• The bizarre alliance between the US and Saudi Arabia is finally fraying
    https://www.newstatesman.com/world/2017/11/bizarre-alliance-between-us-and-saudi-arabia-finally-fraying

    (British governments haven’t been any better: the Saudis have been close allies and major buyers of UK arms since the 1960s and, this summer, Theresa May buried an official report on the foreign funding of extremism which is believed to have highlighted the significant role played by Saudi Arabia.)

    See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil. That’s been the shameless position of Western governments when it comes to the Gulf kingdom. Successive US administrations, Democrat and Republican, have even stayed silent on the supposedly all-important issue of terrorism. Fifteen of the 19 hijackers on 9/11 were Saudi citizens? No problem. “Donors in Saudi Arabia constitute the most significant source of funding to Sunni terrorist groups worldwide,” according to a leaked State Department memo? Don’t worry about it. Islamic State is printing copies of Saudi textbooks to use in their schools? Ssshhhh.

    These days, the conventional wisdom is that the Trump administration has revitalised the US-Saudi special relationship. The president – who once suggested the Saudi government was behind 9/11! – made the kingdom the first stop on his inaugural foreign trip in May and then threw his full support behind Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman’s controversial purge of his royal rivals on 4 November.