aware that they have neither the means nor strength to attack Iran or Hezbollah.

Trump is playing a dangerous game; but there seems to be some degree of coordination with the other giants on the international scene. The main point is it is impossible for Washington to be an active part in any conflict in the region, or to change the course of events in a meaningful way. The "End of history" ended years ago. US influence is on the decline, and Xi Jinping and Putin have shown great interest in the future of the region. In recent months, the Russian and Iranian militaries, together with the Chinese economic grip on the region, have shown a collective intention to replace years of war, death and chaos with peace, prosperity and wealth.

MBS and Netanyahu are having a hard time dealing with this new environment that will inevitably proclaim Iran the hegemon in the region. Time is running out for Israel and Saudi Arabia, and both countries are faced with enormous internal problems while being unable to change the course of events in the region without the full intervention of their American ally, something practically impossible nowadays.

The new course of the multipolar world, together with Trump’s America First policy, seems to have hit hardest those countries that placed all their bets on the continuing economic and military dominance of the United States in the region. Other countries like Qatar, Lebanon and Turkey have started to understand the historical change that is going on, and have slowly been making the switch, realizing in the process the benefits of a multipolar world order, which is more conducive to mutually beneficial cooperation between countries. The more Saudi Arabia and Israel push for war against Iran, the more they will isolate themselves. This will serve to push their own existence to the brink of extinction.

Brandon Smith Warns: The Saudi Coup Signals War And The New World Order Reset

Authored by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.com,

For years now, I have been warning about the relationship of interdependency between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia and how this relationship, if ended, would mean disaster for the petrodollar system and by extension the dollar"s world reserve status.

In my recent articles "Lies And Distractions Surrounding The Diminishing Petrodollar" and "The Economic End Game Continues," I point out that the death of the dollar as the premier petrocurrency is actually a primary goal for establishment globalists.

Why?

Because in an effort to achieve what they sometimes call the "global economic reset," or the "new world order," a more publicly accepted centralized global economy and monetary framework is paramount. And, this means the eventual implementation of a single world currency and a single global economic and political authority above and beyond the dollar system.

But, it is not enough to simply initiate such socially and fiscally painful changes in a vacuum. The banking powers are not interested in taking any blame for the suffering that would be dealt to the masses during the inevitable upheaval (or blame for the suffering that has already been caused). Therefore, a believable narrative must be crafted. A narrative in which political intrigue and geopolitical crisis make the "new world order" a NECESSITY; one that the general public would accept or even demand as a solution to existing instability and disaster.

That is to say, the globalists must fashion a propaganda story to be used in the future, in which "selfish" nation-states abused their sovereignty and created conditions for calamity, and the only solution was to end that sovereignty and place all power into the hands of a select few "wise and benevolent men" for the greater good of the world.

I believe the next phase of the global economic reset will begin in part with the breaking of petrodollar dominance. An important element of my analysis on the strategic shift away from the petrodollar has been the symbiosis between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia has been the single most important key to the dollar remaining as the petrocurrency from the very beginning.

The very first oil exploration and extraction deal in Saudi Arabia was sought by the vast international oil cartels of Royal Dutch Shell, Near East Development Company, Anglo-Persian, etc., but eventually fell into the hands of none other than the Rockefeller’s Standard Oil Company. The dark history of Standard Oil aside, this meant that Saudi business would be handled primarily by American interests. And the Western thirst for oil, especially after World War I, would etch our relationship with the reigning monarchy in stone.

A founding member of OPEC, Saudi Arabia was one of the few primary oil-producing nations that maintained an oil pipeline that expedited processing and bypassed the Suez Canal. (The pipeline was shut down, however, in 1983). This allowed Standard Oil and the United States to tiptoe around the internal instability of Egypt, which had experienced ongoing conflict which finally culminated in the civil war of 1952.

Considered puppets of the British Empire at the time, the ruling elites of Egypt were toppled by the Muslim Brotherhood, leading to the eventual demise of the British pound sterling as the top petro-currency and the world reserve. The British economy faltered and has never since returned to its former glory.

Perhaps we are seeing some parallels here?

Civil war may not be in the cards for Saudi Arabia; so far a quiet coup has been rather effective in completely changing the power base of the nation over the past few years. The primary beneficiary of that change in power has been crown prince Mohammed Bin Salman, who only answers to King Salman, an 81-year-old ruler barely involved in leadership.

To understand how drastic this coup has been, consider this - for decades Saudi Kings maintained political balance by doling out vital power positions to separate, carefully chosen successors. Positions such as Defense Minister, the Interior Ministry and the head of the National Guard. Today, Mohammed Bin Salman controls all three positions. Foreign policy, defense matters, oil and economic decisions and social changes are now all in the hands of one man.

But the real question is, who is behind that man?

Well, the recent political purge of various "neo-conservative" tied Saudis might lead some to believe that Prince Mohammed is seeking an end to globalist control of Saudi oil and politics.

These people would be wrong for a number of reasons.

Prince Mohammed"s revolutionary "Vision for 2030" developed as he entered power was touted as a means to end Saudi reliance on oil revenues to support economic stability. However, I believe this plan is NOT about ending reliance on oil, but ending reliance on the U.S. dollar. In fact, the plan indicates a move away from the dollar as the world"s petrocurrency and a de-pegging of the Riyal from the dollar.

Prince Mohammed has also established much deeper ties to Russia and China, creating bilateral agreements which may end up removing the dollar as the mechanism for oil trade between the nations.

You would think that this kind of strategy would be highly damaging to the West and to American interests in particular and that the corporate establishment would be doing everything in their power to stop it. However, this is not at all the case. In reality, the globalist establishment is fully behind Mohammed Bin Sulman"s "Vision for 2030."

Corporate behemoths such as the Carlyle Group (Bush family, etc), Goldman Sachs, Blackstone and Blackrock have ALL been backing the Vision for 2030 and Prince Mohammed through his Public Investment Fund (PIF), of which he is the chairman.

Trillions in capital are flowing through PIF, most of it from the coffers of globalist establishment companies. Once again I point out that the so-called "East versus West division" and the Eastern "opposition" to the globalists is complete nonsense; banking elites and globalists are the true influence behind the move away from the dollar, as the Saudi example and the Vision for 2030 shows. The end of the dollar as world reserve works in their favor — it is planned.

This does not end with the death of the dollar"s petro-status, though. These kinds of upsets in the power dynamic invariably lead to war. War acts as a kind of cleansing of the historical record; it tends to distract the public, for generations, from those that truly benefit from geopolitical and economic strife.

Prince Mohammed has already triggered conflicts with Yemen and Qatar, but this seems to have only been a precursor to greater kinetic displays of force. The next target appears to be Lebanon, and eventually Iran and Syria.

The first signal came with the resignation of Lebanon"s Prime Minister Saad Hariri on November 4, a resignation Hezbollah claims was forced by the Saudi government. Interestingly, Saad Hariri recorded the televised announcement in Saudi Arabia.

This shocking disruption to Lebanon"s political apparatus has been followed by an escalation in saber rattling by Saudi Arabia against Hezbollah (which is considered by many to be merely a puppet organization of the Iranian government). If official polls are to be believed, the Lebanese population is in extreme disagreement over Iran and Hezbollah, which could add to internal divisions and civil war if tensions continue to grow. Add to this the suspected (but officially denied) "secret visit" by Prince Mohammed to Israel in September, and the newfound "friendship" between the two nations in the months since, and we have quite a bit of momentum for a war in Lebanon.

The question is, will a war between Saudi Arabia and perhaps Israel against Hezbollah in Lebanon remain a proxy war, or will it gestate into a wider conflict drawing in Iran, Syria and perhaps even the U.S.?

First, keep in mind that Prince Mohammed has already frozen and/or confiscated approximately $800 billion in assets from his imprisoned political enemies. More than enough to fund a war campaign for several years, maybe even an expanded war against Iran.

Trump"s rhetoric against Iran and his re-institution of sanctions seems to coincide nicely with the increasing tension between the Saudis and Hezbollah. Israel attempted an invasion of Lebanon in 2006 and was soundly and embarrassingly defeated. But, the Israeli government does still showcase a willingness to enter into a ground war in the region, and with the combined forces of the Saudis and the Israelis, we might see a different outcome. Iran would be forced to intervene.

Syria under the Assad regime would also most likely be drawn in through its mutual defense pact with Iran.

I believe that major powers like the U.S. and Russia will probably not become involved in a wider sense, but continue to insert covert forces into the region and support opposing nations through funding and armaments. As with North Korea, I would not expect "world war" on the scale of a nuclear conflagration to develop in the Middle East.

What I do expect is something far more devastating - namely an accelerated disintegration of our already collapsing economic structure as war plays out abroad and the loss of the dollar"s world reserve and petro-status hits us hard at home. So far, in my view it appears that the insanity in Saudi Arabia, (along with the continued war drums against North Korea), is a perfect trigger point that provides a catalyst for mass distraction.

World economic war is the real name of the game here, as the globalists play puppeteers to East and West. It is a geopolitical crisis they will have created to engineer public support for a solution they predetermined.

If The Saudi Arabia Situation Doesn"t Worry You, You"re Not Paying Attention

Authored by Chris Martenson via PeakProsperity.com,

While turbulent during the best of times, gigantic waves of change are now sweeping across the Middle East. The magnitude is such that the impact on the global price of oil, as well as world markets, is likely to be enormous.

A dramatic geo-political realignment by Saudi Arabia is in full swing this month. It’s upending many decades of established strategic relationships among the world"s superpowers and, in particular, is throwing the Middle East into turmoil.

So much is currently in flux, especially in Saudi Arabia, that nearly anything can happen next. Which is precisely why this volatile situation should command our focused attention at this time.

The main elements currently in play are these:

• A sudden and intense purging of powerful Saudi insiders (arrests, deaths, & asset seizures)


• Huge changes in domestic policy and strategy 


• A shift away from the US in all respects (politically, financially and militarily)


• Deepening ties to China


• A surprising turn towards Russia (economically and militarily)


• Increasing cooperation and alignment with Israel (the enemy of my enemy is my friend?)

Taken together, this is tectonic change happening at blazing speed.

That it"s receiving too little attention in the US press given the implications, is a tip off as to just how big a deal this is -- as we"re all familiar by now with how the greater the actual relevance and importance of a development, the less press coverage it receives. This is not a direct conspiracy; it"s just what happens when your press becomes an organ of the state and other powerful interests. Like a dog trained with daily rewards and punishments, after a while the press needs no further instruction on the house rules.

It does emphasize, however, that to be accurately informed about what"s going on, we have to do our own homework. Here"s a short primer to help get you started.

A Quick Primer

Unless you study it intensively, Saudi politics are difficult to follow because they are rooted in the drama of a very large and dysfunctional family battling over its immense wealth.  If you think your own family is nuts, multiply the crazy factor by 1,000, sprinkle in a willingness to kill any family members who get in your way, and you"ll have the right perspective for grasping how Saudi "politics" operate.

The House of Saud is the ruling royal family of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (hereafter referred to as "KSA") and consists of some 15,000 members. The majority of the power and wealth is concentrated in the hands of roughly 2,000 individuals.  4,000 male princes are in the mix, plus a larger number of involved females -- all trying to either hang on to or climb up a constantly-shifting mountain of power.

Here"s a handy chart to explain the lineage of power in KSA over the decades:

(Source)

We’ll get to the current ruler, King Salman, and his powerful son, Mohammed Bin Salman (age 32), shortly.  Before we do, though, let’s talk about the most seminal moment in recent Saudi history: the key oil-for-money-and-protection deal struck between the Nixon administration and King Faisal back in the early 1970’s.

This pivotal agreement allowed KSA to secretly recycle its surplus petrodollars back into US Treasuries while receiving US military protection in exchange.  The secret was kept for 41 years, only recently revealed in 2016 due to a Bloomberg FOIA request:

The basic framework was strikingly simple. The U.S. would buy oil from Saudi Arabia and provide the kingdom military aid and equipment. In return, the Saudis would plow billions of their petrodollar revenue back into Treasuries and finance America’s spending.

 

It took several discreet follow-up meetings to iron out all the details, Parsky said. But at the end of months of negotiations, there remained one small, yet crucial, catch: King Faisal bin Abdulaziz Al Saud demanded the country’s Treasury purchases stay “strictly secret,” according to a diplomatic cable obtained by Bloomberg from the National Archives database.

 

“Buying bonds and all that was a strategy to recycle petrodollars back into the U.S.,” said David Ottaway, a Middle East fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center in Washington. But politically, “it’s always been an ambiguous, constrained relationship.”

(Source)

The essence of this deal is pretty simple. KSA wanted to be able to sell its oil to its then largest buyer, the USA, while also having a safe place to park the funds, plus receive military protection to boot. But it didn’t want anybody else, especially its Arab neighbors, to know that it was partnering so intimately with the US who, in turn, would be supporting Israel.  That would have been politically incendiary in the Middle East region, coming as it did right on the heels of the Yom Kipper War (1973).

As for the US, it got the oil it wanted and – double bonus time here – got KSA to recycle the very same dollars used to buy that oil back into Treasuries and contracts for US military equipment and training.

Sweet deal.

Note that this is yet another secret world-shaping deal successfully kept out of the media for over four decades. Yes Virginia, conspiracies do happen. Secrets can be (and are routinely) kept by hundreds, even thousands, of people over long stretches of time.  

Since that key deal was struck back in the early 1970s, the KSA has remained a steadfast supporter of the US and vice versa. In return, the US has never said anything substantive about KSA’s alleged involvement in 9/11 or its grotesque human and women’s rights violations. Not a peep.  

Until recently.

Then Things Started To Break Down

In 2015, King Salman came to power. Things began to change pretty quickly, especially once he elevated his son Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) to a position of greater power. 

Among MBS"s first acts was to directly involve KSA into the Yemen civil war, with both troops on the ground and aerial bombings.  That war has killed thousands of civilians while creating a humanitarian crisis that includes the largest modern-day outbreak of cholera, which is decimating highly populated areas.  The conflct, which is considered a "proxy war" because Iran is backing the Houthi rebels while KSA is backing the Yemeni government, continues to this day.

Then in 2016, KSA threatened to dump its $750 billion in (stated) US assets in response to a bill in Congress that would have released sensitive information implicating Saudi Arabia"s involvement in 9/11.  Then-president Obama had to fly over there to smooth things out.  It seems the job he did was insufficient; because KSA-US relations unraveled at an accelerating pace afterwards.  Mission NOT accomplished, it would seem.

In 2017, KSA accused Qatar of nefarious acts and made such extraordinary demands that an outbreak of war nearly broke out over the dispute. The Qatari leadership later accused KSA of fomenting ‘regime change’, souring the situation further.  Again, Iran backed the Qatar government, which turned this conflict into another proxy battle between the two main regional Arab superpowers.

In parallel with all this, KSA was also supporting the mercenaries (aka "rebels" in western press) who were seeking to overthrow Assad in Syria -- yet another proxy war between KSA and Iran.  It"s been an open secret that, during this conflict, KSA has been providing support to some seriously bad terrorist organizations like Al-Qaeda, ISIS and other supposed enemies of the US/NATO.  (Again, the US has never said "boo" about that, proving that US rhetoric against "terrorists" is a fickle construct of political convenience, not a moral matter.)

Once Russia entered the war on the side of Syria"s legitimate government, the US and KSA (and Israel) lost their momentum. Their dreams of toppling Assad and turning Syria into another failed petro-state like they did with Iraq and Libya are not likely to pan out as hoped.

But rather than retreat to lick their wounds, KSA"s King Salman and his son are proving to be a lot nimbler than their predecessors. 

Rather than continue a losing battle in Syria, they"ve instead turned their energies and attention to dramatically reshaping KSA"s internal power structures:

Saudi Arabia’s Saturday Night Massacre

 

For nearly a century, Saudi Arabia has been ruled by the elders of a royal family that now finds itself effectively controlled by a 32-year-old crown prince, Mohammad bin Salman. He helms the Defense Ministry, he has extravagant plans for economic development, and last week arranged for the arrest of some of the most powerful ministers and princes in the country.

 

A day before the arrests were announced, Houthi tribesmen in Yemen but allied with Iran, Saudi Arabia’s regional rival, fired a ballistic missile at Riyadh.

 

The Saudis claim the missile came from Iran and that its firing might be considered “an act of war.”

 

Saudi Arabia was created between the two world wars under British guidance. In the 1920s, a tribe known as the Sauds defeated the Hashemites, effectively annexing the exterior parts of Saudi Arabia they did not yet control. The United Kingdom recognized the Sauds’ claim shortly thereafter. But since then, the Saudi tribe has been torn by ambition, resentment and intrigue. The Saudi royal family has more in common with the Corleones than with a Norman Rockwell painting.

 

The direct attack was undoubtedly met with threats of a coup. Whether one was actually planned didn’t matter. Mohammed Bin Salman had to assume these threats were credible since so many interests were under attack. So he struck first, arresting princes and ex-minsters who constituted the Saudi elite. It was a dangerous gamble. A powerful opposition still exists, but he had no choice but to act. He could either strike as he did last Saturday night, or allow his enemies to choose the time and place of that attack. Nothing is secure yet, but with this strike, there is a chance he might have bought time. Any Saudi who would take on princes and clerics is obviously desperate, but he may well break the hold of the financial and religious elite.

(Source)

This 32 year-old prince, Mohammed bin Salman has struck first and deep, completely upending the internal power dynamics of Saudi Arabia. 

He"s taken on the political, financial and religious elites head on. For example, pushing through the decision to allow women to drive; a provocative move designed to send a clear message to the clerics who might oppose him. That message is: "I"m not fooling around here."

This is a classic example of how one goes about purging the opposition when either taking over a government after a coup, or implementing a big new strategy at a major corporation.  You have to remove any possible opponents and then install your own loyalists. According the Rules for Rulers, you do this by diverting a portion of the flow of funds to your new backers while diminishing, imprisoning or killing all potential enemies.

So far, Mohammed bin Salman"s action plan is par for the course. No surprises.

The above article from Stratfor (well worth reading in its entirety) continues with these interesting insights:

The Iranians have been doing well since the nuclear deal was signed in 2015. They have become the dominant political force in Iraq. Their support for the Bashar Assad regime in Syria may not have been enough to save him, but Iran was on what appears to be the winning side in the Syrian civil war. Hezbollah has been hurt by its participation in the war but is reviving, carrying Iranian influence in Lebanon at a time when Lebanon is in crisis after the resignation of its prime minister last week.

 

The Saudis, on the other hand, aren’t doing as well. The Saudi-built anti-Houthi coalition in Yemen has failed to break the Houthi-led opposition. And Iran has openly entered into an alliance with Qatar against the wishes of the Saudis and their ally, the United Arab Emirates.

 

Iran seems to sense the possibility of achieving a dream: destabilizing Saudi Arabia, ending its ability to support anti-Iranian forces, and breaking the power of the Sunni Wahhabis. Iran must look at the arrests in Saudi Arabia as a very bad move. And they may be. Mohammad bin Salman has backed the fundamentalists and the financial elite against the wall.

 

They are desperate, and now it is their turn to roll the dice. If they fall short, it could result in a civil war in Saudi Arabia. If Iran can hit Riyadh with missiles, the crown prince’s opponents could argue that the young prince is so busy with his plans that he isn’t paying attention to the real threat. For the Iranians, the best outcome is to have no one come out on top.

 

This would reconfigure the geopolitics of the Middle East, and since the U.S. is deeply involved there, it has decisions to make.

So given Yemen, Syria, and its recent domestic purges, Saudi Arabia is in turmoil. It"s in a far weaker position than it was a short while ago.

This leaves the US in a far weaker regional position, too, at precisely the time when China and Russia are increasing their own presence (which we’ll get to next).

But first we have to discuss what might happen if a civil war were to engulf Saudi Arabia.  The price of oil would undoubtedly spike. In turn, that would cripple the weaker countries, companies and households around the world that simply cannot afford a higher oil price. And there"s a lot of them.

Financial markets would destabilize as long-suppressed volatility would explode higher, creating horrific losses across the board.  That very few investors are mentally or financially prepared for such carnage is a massive understatement.

So..if you were Saudi Arabia, in need of helpful allies after being bogged down in an unwinnable war in Yemen, just defeated in a proxy war in Syria, and your longtime "ally", the US, is busy pumping as much of its own oil as it can, what would you do?

Pivot To China

Given its situation, is it really any surprise that King Salman and his son have decided to pivot to China?  In need of a new partner that would align better with their current and future interests, China is the obvious first choice.

So in March 2017, only a very short while after Obama"s failed visit, a large and well-prepared KSA entourage accompanied King Salman to Beijing and inked tens of billions in new business deals:

China, Saudi Arabia eye $65 billion in deals as king visits

Mar 16, 2017

 

BEIJING (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia’s King Salman oversaw the signing of deals worth as much as $65 billion on the first day of a visit to Beijing on Thursday, as the world’s largest oil exporter looks to cement ties with the world’s second-largest economy.

 

The deals included a memorandum of understanding (MoU) between giant state oil firm Saudi Aramco and China North Industries Group Corp (Norinco), to look into building refining and chemical plants in China.

 

Saudi Basic Industries Corp (SABIC) and Sinopec, which already jointly run a chemical complex in Tinajin, also agreed to develop petrochemical projects in both China and Saudi Arabia.

 

Salman told Xi he hoped China could play an even greater role in Middle East affairs, the ministry added.

 

Deputy Chinese Foreign Minister Zhang Ming said the memorandums of understanding and letters of intent were potentially worth about $65 billion, involving everything from energy to space.

(Source)

This was a very big deal in terms of Middle East geopolitics.  It shook up many decades of established power, resulting in a shift away from dependence on America. 

The Saudis arrived in China with such a huge crowd in tow that a reported 150 cooks had been brought along to just to feed everyone in the Saudi visitation party.   

The resulting deals struck involved everything from energy to infrastructure to information technology to space.  And this was just on the first visit.  Quite often a brand new trade delegation event involves posturing and bluffing and feeling each other out; not deals being struck.   So it’s clear that before the visit, well before, lots and lots of deals were being negotiated and terms agreed to so that the thick MOU files were ready to sign during the actual visit.

The scope and size of these business deals are eye catching, but the real clincher is King Salman"s public statement expressing hope China will play "an even greater role in Middle East affairs."

That, right there, is the sound of the geopolitical axis-tilting. That public statement tells us everything we need to know about the sort of change the Salman dynasty intends to pursue. 

So it should have surprised no one to hear that, in August this year, another $70 billion of new deals were announced between China and KSA. The fanfare extolled that Saudi-Sino relations had entered a new era, with “the agreements covering investment, trade, energy, postal service, communications, and media.”

This is a very rapid pace for such large deals.  If KSA and China were dating, they’d be talking about moving in together already. They"re clearly at the selecting furniture and carpet samples stage.

As for the US? It seems KSA isn"t even returning its calls or texts at this point.

You Ain"t Seen Nothing Yet...

All of the above merely describes how we arrived at where things stand today.

But as mentioned, the power grab underway in KSA by Mohammed bin Salman is unfolding in real-time. Developments are happening hourly -- while writing this, the very high-profile Prince Bandar bin Sultan (recent head of Saudi Intelligence and former longtime ambassador to the US) has been arrested.

The trajectory of events is headed in a direction that may well end the arrangement that has served as the axis around which geopolitics has spun for the past 40 years. The Saudis want new partners, and are courting China hard. 

China, for reasons we discuss in Part 2 of this report, has an existential need to supplant America as Saudi Arabia"s most vital oil customer.

And both Saudi Arabia and China are inking an increasing number of strategic oil deals with Russia. Why? We get into that in Part 2, too -- but suffice it to say, in the fast-shifting world of KSA foreign policy, it"s China and Russia "in", US "out".

Maybe not all the way out, but the US clearly has lost a lot of ground with KSA over the past few years.  My analysis is that by funding an insane amount of shale oil development, at a loss, and at any cost (such as to our biggest Mideast ally) the US has time and again displayed that our ‘friendship’ does not run very deep.  In a world where loyalty counts, the US has proved a disloyal partner. Can China position itself to be perceived of as a better mate? When it comes to business, I believe the answer is ‘yes.’ 

In Part 2: The Oil Threat we couple these developments with China and Russia’s recent efforts to drop the dollar from trade, especially when purchasing oil, and clearly see the unfolding of the biggest new driver of the world’s financial, monetary and geopolitical arrangements in 50 years.

We also explain why, unless something very dramatically changes in either the supply or demand equation for oil, and soon, we can now put a timeline in place for when the great unraveling begins.  Somewhere between the second half of 2018 and the end of 2019 oil will dramatically increase in price and that will shake the foundations of the global mountain of debt and its related underfunded liabilities.  Think 9.0 on the financial Richter scale. 

Let me be blunt - you have to have your preparations done before this happens.  You really, really want to be a year early on this (at least).  When it starts happening, the breakdown will progress faster than you can react.

Click here to read Part 2 of this report (free executive summary, enrollment required for full access)