Arábia Saudita

[Haroun Al Poussah]

Saudi Arabia 'destabilising Arab world', German intelligence warns

It is unusual for the BND spy agency to publicly release such a blunt assessment on a country that is considered an ally of the West. Germany has long-standing political and economic ties with Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia is at risk of becoming a major destabilising influence in the Arab world, German intelligence has warned.
Internal power struggles and the desire to emerge as the leading Arab power threaten to make the key Western ally a source of instability, according to the BND intelligence service.

“The current cautious diplomatic stance of senior members of the Saudi royal family will be replaced by an impulsive intervention policy,” a BND memo widely distributed to the German press reads.

The memo focuses particularly on the role of Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the 30-year-old son of King Salman who was recently appointed deputy crown prince and defence minister.

The concentration of so much power in Prince Mohammed’s hands “harbours a latent risk that in seeking to establish himself in the line of succession in his father’s lifetime, he may overreach,” the memo notes.

“Relations with friendly and above all allied countries in the region could be overstretched.”
Prince Mohammed is believed to have played a key role in Saudi Arabia’s decision to intervene in the civil war in Yemen earlier this year.

Both he and King Salman want Saudi Arabia to be seen as “the leader of the Arab world” and are trying to extend its foreign policy “with a strong military component and new regional alliances,” the BND analysts write.

Prince Mohammed is believed to want to succeed his father as king, but he is currently second in line to the throne, behind the 56-year-old Crown Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, King Salman’s nephew.

Analysts at the Royal Bank of Canada recenlty desrcribed the jockeying for position inside the extensive royal family as “Saudi Arabia’s Game of Thrones”.

The royal family has thousands of members of varying influence and power, and any suggestion Prince Mohammed is trying to move ahead of the crown prince in the line of succession could trigeer a dangerous power struggle.

Regionally, the Sunni kingdom is locked in a rivalry with Shia Iran “reinforced by mutual mistrust and religious-ideological enmity,” the memo warns.
This rivalry between the two counties is being fuelled by a Saudi loss of faith in the US as the dominant strategic power in the region and in its ability to provide protection, it says.

Saudi Arabia’s intervention in Yemen was driven by a desire to show the country was “willing to take military, financial and political risks in order not to fall behind in regional politics”.

The overthrow of Syria’s president Bashar al-Assad remains a priority for the kingdom, the BND says.
Saudi Arabia has previously been accused of supplying arms and funding to jihadist groups fighting in Syria, including Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (Isil).

telegraph


o príncipe Boahmerd bin Salmão

[Thunder]

Saudi Arabia, an ISIS That Has Made It

Black Daesh, white Daesh. The former slits throats, kills, stones, cuts off hands, destroys humanity’s common heritage and despises archaeology, women and non-Muslims. The latter is better dressed and neater but does the same things. The Islamic State; Saudi Arabia. In its struggle against terrorism, the West wages war on one, but shakes hands with the other.

... forgetting that the kingdom also relies on an alliance with a religious clergy that produces, legitimizes, spreads, preaches and defends Wahhabism, the ultra-puritanical form of Islam that Daesh feeds on.

...

The West’s denial regarding Saudi Arabia is striking: It salutes the theocracy as its ally but pretends not to notice that it is the world’s chief ideological sponsor of Islamist culture. The younger generations of radicals in the so-called Arab world were not born jihadists. They were suckled in the bosom of Fatwa Valley, a kind of Islamist Vatican with a vast industry that produces theologians, religious laws, books, and aggressive editorial policies and media campaigns.

... There are thousands of Islamist newspapers and clergies that impose a unitary vision of the world, tradition and clothing on the public space, on the wording of the government’s laws and on the rituals of a society they deem to be contaminated.

It is worth reading certain Islamist newspapers to see their reactions to the attacks in Paris. The West is cast as a land of “infidels.” The attacks were the result of the onslaught against Islam. Muslims and Arabs have become the enemies of the secular and the Jews. The Palestinian question is invoked along with the rape of Iraq and the memory of colonial trauma, and packaged into a messianic discourse meant to seduce the masses. Such talk spreads in the social spaces below, while up above, political leaders send their condolences to France and denounce a crime against humanity.

...

All of which leaves one skeptical of Western democracies’ thunderous declarations regarding the necessity of fighting terrorism. Their war can only be myopic, for it targets the effect rather than the cause. Since ISIS is first and foremost a culture, not a militia, how do you prevent future generations from turning to jihadism when the influence of Fatwa Valley and its clerics and its culture and its immense editorial industry remains intact?

...

Daesh has a mother: the invasion of Iraq. But it also has a father: Saudi Arabia and its religious-industrial complex. Until that point is understood, battles may be won, but the war will be lost. Jihadists will be killed, only to be reborn again in future generations and raised on the same books.

(partes do artigo; bolds da minha autoria)

[Thunder]

It's Just Not Saudi Arabia's Year: First Oil Prices, Now This...

Notas:

- 36% do orçamento de 2015 gasto em Defesa e Armamento
- As reservas em USD caíram em aprox. 1 ano cerca de 80G USD; sendo as reservas actuais 662G USD
- Preço do Diesel - 0,07 USD por litro
- Deficit de 19,7%/PIB (estimativa DB)
- Importação de 3,5M toneladas de trigo (2016) vs 300k toneladas em 2008

[Vanilla-Swap]

Uma coisa estranha é que a Arábia Saudita tem grandes deficit de orçamento e grande quantidade de migrantes, como este pais consegue manter a calma, e não se revolte contra os emigrantes.

[Vanilla-Swap]

Parece que a arabia saudita enrolou -se muito com a politica americana.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2bJDsx1JiiQ

[Vanilla-Swap]

Este artigo é assustador

Saudi Arabia’s economic time bomb

https://www.brookings.edu/opinions/saudi-arabias-economic-time-bomb/

quando a arábia saudita deixar de financiar o ocidente, este vai entrar em crise.

[Kin2010]

Sim a Arábia Saudita é uma time bomb financeira. Mas os PIIGS também, a Rússia também, a China também, o Brasil também, a Turquia também, a França também, e outros da América Latina também. O que não se sabe é qual vai rebentar primeiro.