#madawi_al-rasheed

#Madawi_Al-Rasheed

Dont al-Walid ben Talal:
▻https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/04/world/middleeast/saudi-arabia-waleed-bin-talal.html

Saudi Arabia announced the arrest on Saturday night of the prominent billionaire investor Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, plus at least 10 other princes, four ministers and tens of former ministers.

The announcement of the arrests was made over Al Arabiya, the Saudi-owned satellite network whose broadcasts are officially approved. Prince Alwaleed’s arrest is sure to send shock waves both through the Kingdom and the world’s major financial centers.

Allez je risque le #catastrophe_arabe même si la chute probable de la KSA ne me fera pas pleurer à chaudes larmes.

Ces arrestations interviennent quelques heures après la création, par décret royal, de cette commission, dirigée par le prince héritier et homme fort du royaume, Mohammed Ben Salman, âgé de 32 ans. L’agence de presse officielle saoudienne SPA a indiqué que le but de la commission était de « préserver l’argent public, punir les personnes corrompues et ceux qui profitent de leur position ». Le conseil des religieux a rapidement réagi sur son compte Twitter en affirmant que la lutte contre la corruption était « aussi importante que le combat contre le terrorisme ».

(c’est moi qui graisse)
Primum non nocere aux intérêts économiques…
Comment Le Monde et les MSM, et les gouvernements occidentaux,… peuvent-ils croire une seconde à cette fable ? Au vu de l’appropriation des ressources du pays par la famille royale des ressources du pays, le mot corruption a-t-il encore un sens ? Y a-t-il un seul de ses membres qui pourrait échapper à une quelconque commission réunie dans de telles conditions ?

Saudi princes among dozens detained in anti-corruption purge - BBC News
▻http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-41874117

#Madawi_Al-Rasheed, who is a visiting professor at the London School of Economics’ Middle East Centre, told the BBC the purge gave Prince Mohammed control over the country’s security forces.

“It’s very difficult to see it as an anti-corruption move,” [s]he said.

“This is really a purge that consolidates Mohammed bin Salman’s power base. He wants to remove the last remaining cousin who controls a paramilitary force that is very modern and also capable of challenging his rule. There are no more princes who can do that with a military or security base.”

Pour rappel,

Saudi prince Mohammed bin Salman buys £452m yacht during austerity | The Independent
▻http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/saudi-prince-mohammed-bin-salman-yacht-france-new-york-times-a7365261

https://static.independent.co.uk/s3fs-public/thumbnails/image/2016/04/25/20/web-mohammed-bin-salman-afp.jpg

#corruption #it_has_begun

#autogolpe

What Happened in Saudi Arabia Last Night — And How Washington #Corruption Enabled It
▻https://theintercept.com/2017/11/05/what-happened-in-saudi-arabia-last-night-and-how-washington-corruption

https://cdn01.theintercept.com/wp-uploads/sites/1/2017/09/crown-prince-Mohammed-bin-Salman-1505325024-feature-hero.jpg

The move marks a moment of reckoning for Washington’s foreign policy establishment, which struck a bargain of sorts with the Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, known as MBS, and Yousef Al Otaiba, the United Arab Emirates ambassador to the U.S. who has been MBS’s leading advocate in Washington. The unspoken arrangement was clear: The UAE and Saudi Arabia would pump millions into Washington’s political ecosystem while mouthing a belief in “reform,” and Washington would pretend to believe that they meant it. MBS has won praise for some policies, like an openness to reconsidering Saudi Arabia’s ban on women drivers.

[...]

Whatever legitimate debate there was about MBS ended Saturday — his drive to consolidate power is now too obvious to ignore. And that puts denizens of Washington’s #think_tank world in a difficult spot, as they have come to rely heavily on the Saudi and UAE end of the bargain. As The Intercept reported earlier, one think tank alone, the Middle East Institute, got a massive $20 million commitment from the UAE.

And make no mistake, MBS is a project of the UAE — an odd turn of events given the relative sizes of the two countries. “Our relationship with them is based on strategic depth, shared interests, and most importantly the hope that we could influence them. Not the other way around,” Otaiba has said privately. For the past two years, Otaiba has introduced MBS around Washington and offered assurances of his commitment to modernizing and reforming Saudi Arabia, according to people who’ve spoken with him, confirmed by emails leaked by the group Global Leaks. When confronted with damning headlines, Otaiba tends to acknowledge the reform project is a work in progress, but insists that it is progress nonetheless, and in MBS resides the best chance of the region.

#Etats-Unis #E.A.U.

Il ne prend pas des risques là #Mohamed_ben_Salman ? Les gens auxquels il s’attaque ont quand même un certain pouvoir pour pouvoir se défendre, non ?

En tous cas pour France 24 en ce moment même, MBS c’est, je cite, « le choc de la modernité ».

L’émission vient de se terminer

#pseudo_journalisme

Key Saudi source, Mujtahidd, alleges Saudi King-to-be delivered $1bn to Trump Organization during Trump visit – The Mideastwire Blog
▻https://mideastwire.wordpress.com/2017/11/06/key-saudi-source-mujtahidd-alleges-saudi-king-to-be-delivered

When Trump was in Riyadh during the second half of May 2017, a private yacht reached the Jeddah Port. Its identity was concealed and it was closely guarded. The regular port authorities were not allowed to deal with the yacht, and only a small group of people reached it while carrying boxes or suitcases containing a billion dollars in cash. Once they dropped the load and came back, the yacht that only stayed in Jeddah for a few hours disappeared to a destination that remained concealed, just like its identity and the location it came from. It was later leaked to us from Mohammad Bin Salman’s close circle that the billion dollars were from Mohammad Bin Salman personally, and that the yacht was indirectly affiliated with Trump’s Organization.”

Yémen. Une guerre et des luttes de pouvoir entre princes saoudiens
►http://www.courrierinternational.com/article/yemen-une-guerre-et-des-luttes-de-pouvoir-entre-princes-saoud

Dans l’intervention militaire saoudienne au Yémen, il ne s’agit pas seulement de limiter l’expansionnisme iranien dans le sud du Golfe arabo-persique”, écrit #Madawi_Al-Rasheed, spécialiste de l’Arabie Saoudite, dans Al-Monitor. “Cette guerre se joue également sur fond de rivalités souterraines au sein de la famille royale”, explique-t-elle.

Selon la journaliste, “le nouveau roi Salman ben Abdelaziz [arrivé sur le trône le 23 janvier] est déterminé à faire de son pays le gendarme de la péninsule. Son fils Mohamed, devenu ministre de la Défense, supervise les opérations, malgré son manque d’expérience. [...] Il veut prouver qu’il est crédible. [C’est pour cela qu’il s’implique dans] une guerre ambiguë, dangereuse et potentiellement catastrophique à la fois pour le Yémen et pour l’Arabie Saoudite.” Pour Madawi Al-Rasheed, le fils du roi compte ainsi se hisser sur un pied d’égalité avec son cousin Mohamed ben Naïf ben Abdelaziz (ministre de l’Intérieur) et avec “d’autres princes, plus compétents que lui”.

Unifier la nation saoudienne
La spécialiste précise qu’une victoire au Yémen ne réglerait pas seulement les rivalités entre princes de la famille régnante. “Elle unifierait également une nation saoudienne inquiète et divisée sur les questions intérieures et sur la politique étrangère contre-révolutionnaire du pays”, qui n’a cessé depuis cinq ans de combattre les effets du “printemps arabe”.

“Finalement, cette guerre permet de faire distraction de l’échec total de la politique saoudienne à contenir l’influence iranienne en Syrie et en Irak”, ajoute la journaliste. Et de conclure : “Il n’a fallu que quelques minutes après le début des frappes aériennes pour que la twittosphère se mette en marche et soutienne le nouveau roi et le jeune ministre de la Défense”, loués pour leur lutte contre “l’influence #safavide [terme péjoratif qui englobe à la fois les #chiites et les Iraniens]”.

Saudi Arabia and the al-Qaeda Monster (3/5)
►http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=11697

JAY: I think it’s important to note that Eisenhower is quoted as saying that we will use—we being the United States—use the Saudis and their role in defending Mecca to help promote Wahhabism and the Saudi power to fight Nasserism, nationalism, and socialism. I may not have the quote exact, but I’m pretty close. And, of course, we know how much the CIA worked directly with the Saudis in Afghanistan. In fact, bin Laden gets to Afghanistan in a deal between the Saudis and the Americans.

AL-RASHEED: Yes, absolutely. This was part of the Cold War strategy, and Saudi Arabia deployed its ideology and support, and also funds, in order to fight wars elsewhere.

The Multiple Kingdoms of Saudi Arabia (5/5)
►http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=11712

JAY: (...) if you can keep civil war going in Iraq and you can keep Iran under sanctions, it certainly helps you if you’re Saudi Arabia.

AL-RASHEED: Yes, absolutely it helps. But here the argument is not put in economic terms, and the Saudis do not want to admit that it’s all about money, it’s all about oil and resources. And therefore there is this rhetoric about sectarian religious wars that are sponsored by this group or that group.

But there is quite an important factor in the form of oil and more oil coming to market. And this would actually dilute Saudi Arabia’s importance. And, therefore, if you could keep that oil away or keep its countries unstable—and therefore it is beneficial from a purely economic sort of formula, it’s beneficial to Saudi Arabia.

Hypocrisy Dressed Up as “Realism” Justifies American Alliance with Saudi Dictatorship (1/5)
►http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=11676

AL-RASHEED: There are interest groups who want us to believe that this is a holy alliance, the U.S. and Saudi Arabia. And obviously here we’re talking about military weapons companies, we’re talking about oil companies, we’re talking about those who benefit from this political umbrella that is provided by Washington to Saudi Arabia and do not want to undermine this relationship, in order to keep its business and economic and financial, military relations going.

(...)

... I think initially, when this so-called special relationship started in 1945, Saudi Arabia needed the U.S. more than the U.S. actually needed Saudi Arabia, until oil became abundant and the Saudi sort of government started having that surplus, which it recycled, and used it to buy weapons from Western governments.

But at the same time, the Saudis realized recently that they have this purchasing power, and immediately after any kind of rift between Washington and Riyadh, the Saudis tried to arrange visits to other Western countries, or to Asia recently, and also offered to buy military equipment.

(...) So it’s an ongoing sort of source of income for these companies. And therefore it is using this purchasing power in order to put pressure on other governments, especially Western one, to remain silent on its own abuse of human rights, on its own undemocratic system, and also on its intrigues, whether they are direct or indirect in the Arab world and beyond.