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 Government Wants $6 Billion For al-Waleed"s Freedom

In case you were wondering what the going-rate was for one of the world"s richest men"s freedom... it"s $6 billion... in unencumbered cash (not Bitcoin).

That is the price that Saudi authorities are demanding from Saudi Prince al-Waleed bin Talal to free him from detention.

The 62-year-old prince was one of the dozens of royals, government officials and businesspeople rounded up early last month in a wave of arrests the Saudi government billed as the first volley in Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s campaign against widespread graft.

According to the Mail, al-Waleed, who is (or was, until recently) one of the richest men in the world, has also been hung upside down and beaten.

The Saudi government has disclosed few details of its allegations against the accused, but as The Wall Street Journal reports, people familiar with the matter said the $6 billion Saudi officials are demanding from Prince al-Waleed, a large stakeholder in Western businesses like Twitter, is among the highest figures they have sought from those arrested.

While the prince"s fortune is estimated at $18.7 billion by Forbes - which would make him the Middle East’s wealthiest individual - he has indicated that he believes raising and handing over that much cash as an admission of guilt and would require him to dismantle the financial empire he has built over 25 years.

Prince al-Waleed is talking with the government about instead accepting as payment for his release a large piece of his conglomerate, Kingdom Holding Co., people familiar with the matter said. The Riyadh-listed company’s market value is $8.7 billion, down about 14% since the prince’s arrest. Kingdom Holding said in November that it retained the support of the Saudi government and that its strategy “remains intact.”

According to a senior Saudi official, Prince al-Waleed faces accusations that include money laundering, bribery and extortion. The official didn’t elaborate, but said the Saudi government is merely "having an amicable exchange to reach a settlement."

The prince has indicated to people close to him that he is determined to prove his innocence and would fight the corruption allegations in court if he had to.

“He wants a proper investigation. It is expected that al-Waleed will give MBS a hard time,” said a person close to Prince al-Waleed, referring to the crown prince by his initials, as many do.

Some people close to Prince al-Waleed say they believe his high profile helped turn Prince Mohammed against the tycoon. Kingdom Holding has long acted like an arm of the Saudi state, striking deals that could have also been done by the crown prince or the kingdom’s own sovereign-wealth vehicle, the Public Investment Fund.

*  *  *

We suspect al-Waleed will not get his day in court, and will instead be forced to live on "diet food" since, as a reminder, the WSJ previously confirmed that fundamentally, the purge may be nothing more than a forced extortion scheme, as the Saudi government - already suffering from soaring budget deficits, sliding oil revenues and plunging reserves - was "aiming to confiscate cash and other assets worth as much as $800 billion in its broadening crackdown on alleged corruption among the kingdom’s elite."

"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 MbS-Blackwater Marriage Of Convenience

Authored by Ghassan Kadi via The Saker blog,

Mohamed Bin Salman’s (MBS) royal Saudi coup is still in the making and its stories of mystery and intrigue are unfolding.

Some recent articles written about this unprecedented Saudi development have focused on whether or not MBS was actually desirous of instigating reform within the kingdom of sand and capable of putting together the infrastructure that made such reform possible and how. Other more cynical articles have cast little doubt on his ability to create any change and classified him as yet another puppet of the legacy that his grandfather King Abdul Aziz, the founder of the Saudi dynasty, has forged with the West. In between the two extremes, many perhaps waited in anticipation to see what was to happen next in the now quick-changing kingdom that did not change at all in essence for nearly a hundred years.

To put recent developments into perspective, we must objectively look at MBS’s achievements and failures since his rise to prominence; with a special emphasis on the developments of the last few weeks.

MBS has failed to turn previous Saudi Government failed policy on Syria to his advantage by distancing his own legacy from it. If anything, the outcome of the Syrian opposition conference that was held in Riyadh was a farcical outcome of Saudi diplomacy. Not only did this conference coincide with the 20^th of November 2017 Putin-Assad Sochi victory summit, but it is still “demanding” the removal of Syrian President Assad from power.

The arrogant and seemingly naive Saudis seem to be still under the illusion that they are able to dictate terms of settlement of the “War on Syria” despite the fact that they have put all of their efforts into winning it but have lost decisively.

However, the more painful fact for them is that they lost without a single bargaining chip remaining for them to capitalize on.

Whilst MBS can be “excused” for not being able to find a face-saving way out of Syria, he has failed abysmally in the war that he orchestrated in Yemen, and as this war drags on, the international community is beginning to wake up to the atrocities and genocide that the Saudi-led coalition is inflicting upon Yemen, and no one can be held more accountable for this military failure and crime against humanity than MBS himself.

MBS also failed to contain the loss he “inherited” from the failures of previous Saudi policies in Lebanon and Iraq. If anything, his determination to remain steadfast with these has turned regional Saudi policies into a total joke.

So where did MBS score any success, if any at all?

In my previous related articles and herein, I have mentioned and reiterate that MBS is increasingly gaining popularity within the ranks of young and educated Saudi men and women of all ages and in general amongst the grass-roots of the population. Hence, in this venture, he is scoring two birds with a single stone. In rounding up more popular support, he is confiscating and freezing badly-needed cash under the pretext of corruption.

The estimates of the number of incarcerated Saudi princes and businessmen are not any less subject to a game of guess work than the funds involved in this kerfuffle. Ignoring how many men have been put under detention, the tally of funds confiscated and frozen is estimated at a minimum of USD 150 bn to a maximum of USD 800 bn.

Given that the total official Saudi savings reserve is in the tune of “only” USD 700 bn after decades of high financial times, even the low estimate of USD 150 bn is a huge sum by proportion and by any proportion of course. It is little surprise that MBS is trying to replenish into the coffers of the state such sums, and if he manages to do it, it would be to his credit.

Whilst on the subject of official Saudi savings, after many decades of huge petroleum exports and at elevated prices, the Saudi savings reserve figure should be in the vicinity of a few trillion dollars. But a huge proportion of Saudi petro-dollars has been squandered on royal funds, holidays yachts, prostitutes, drugs, bribes, theft, corruption at all levels, and on this account and this account only, MBS can be acknowledged for bringing corrupt individuals to account.

But whether or not MBS is able to stamp out corruption and/or whether or not he is guilty of the same charge, as his cousins and some others argue, how much command does he have over the affairs of the kingdom, and over the royal family he staged a coup against?

Inside, unconfirmed reports allege that whether or not MBS has any command on traditional local troops that he can rely on, he is not taking any second chances.

To elaborate, the reader ought to be reminded that the Al-Saud legacy built its reign of power (and terror) on Wahhabism and money.

Wahhabism was used as the doctrine, and money was the catalyst for buying loyalty and support.

With MBS’s purge on the royals, no traditional royal supporter with known wealth is left feeling safe. How can they feel safe if they hear reports of news of princes like Al-Walid bin Talal not only being in custody, but also getting tortured and his assets frozen and sieged by the state?

In my previous article, The Second Saudi Dynasty: MBS’s Reset Button, I wondered how can MBS count on any local supporters. Apparently, he is not.

Recent inside information that was later on published in various media, reports that MBS has been using Blackwater to do his dirty work.

If those reports are true, MBS has hired Blackwater to arrest, with orders to kill whoever resists arrest, Saudi princes and high-ranking businessmen, and to answer to no one but him.

In retrospect, the fatal shooting of Prince Abdul Aziz, son of former King Fahed, was highly unlikely to have been done by a Saudi as this would attract a death sentence in the event of the coup failing.

It has even been reported that Blackwater personnel are driving around in tinted Saudi Police and security agency personnel vehicles in a manner that is totally unbeknown and hidden from the Saudi public.

This cannot be corroborated any more than they can realistically be dismissed.

If true, such reports indicate that MBS’s coup is not over. They indicate that he is not taking any chances, but most practically, they indicate that he trusts no one; no one expect Blackwater.

Most importantly and significantly however, such news, if confirmed, indicates that MBS does not have a true hold on power.

If such is the case, and seeing the ambition he has, there is more reason to believe that MBS is going to have no choice but to go with his cousins all the way to the wire and until he has destroyed them all and confiscated all of their assets.

After all, he needs their money to achieve his dreams and get his kingdom out of its financial mess. He needs to blame his failure on them. He needs to eliminate any possible claim they can make for the throne.

Almost overnight, MBS has changed Saudi Arabia from a kingdom of sand upon which Al Saud reigned with a solid foothold and strong base, to a kingdom of quick-sand upon which princes and power brokers no longer have a leg to stand on. They either have to pledge total and unconditional loyalty to MBS or fear persecution. On the other hand, if they do pledge that loyalty, and MBS’s coup fails as a result of a counter-coup, then they will risk being seen as enemies of the winners of the counter-coup. It is a damned if you do and a damned if you don’t situation.

Not any less perplexing than the dilemma of the princes is the dilemma of the lower tiers of power in Saudi Arabia; especially senior military officers and their subordinates. With its tribal mentality, Saudi Arabia has had several tiers of armed forces, some of whom are loyal to particular princes rather than to the state itself. Prince Mutaib for example, the son of former King Abdullah, was until the 4^th of November, the Minister of the National Guard. The hierarchy within the National Guard are loyal to him personally, and now the big boss is in jail. MBS therefore has a few options; either to coerce those military officers to become loyal to him under the risk of them stabbing him in the back, or, to throw everyone in jail and bring his own people in. But, where would he bring his own people in from and who are they to begin with? After all, and despite all the great power he gave himself, he is Mr Johnny-come–lately and he hasn’t had the advantage of time to slowly build his own army. His practical alternative was based on pragmatism and securing his own safety, and to that effect, he cannot find a more faithful and better trained army than Blackwater. And even though Blackwater does not come cheap, but clearly to MBS the objectives he seeks justify the costs.

Some may argue that Blackwater can also be bought by counter coup leaders and even foreign governments. Whilst this is possible, MBS remains to have no better alternative. However, one would imagine that for a company like Blackwater, to guarantee its business success and continuity, it would have a strict code of conduct that stipulates that it will refrain from entering contractual agreements that can generate conflict of interest between its clients. After all, and irrespective of its criminal and underhanded mercenary modus operandi, who would hire it knowing beforehand that it is in the habit of breaking contracts and replacing them with ones with the adversaries? Whilst it is arguable as to whether or not any client of Blackwater can actually take legal action against it and win is another story because, without any doubt, Blackwater, inhumane and criminal as it is, cannot afford to see its reputation ruined.

To sum it up therefore, whilst MBS’s coup is still in the making and its final outcome remaining unclear, what is evident is that MBS does not have enough local Saudi power base that he can rely on in the upper echelons of power. Whilst his grass root popularity among the general population is on the rise, traditional power brokers can neither be supportive of him, seen to be supportive or seen to be against him. Either way, and even though some of them could potentially become strong and faithful proponents of MBS, at the moment any pledges of allegiance are highly risky for all involved.

In his reliance on Blackwater however, MBS is achieving a more guaranteed short term objective. However, this policy can backfire very violently; because it is allowing certain key Saudi power brokers to sit on the fence for a little longer until they see who is the final winner in all of this for them to eventually back.

Alwaleed Bin Talal Reportedly Hung Upside Down And Beaten By US Mercenaries

Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman must be worried that some of the royals rounded up during his “corruption crackdown” cash grab are holding out on him. Because the Saudi prince has reportedly hired a crew of American mercenaries who haven’t hesitated to employ an array of “enhanced interrogation” techniques.

As the Daily Mail reports, mercenaries purportedly employed by Academi, a successor to infamous US security contractor Blackwater, have been stringing up some of MBS’s “guests” at the Riyadh Ritz Carlton by their feet and savagely beating them during interrogations. The claims have spread rapidly on Arabic-language social media, and even Lebanon’s president Michel Aoun has accused MbS of using mercenaries. Still, the Daily Mail isn"t the most reputable news organization, so these reports should be taken with a grain of salt.

"They are beating them, torturing them, slapping them, insulting them. They want to break them down," the source told DailyMail.com.

 

"Blackwater" has been named by DailyMail.com"s source as the firm involved, and the claim of its presence in Saudi Arabia has also been made on Arabic social media, and by Lebanon"s president.

 

The firm"s successor, Academi, strongly denies even being in Saudi Arabia and says it does not engage in torture, which it is illegal for any U.S. citizen to commit anywhere in the world.

The Saudi crown prince, according to the source, has also confiscated more than $194 billion from the bank accounts and seized assets of those arrested, and could eventually end up with $800 billion in cash and assets to replenish Saudi’s rapidly diminishing reserves. Given the febrile atmosphere in the kingdom, and the tacit support for the crackdown among Saudi citizens, who have seen their jobs and generous government subsidies cut, MbS has been able to circumvent the country’s legal system.

Alwaleed bin Talal

He’s using mercenaries because, according to the Mail, Saudi soldiers might balk at torturing powerful men like Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, whom they’ve been saluting their entire lives. According to the Mail, Talal, who is (or was, until recently) one of the richest men in the world, has also been hung upside down and beaten.

"All the guards in charge are private security because MBS (Mohammed Bin Salman) doesn"t want Saudi officers there who have been saluting those detainees all their lives," said the source, who asked to remain anonymous.

 

"Outside the hotels where they are being detained you see the armored vehicles of the Saudi special forces. But inside, it"s a private security company.

 

"They"ve transferred all the guys from Abu Dhabi. Now they are in charge of everything," said the source.

 

The source said that Salman, often referred to by his initials MBS, is conducting some of the interrogations himself.

 

"When it"s something big he asks them questions," the source said.

 

"He speaks to them very nicely in the interrogation, and then he leaves the room, and the mercenaries go in. The prisoners are slapped, insulted, hung up, tortured."

 

The source says the crown prince is desperate to assert his authority through fear and wants to uncover an alleged network of foreign officials who have taken bribes from Saudi princes.

The Daily Mail’s account of the treatment of the Saudi royals arrested in the crackdown is much more harrowing than anything the mainstream media has published. The Mail published photos of what appear to be some of the detainees sleeping on thin mattresses in the ballroom of the Ritz-Carlton.

Among those arrested on allegations of corruption is Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal, the Saudi King"s nephew who is worth more than $17bn according to Forbes, and owns stakes in Twitter, Lyft and Citigroup.

 

DailyMail.com"s source claims the crown prince lulled Alwaleed into a false sense of security, inviting him to a meeting at his Al Yamamah palace, then sent officers to arrest him the night before the meeting.

 

"Suddenly at 2.45am all his guards were disarmed, the royal guards of MBS storm in," said the source.

 

"He"s dragged from his own bedroom in his pajamas, handcuffed, put in the back of an SUV, and interrogated like a criminal.

 

"They hung them upside down, just to send a message.

 

"They told them that "we"ve made your charges public, the world knows that you"ve been arrested on these charges.""

Of course, it’s unlikely MbS, or the American mercenaries, will ever be prosecuted for their actions, either in Saudi Arabia or the US. It’s rumored that MbS’s aging father, King Salman, might soon abdicate, granting his son untrammeled power to run KSA as he sees fit.

In 2008 the Boston-born son of former Liberian President Charles Taylor was found guilty by a US court of horrific torture. The jury in Miami found Charles "Chuckie" Taylor Jr. guilty on all eight counts brought against him, including allegations he and his cohorts tortured victims in Liberia by applying electric shocks to their genitals, burning them with hot irons and melting plastic and rubbing salt in their open wounds.
 

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.

Saudi Purge Claims Its Latest Corporate Victim As Kingdom Holdings Sees $1.3 Billion Bank Deal Collapse

For the past couple of weeks we"ve written frequently about the sudden political turmoil in Saudi Arabia that resulted in two Saudi princes being killed in a span of just 24 hours and dozens others being detained on charges of corruption while having their bank accounts frozen.  Here are couple of our most recent background posts on the topic:

• The Saudi Purge: The Middle-East Is On The Verge Of A New War


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

Now, per an exclusive report from Reuters, it appears as though the latest casualty of the Saudi shakeup is a financing deal sought by the $8 billion dollar Kingdom Holdings which is owned and run by Prince Alwaleed bin Talal...at least until he was recently arrested that is.

Kingdom Holding’s plan to borrow money to fund new investments has stalled because owner Prince Alwaleed bin Talal has been detained in Saudi Arabia’s anti-corruption crackdown, according to four banking sources familiar with the matter.

 

Kingdom 4280.SE had approached banks to obtain the loan, but the financing plan has been held up because the lenders are worried about potential repercussions if they lend to the prince’s company, the sources said.

 

One of the sources, who was approached for the loan, said it would have been worth roughly 5 billion riyals ($1.3 billion).

For those who aren"t familiar with the company, Kingdom Holdings is a leading Saudi investment firm with stakes in prime real estate including New York’s Plaza Hotel and London’s Savoy Hotel.

The busted bank deal apparently surfaced after Kingdom Holdings attempted to pledge an equity position it recently acquired in Banque Saudi Fransi as collateral for a new $1.3 billion loan but several banks balked until the charges levied against Prince Alwaleed bin Talal were resolved.

Kingdom completed the acquisition of a 16.2 percent stake in local lender Banque Saudi Fransi (BSF) 1050.SE in September, buying about half of France’s Credit Agricole stake in BSF for 5.76 billion riyals.

 

The company approached banks to obtain a loan that would have been secured by its BSF stake, as the company wanted to leverage the newly acquired shares in order to make new investments, according to the sources.

 

One of the four sources, a senior banker at a Saudi financial institution, said the loan deal would not go ahead until the situation facing the prince was resolved.

Of course, Kingdom Holdings is likely not the only Saudi company finding it difficult to tap debt markets these days as Moody"s recently warned that a prolonged freeze of bank accounts could "damage corporate credit quality" all across the country.

Eight Saudi and international bankers, including the four sources, said in addition to the Kingdom loan, a range of other transactions involving clients who are directly or indirectly involved in the detentions had also been put on hold.

 

Banks have not reached the point of recalling existing loans, but they have increased the level of scrutiny for some new financing, the bankers said.

 

In a report last week, debt rating agency Moody’s said a prolonged freeze of bank accounts in Saudi Arabia could damage corporate credit quality in the kingdom because large depositors were often large borrowers and business owners.

 

“Saudi Arabia’s corporate sector remains dominated by unlisted family-owned businesses with uneven governance and disclosures and frequent intermingling of individual and corporate activities, which ultimately could expose corporates to these individuals’ frozen accounts,” Moody’s said.

Meanwhile, despite assurances from the Riyadh government that the economy would not suffer from the country"s political turmoil "because investigators are targeting only individuals, not their companies," Kingdom Holdings shareholders don"t seem to be convinced...

Saudi "Corruption" Probe Widens: Dozens Of Military Officials Arrested

After jailing dozens of members of the royal family, and extorting numerous prominent businessmen, 32-year-old Saudi prince Mohammed bin Salman has widened his so-called "corruption" probe further still.

The Wall Street Journal reports that at least two dozen military officers, including multiple commanders, recently have been rounded up in connection to the Saudi government’s sweeping corruption investigation, according to two senior advisers to the Saudi government.

Additionally, several prominent businessmen also were taken in by Saudi authorities in recent days.

A number of businessmen including Loai Nasser, Mansour al-Balawi, Zuhair Fayez and Abdulrahman Fakieh also were rounded up in recent days, the people said.

 

Attempts to reach the businessmen or their associates were unsuccessful.

It isn’t clear if those people are all accused of wrongdoing, or whether some of them have been called in as witnesses. But their detainment signals an intensifying high-stakes campaign spearheaded by Saudi Arabia’s 32-year-old crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman.

There appear to be three scenarios behind MbS" decision to go after the military:

1) They are corrupt and the entire process is all above board and he is doing the right thing by cleaning house;

 

2) They are wealthy and thus capable of being extorted (a cost of being free) to add to the nation"s coffers; or

 

3) There is a looming military coup and by cutting off the head, he hopes to quell the uprising.

If we had to guess we would weight the scenarios as ALL true with the (3) becoming more likely, not less.

So far over 200 people have been held without charges since the arrests began on November 4th and almost 2000 bank accounts are now frozen, which could be why, as The Daily Mail reports, Saudi prince and billionaire Al-Waleed bin Talal has reportedly put two luxury hotels in Lebanon up for sale after being detained in his country during a corruption sweep.

The Saudi information ministry previously stated the government would seize any asset or property related to the alleged corruption, meaning the Savoy hotel could well become the state property of the kingdom.

"The accounts and balances of those detained will be revealed and frozen," a spokesman for Saudi Arabia"s information ministry said.

 

"Any asset or property related to these cases of corruption will be registered as state property."

As we noted previously, it appears clear that MbS has decided to enforce a 70% wealth tax...the Financial Times reports today that the Saudi government has offered the new occupants of the Riyadh Ritz-Carlton a way out.... and it’s going to cost them: In some cases, as much as 70% of their net worth.

Saudi authorities are negotiating settlements with princes and businessmen held over allegations of corruption, offering deals for the detainees to pay for their freedom, people briefed on the discussions say.

 

In some cases the government is seeking to appropriate as much as 70 per cent of suspects’ wealth, two of the people said, in a bid to channel hundreds of billions of dollars into depleted state coffers.

 

The arrangements, which have already seen some assets and funds handed over to the state, provide an insight into the strategy behind Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s dramatic corruption purge.

The country’s attorney-general has said he is investigating allegations of corruption amounting to at least $100 billion - though the total value of assets seized could be as high as $800 billion. Though the Financial Times puts the high-end figure at a relatively modest $300 billion; to make up for the delta, more arrests are still expected.

Regular Saudis, who’ve seen their benefits cut and some of their jobs taken away, support MbS’s decision.  “Why should the poor take all the pain of austerity,” said one Saudi academic. “The rich need to pay their way too.”

In Saudi Arabia, they are about to do just that.

*  *  *

While MbS also continues to get the support of US officials, not everyone is convinced that the anti-corruption probe will succeed...

As Counterpunch.org"s Patrick Cockburn warns in fact, it is doomed to fail...

About eight or nine years ago, I had an Afghan friend who previously worked for a large US aid agency funding projects in the Afghan provinces. He had been hired to monitor their progress once work had got underway, but he did not hold the job very long for reasons that he explained to me.

The problem for the Americans at the local agency headquarters in Kabul was that the risk of ambush by the Taliban was deemed too high for them personally to visit the projects that they were funding. Instead, they followed the construction from one step removed, by insisting that the Afghan company involved should transmit back to Kabul, at set intervals, detailed pictures of its activities, to show that they were fulfilling their contract to the letter.

Almost as an afterthought, the aid agency thought it might be useful to send along an Afghan in their employ to check that all was well. His first mission was to go to Kandahar province, where some plant – I seem to remember it was a vegetable packing facility – was believed to be rising somewhere in the dangerous hinterland. He went there, but, despite earnest inquiries, was unable to locate the project.

Back in Kandahar city, he asked around about the mystery of the missing vegetable plant, but found that his questions were answered evasively by those he contacted.

Finally, he met somebody who, under a pledge of secrecy about the source of the information, explained to him what was happening.

Businessmen in Kandahar receiving funds from the aid agency and knowing its reliance on photographs to monitor works in progress, had found it safer and more profitable to fake the whole process.

They engaged a small local company with experience of making TV advertisements and documentaries to rig up what was, in effect, a film studio – in which workers played by extras would be shown busily engaged in whatever activity the agency was paying for. In the case of the vegetable-packing facility, this must have been simple enough to fake by buying cabbages and cauliflowers in the market to be placed in boxes inside some shed by labourers hired by the day.

My friend returned to Kabul and hinted to his employers that this particular project in Kandahar was not doing as well as they imagined. He thought that it would be unhealthy for himself to go into detail, but he did not, at this stage, resign from his well-paying job. This only happened a few months later, when he was sent to Jalalabad to check on a chicken farm supposedly nearing completion outside the city.

Once again, he could not find the project in question and, when he met those in charge, put it to them that it did not exist. They admitted that this was indeed so, but – according to his report – they added menacingly that he should keep in mind that “it was a long road back to Kabul from Kandahar”. In other words, they would kill him if he exposed their scam: a threat that convinced him his long-term chances of survival were low unless he rapidly resigned and found new employment.

I was thinking of the story of the Kandahar packing plant and the Jalalabad chicken farm, when Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman launched his anti-corruption drive in Saudi Arabia last weekend.

There may be a big difference in the amount of money to be made out of looting the Saudi state compared to US aid agencies in Afghanistan, but the psychology and processes at work have similarities.

In both cases, those making a lot of money out of corruption will put more effort into going on doing just that, than those who say they are determined to stop them. If a few wealthy individuals are scapegoated, then others will jostle to take their place.

It is important to take on board, when considering the case of Saudi Arabia, that many oil- or resource-rich states – be they monarchies or republics – have launched their own anti-corruption drives down the years. All have failed, and for roughly the same reasons.

Iraq, so different from Saudi Arabia in terms of history, religion and politics, is likewise entirely dependent on oil revenues. Its next biggest export used to be dates, though today even these are often imported from China. Corruption is chronic, particularly in giant infrastructure projects. Four years ago, I was in Baghdad early in the year, when there was heavier than usual rainfall, which led to a large part of the eastern side of the city disappearing under a foot of grey water mixed with sewage. This was despite $7bn (£5.3bn) supposedly spent on new sewers and drainage systems, but which, in the event, turned out not to function – or even to exist.

The problem in resource-rich states is that corruption is not marginal to political power, but central to acquiring it and keeping it. Corruption at the top is a form of patronage manipulated by those in charge, to create and reward a network of self-interested loyalists. It is the ruling family and its friends and allies who cherrypick what is profitable: this is as true of Saudi Arabia as it was true of Libya under Gaddafi, Iraq under Saddam Hussein and his successors, or Iraqi Kurdistan that was supposedly different from the rest of the country.

Corruption is a nebulous concept when it comes to states with arbitrary rulers, who can decide – unrestrained by law or democratic process – what is legal and what is illegal. What typifies the politics of oil states is that everybody is trying to plug into the oil revenues in order to get their share of the cake.

This is true at the top, but the same is the case of the rest of the population, or at least a large and favoured section of it.

The Iraqi government pays $4bn a month to about seven million state employees and pensioners. These may or may not do productive work, but it would be politically risky to fire them because they are the base support of the regime in power.

Anti-corruption drives don’t work, because if they are at all serious, they soon begin to cut into the very roots of political power by touching the “untouchables”. At this point principled anti-corruption campaigners will find themselves in serious trouble and may have to flee the country, while the less-principled ones will become a feared weapon to be used against anybody whom the government wants to target.

A further consequence of the traditional anti-corruption drive is that it can paralyse government activities in general. This is because all officials, corrupt and incorrupt alike, know that they are vulnerable to investigation.

“The safest course for them is to take no decision and sign no document which might be used or misused against them,” a frustrated American businessman told me in Baghdad some years ago. He added that it was only those so politically powerful that they did not have to fear legal sanctions who would take decisions – and such people were often the most corrupt of all.

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.

"Thank Goodness The Stock Market Only Goes Up..."

Authored by James Howard Kunstler via Kunstler.com,

It must be exciting to wake up on a gilded bed somewhere in Riyadh and realize that you are Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman, mover and shaker of Middle East order. Actually, exciting just to have woken up at all.

Perhaps Prince MBS checks to make sure that there aren’t seventy-two virgins in the room before he rises to prayers, state business, and the prospect of World War Three.

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) has been a giant gasoline bomb waiting to explode for decades. It occupies one of the geographically least hospitable corners of the earth. Its existence as a modern (cough cough) state relies strictly on the reserves of oil discovered as recently as the late 1930s, that is, within the lifetime of people still reading this blog. The oil supply is in steep decline, and so, of course, is the stability of the kingdom.

Politically, it’s a super-medieval operation, an absolute monarchy tied to a severe religious order with the law floating precariously between the two, and old-fashioned customs such as the public beheading of criminals (for misdeeds such as “adultery,” “atheism,” and “sorcery”). The Saud clan has controlled the throne all these years, and its grip on power is slipping as the country itself slips into the prospective next era of its history, minus the endless gusher of oil that has made its existence possible - hence, a true existential crisis without the usual pseudo-intellectual bullshit.

How are they going to support the thirty or forty million people who will still be there when the oil exports dribble down? Most of the work done in the country is performed by foreign “guests.” The indigenous folk don’t even remember how to milk a camel, let alone run routine maintenance on a desalinization plant. (And what are you going to run the de-sal plant on when the oil runs down?) These are questions that must drive thoughtful Saudi royalty mad.

Hence, the Kingdom is going mad. The current king, Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, is the latest in a line of geriatric monarchs. His brother and predecessor, Abdullah, spent his last years in a limbo of medical life-support (virgins standing by), and Salman is reputed to be dotty. Crown Prince MBS has assumed more of the king’s duties by necessity, but the land is filled with thousands of other princes, many of them frustrated, angry, and jealous of the Crown Prince’s prerogatives.

One can only imagine the clouds of intrigue wafting through the ornate corridors of wealth and power. Crown Prince MBS is lately out to deprive his many royal rivals of those two critical assets, and a couple of said rival princes - Abdul Aziz bin Fahd and Mansour bin Muqrin - were offed altogether (gunfight, helicopter crash) two weeks back. A score of non-royal public officials and business poobahs have also been arrested, including top ministers (Finance, Economy & Planning), the former CEO of the national airline, and a brother of Osama bin Laden, whose family ran the country’s biggest construction company.

It really amounts to a nascent civil war and it comes around at exactly the moment that the Kingdom’s arch-enemy, Iran, is feeling comfortably aggressive. Iran, formerly known as Persia, is a much sturdier old polity that has been around long before there was much ado about oil. They were fighting the ancient Greeks and Romans back in the day, and won a few rounds. But, of course, Iran has a good deal of oil, too. And having pissed off the Americans not so long ago by overrunning the US embassy and all, our country has been striving to punish them ever since — especially making it difficult for them to sell oil to our “friends” in Europe. As it happens, there are plenty of customers elsewhere for Iran’s oil — and, yes, they will eventually face their own depletion problems, but they do have the world’s largest untapped reserve stash next door in Iraq, which they are steadily and increasingly coming to control. And they do have that millennium-and-a-half beef with Arabia’s Sunni branch of Islam headquartered in KSA.

Crown Prince MBS may see war as a unifying theme for his domestic difficulties. He has a fifty-plus years’ stock of American war toys that have hardly been used - except for turning neighboring Yemen into a landfill. The USA has been KSA’s staunch ally all these years, and MBS has every reason to believe we have his back, as Iran probably believes Russia has its back. And then there is Israel in the background with its nuclear-armed subs… Israel, which actually took seriously Iran’s declaration a few years ago to wipe it off the face of the earth - and which now much of the world castigates Israel for so doing.

And in the middle of all this, poor, feckless, Hezbollah-haunted Lebanon, and the boneyard formerly known as Syria. The region is seriously coming apart. Someone is going to make a dangerous misstep.

The Golden Golem of Greatness has been off far away sampling General Tsao’s chicken and Singapore noodles.

And this country is completely preoccupied with Sex Among the Stars. Thank goodness the stock market only goes up.