Saudis

Joe Fan said:
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With regards to the Lebanese PM's resignation, he said on Friday the move was on the grounds that it is no longer safe to remain on the post.
The relation to Saudi Arabia is that the Kingdom has long served as a safehaven to the PM and his family.
 
Jared Kushner has made an unannounced trip there a week or so ago.
That was followed by Trump tweet regarding the Aramco IPO

While possible, it's hard to believe all of these things are coincidence. At same time, it's tough to see everything that may come next.

Will there be assassinations, civil war or internal strife?
Or will Bin Salman calmly and successfully tighten his grip on all the levers of power?

I went long an oil ETF on Friday off these rumblings. So far, so go.
 
Saudis are saying Lebanon declared war on Saudi Arabia
This claim is alittle nuts (they dont even have a common border), so I dont believe it

That said, the Saudis dont like Iran or Hezbollah. That latter of which has been playing a big role in Syria and which has also entrenched itself in Lebanese Govt and society. Which puts the Saudis on the same side of Israel, a state they have never recognized. And, get this, despite the lack of recognition, there was a rumor that bin Salman made a secret visit to Israel back in Sept.

http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/riyadh-says-lebanon-declaring-war-saudi-575651162

"Saudi Arabia said on Monday that Lebanon had declared war against it because of attacks against the Kingdom by the Lebanese Shi‘ite group Hezbollah.

Saudi Gulf affairs minister Thamer al-Sabhan told Al-Arabiya TV that Saad al-Hariri, who announced his resignation as Lebanon’s prime minister on Saturday, had been told that acts of “aggression” by Hezbollah “were considered acts of a declaration of war against Saudi Arabia by Lebanon and by the Lebanese Party of the Devil”."​
 
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Game of Thrones, Saudi style, says Chris Tomlinson (business columnist at the Houston Chronicle)

http://www.houstonchronicle.com/bus...politics-trouble-for-oil-markets-12335070.php

Salman's announcement that his father, King Salman, had appointed him to lead an anti-corruption committee is intended to rally support among average Saudis who have longer resented the royal family's extravagance and corruption.

Salman's decisions to limit the power of the religious police and to allow women to drive are intended to rally support among young Saudis, who make up the vast majority of the population. They have long resented the royal family's strict adherence to 10th century Islamic principles that most of them find outdated.

Salman's push to sell shares in Saudi's national oil company, Aramco, is a much-needed step toward modern business practices, that should serve as an example for other Saudi businesses. Everyone in Saudi knows the nation must stop relying on oil revenues to support the economy.

Yet while all of these are the right decisions for the country, they also serve Salman's goal or replacing his ailing father while still in his early thirties. By design and intention, Saudi has never been ruled by such a young leader, and he has many cousins who feel he needs to wait a generation before coming to power.

To discourage any grumbling, Salman ordered the round up of intellectuals, journalists and tribal leaders in late September and early October. In the guise of cracking down on extremism, his security forces arrested supporters of basic human rights.

Salman apparently has no intention of entertaining dissent from any segment of Saudi society.

Herein lies the risk to global energy markets. Every student of history, or fan of Game of Thrones, knows that in a totalitarian monarchy, the competition for power is intense and potentially violent. When the ruler has the power to jail you on a whim, even if the dungeon is a Ritz-Carlton Hotel, you either join the dictator's clique, oppose the clique and fight for power, or both.

No one can know for sure if Salman is a well-intentioned reformer or an aspiring dictator. And based on my experience covering autocratic regimes, you can start as one and end up the other in a matter of years.

One thing for certain, is that Salman's youth and impulsiveness leave him vulnerable to a power struggle. And by cracking down so harshly on potential challengers, he has made it clear that violence may be the only way to stop his rise to power upon his father's death or abdication. The later is a real possibility as King Salman is rumored to suffer from senility.

A violent upheaval in Saudi Arabia would send shock waves through the global energy markets, endangering 10 percent of the world's daily oil production. In a power Saudi struggle, taking control of the oil fields and the revenues they produce would be the first priority.
 
It's a huge story, IMO
Maybe biggest story in Middle East in 20 years, or more
The part I personally hope comes out of this, that we all get to learn, is who and what these folks have been funding. Especially terrorism. In particular, whether any of them funded 9/11. I definitely want to know this much
 
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It seems like the US media is not covering this because
(a) They do not yet understand/appreciate the significance
(b) They have not yet been told how to spin it. They are waiting on a narrative
(c) They are afraid of the Trump link to the story, they definitely do not want it to appear, from their own reporting, that Trump should get any credit. They will avoid that at all costs


On this last point, I dont really know how much of a role Trump played. We dont even know where this is going to end yet. So maybe Trump is fine with it? But he did send Kushner over there a couple weeks before this began (actually some reform had already begun in SA, like female drivers). The new Prince and Kushner hung out, get to know each other. Then this begins not long thereafter. Coincidence? Even if that trip had nothing to do with these moves, its going to look like it did. No way to shake that
 
Yeah, you're exactly right; not knowing their "opinion" on it all, the press cannot even report the facts, because being a reporter is no longer the business of reporting facts.

I did read some article--referenced here, I think--by an anti-Trump person who was taking the viewpoint that this was Trump's doing, and was a bad thing. I don't know (of course) whether Trump caused any of this or whether it will be a good thing, but I found it amusing that the people who hate Trump morph easily from saying he is a buffoon and an idiot whose administration is falling apart and all he does is golf, to saying he is a powerful mastermind, busily orchestrating multi-level international events in history.
 
BTW, just for kicks, I went on Al Jazeera to see what they were saying, and they used the Game of Thrones comparison, too. GOT rules!
 
VYFan said:
Yeah, you're exactly right; not knowing their "opinion" on it all, the press cannot even report the facts, because being a reporter is no longer the business of reporting facts....
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US MSM is a wing of the Democratic Party now
Thus, with regard to this, their entire operation asks the question -- "How do we use what is happening in Saudi Arabia to make Trump look bad?"
This is 100% of MSM news now. It is the only thing they care about
The lack of coverage is probably a clear sign they have not figured out how to make it anti-Trump.

There is one other possibility -- maybe i got the order wrong? Maybe the Dem Party is a wing of the Media instead? The real opposition party is the MSM
 
FWIW, Alwaleed's company, Kingdom Holding owns Four Seasons, including Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas
 
I was about to sell my oil and pipeline holdings about 2 months ago figuring it was going nowhere fast. Glad I didn’t. I see all upside and zero to little downside.
 
Here is an attempt to piece some things together about how the King stepped down and the Prince is now in charge

King Salman (Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud) was the Governor of Riyadh for 48 years. In that position, he developed connections to every high office in the country. Salman became Defense Minister and deputy Crown Prince in 2011. Then a brother died in 2012, making him the Crown Prince. then another brother (King Abdullah) died Jan 2015 so he became King. His chief personal advisor was his son Mohammed bin Salman (MBS). In June 2017, MBS was appointed Crown Prince following King Salam's decision to remove Muhammad bin Nayef from all positions. Nayef is King Salman's nephew and was first in line to the throne. This move cut with tradition and made MBS heir apparent to the throne. Nayef is now one of the royals whose accounts have been frozen.

MBS was a very bright kid. He began attending cabinet meetings at the age of 12. In 2015, when Salman became King, and he made MBS Defense Minister and Deputy Crown Prince. MBS has his own style and he was somewhat quick to break from some Saudi traditions. People who study Middle East military conflict say MBS' personal style can be seen in the way the Saudis fought in Yemen, Syria, and Iraq.

Saudi politics are deeply rooted in family loyalty, so not everyone agreed with what the Salman family was doing. It somewhat tore the House of Saud in two directions. For example, instead of choosing a family member as foreign minister, Salman chose outsider Adel al-Jubeir (who went to school in Texas), former ambassador to the US. He is only the second person ever not belonging to the House of Saud to hold that office. al-Jubeir is a very bight guy, just like MBS. Also worth noting, he does not hate the Jews and has been somewhat open about it.

Here is some more background. The Saudis had there own fight with Al Queda in 2003. As a result, all the armed forces were revamped and integrated. Previously, the Saudi Arabian National Guard (SANG) existed only to protect the House of Saud from coups. It has its own ministry. The SANG, the army, and the Internal Security Forces now train jointly. This joint command probably lessens any threat of a coup now. So, in hindsight that was a good move that showed a lot of foresight.

Back to MBS -- As Deputy Crown Prince, he made surprise inspection tours of all the ministries, asking to see the books. He then fired basically everyone and replaced them on the spot. MBS replaced them with young technocrats not connected with the family. These guys work 18-hour days. These firings were very popular with the people as it rooted out alot of corruption and inefficiencies.

Then in Sept 2016, MBS and King Salman did something that had never happened in the history of the Middle East. They said "We lied. What we did was wrong." He was talking about the funding Islamic extremists, which went back to the early 1960s as a counter to Nasserism. Good read on this here https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/09/saudi-arabia-terrorism-funding-214241

Worth noting here that there have been two kings since 9/11. The current leadership did not sponsor terrorism. But their predecessors did.

Just recently, MBS came to visit Trump. The guess is that he told Trump that they were not only of of the business of funding terrorists but also of funding US politicians. Saudi money has been buying American politicians for a long time (Bush Family holla). No doubt Trump was on board with this probably promising 100% support. I imagine him saying "Dilly, Dilly!" You may recall the lavish, over-the-top welcome Trump got when he visited Saudi Arabia.

Saudi-US relations have always been complicated. By the oil industry, by Israel and by the petrodollar. While they owned alot of US pols over the years, we also provided for their defense. So each had something over the other. But that ended when Rumsfeld shifted US personnel to Qatar (2003). That is probably when you can say Saudi Arabia became a full-fledged, independent state, no longer an American protectorate. These days, the Saudis are inviting in the Chinese and Russians. Previous American presidents pressured them to not do that. Trump probably changed that policy ("It's your country").

During thus period, other changes were also being made. For example, King Salman disbanded the religious police and began emancipating women. This part was remarkable in its own right. The Saudis went from "shariah prohibits women from working" to "shariah protects working women" basically in one day. In addition, Salman broke the chain of succession when he made MBS the Crown Prince (soon to be King). MBS is a reformer, if not revolutionary. He reformed the military, and now he is reforming the economy, social norms, and religion. This can be seen in the Gulf Cooperation Council GCC which is trying to move the region off oil. To do this, they need regional and internal stability to attract foreign investment. But, they say MBS wants to do this reform for its own sake, he wants improvement in the region generally.

The biggest impediment to all of this succeeding is the mullahs in Iran.
 
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Here is a little something more. MBS totally reformed their military. Rumor is that his Gulf Cooperation Council funded Israeli weapon development (perhaps as much as $5 Trillion).

Here are a couple of possible results -- Saudi fingerprints might be on both
This is a video purportedly of a hypersonic attack jet. See the arrow. This aircraft's speed has been calculated at Mach 4.5.



Here is another video, this one of kinetic bombardment

 
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Probably the single biggest item from our perspective is MBS saying "We want to live a normal life and contribute in developing our country and the world." He even called "Islamophobia" and extremism "destructive ideas."
He wants change but is not just talking about it like we get from our politicians, he took action. Saudi Arabia is what it is, but you have to give them credit for this.

Bottom line -- Billions in Saudi and other Arab money have stopped flowing to the people who want to kill us.

Let us hope they do not kill this guy
 
Joe Fan said:
The USAF has confirmed that the missile targeting the Saudis last week, fired from Yemen, was Iranian
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Unfortunately these two locking horns in direct conflict is probably the only solution that could realistically solve our sh*tty nuke deal catastrophe.

Without some serious military and economic setbacks, few rational people deny Iran will be a nuclear power in a decade or so.
 
Brad Austin said:
Unfortunately these two locking horns in direct conflict is probably the only solution that could realistically solve our sh*tty nuke deal catastrophe.

Without some serious military and economic setbacks, few rational people deny Iran will be a nuclear power in a decade or so.
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I think its clear the new Crown Prince sees the Mullahs as the main issue for the region. He likes the Persian people just not their political leaders. And I think he thinks he can accomplish this without direct war with Iran. Not ruling out smaller conflicts in other places.
 
Joe Fan said:
I think its clear the new Crown Prince sees the Mullahs as the main issue for the region.
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He better realize it. Iran has already launched their plan to dominate the region.

Thanks to the windfall BO gave them, btw. All part of his plan. Isolate Israel. Massively fund Iran's resurgence. Sign an unenforceable, toothless deal that will lead to nukes. Allow them to perfect long-range ballistic missiles in the process so it's good to go as soon as they add the nuke.

No chance BO didn't orchestrate all this on purpose to usher in Shia domination. The exact opposite of American loyalties of the past.

Last thing Saudi, Israel, or U.S. can afford is a nuclear armed Iran, and it's coming if we all don't stop it.
 
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Iran sent a warning of its own

Saudi crude oil is reported to be flowing again through the Bahrain pipeline damaged by an explosion late on November 10. No one was injured in the blast, which sent a plume of flames high into the sky, damaging cars and nearby buildings. As yet, there has been no claim of responsibility, although the Bahraini government has described the incident as an "intentional act of sabotage," blaming terrorists acting under instruction from Iran. For its part, Iran has denied any involvement.
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One oil industry publication suggested, "It is more likely than not that Iran chose [the attack] as a plausibly deniable response to Saudi Arabia's perceived recent escalation against Iranian influence in Lebanon."
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http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/...n-as-a-warning-from-iran#.WgxZ5c1661E.twitter
 
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