Muhhamad bin Salman as liberator.

 

"The imprisoned, among whom are billionaire and Kingdom Holding chairman Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, Al Tayyar Travel Group founder Nasser bin Aqeel al-Tayyar and chairman of builder Red Sea International construction company Amr al-Dabbagh, are accused of money laundering, bribery, extorting officials and misappropriation of public office.

Interestingly, the Saudi authorities have announced that all economical assets seized from those found guilty will be confiscated as state property. Even a no-fly list has reportedly been drawn up, and security forces have been deployed in order to prevent private jet owners from leaving the kingdom."  AMN

--------------

Let's not kid ourselves.  What the West calls "corruption" in business and government is the very basis of life in Saudi Arabia along with the the Wahhabi version of Islam, a version that resembles a bug frozen for all time in amber. 

 A lot of these business people and their companies (same thing normally in SA where true public companies are rare) will have long ago offshored much of their assets.  Foreign bank accounts, dummy chains of shell holding companies leading to a pot of gold at the end of the chain, Foreign law firms that manage hidden assets as in the the Paradise Papers, these are all methods. 

It is significant that MbS has imprisoned these people in a luxury hotel rather than putting them in house arrest where they could attempt to arrange to be smuggled out of the big sand box.  He has also not put them in hotel style royal guest houses where they might have connections among the government people who run them.  IMO MbS intends to beggar some of these people and geld the rest, figuratively speaking.  

This purge of his possible enemies and rivals was well prepared.  Key to preventing a counter-coup was the removal and replacements of the heads of the security services and the silencing of the Wahhabi ulema.'  I earlier thought that MbS might act against the senior Shia ulema'  but that may not be true.  He has been engaged in "preaching" toleration of other than Wahhabism.  Quelle horreur!!  In this circumstance the Shia clergy may see MbS as a friend and he may leave them alone.

Might one someday see a church in Saudi Arabia like those in many other majority Muslim countries?  Saudi Arabia as I have personally known it has been a theocratically driven police state.  When I was DATT there I was repeatedly asked by attache colleagues to smuggle Filipino, Pakistani and other Christians into the secret Christmas services held in the US Embassy.  I was glad to do so. 

MbS has abolished the arrest powers of the Mutawi'iin, the religious "decency" police.  These are the worthless, scrawny old bastards in short thawb who wander the streets beating women whose behavior they do not like. For that alone I am favorably inclined to him. 

Unfortunately, he has foreign policy delusions of grandeur in which he is making common cause with redheiferland and the gaudy world of Trump Administration delusions about the Middle East.  pl 

https://www.almasdarnews.com/article/riyadh-freezes-1200-saudi-bank-accounts/

Comments

[Account Deleted]

Can we assume by implication that the DOS (what's left of it) will also not be happy with Kushner's likely role in all this either? With luck he'll be forced to toe the line from now on. If Tillerson accomplishes nothing else in his current job he'll have done his country a great service. Perhaps this is the only reason he stays.

[kooshy]

Yes, IMO definitely ayatollah Khamenie will ask for Muslims volunteers to defence of Lebanon.

[turcopolier]

VV

" ...Iran to Lebanon landline. " Why do you keep thinking that Israel would tolerate a trans-islam road that terminates in a Lebanese port? pl

[charly]

i think they big difference is that in the Med they speak Latin dialects and in the North they don't. This makes having a service in Latin in say Spain totally different than a Latin service in Denmark. A 13th century Spaniard who left his village could understand the service in while only a very educated Dane could.

[charly]

But than you would need to fly through Israel or Jordan and Syria with their own issues.

[Yeah, Right]

I am not quite sure how Israel can stop it, short of invading and occupying Lebanon.

UNSCR 1701 prevents the IDF from dropping bombs inside Lebanon itself, which is why all previous interdictions of "Hezbollah-bound" supplies involved attacks on warehouses/convoys/airports inside Syria.

Once those cargos make it over the border into Lebanon then they are safe from attack from the air, so there is no reason why those roads shouldn't be put to use.

Don't misunderstand me: if the Israelis start yet another war on Hezbollah then all bets are off, clearly the IDF will lay waste to anything that moves inside Lebanon.

But that's the only way the Israelis can "not allow" a road that culminates in a Lebanese port, and the calculation the Israelis will have to make is that they may very well start that war and.... be humiliated.

[The Beaver]

«Une proposition a été faite à la famille Hariri de désigner Baha, un frère de Saad, pour reprendre le flambeau politique»

http://www.lefigaro.fr/international/2017/11/10/01003-20171110ARTFIG00177-tractations-franco-saoudiennes-autour-du-sort-de-saad-hariri.php

Read that the brothers hate each other and that Saad's family resides in Riyadh.
Macron didn't meet with Saad Hariri but
Quelques heures avant l'arrivée du chef de l'État à Riyad, l'ambassadeur de France en Arabie, François Gouyette, avait rencontré Saad Hariri. Selon une source française, «le leader libanais était entouré d'officiels saoudiens pour cet entretien qui n'aurait pas duré très longtemps».

Thus he is a prisoner since he couldn't even have a tête à tête with the French Ambassador in Riyadh.Hopefully they spoke in French !

[VietnamVet]

Colonel,

I don’t think the Shiite militias will stop before unifying their lines of communications with Iraq and Iran and splitting Sunni territory in half. Israel may first try to have the Saudis conduct the bombing raids. But, that will be ineffective. Israel will have to widen the war or stand down. I don’t see how Israel can get away with bombing Iraqi and Iranian Shiite militias along the road without those nations arming them with anti-aircraft missiles and shooting down an Israeli jet. Adding a nuclear armed combatant to the regional war. If USA troops and contractors move south to cut the Shiite landline for its allies, it becomes a World War with Iraq, Iran and Russia.

The only way to avoid an ever-escalating regional war is a peace treaty where everyone returns to federations within existing borders and the American and Russian troops return to their barracks. Daesh remain but the Islamic State is no more.

[johnf]

Well, after all the posturing and screaming and fist-shaking by various parties - especially the Israelis/KSA/USA - suddenly the glowering thunder clouds magically disperse and the sun shines down.

A normally belligerent BBC reports first that Rex Tillerson warns off KSA (and by implication Israel) from any rash moves against The Lebanon:

"Lebanon Hariri crisis: Tillerson warns against Saudi-Iran proxy war

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has warned other countries against using Lebanon for proxy conflicts, following a crisis triggered by the resignation of its prime minister, Saad Hariri...

Mr Tillerson said he had received assurances that Mr Hariri was free.

Mr Hariri resigned a week ago while in the Saudi capital, Riyadh.

"There is no legitimate place or role in Lebanon for any foreign forces, militias or armed elements other than the legitimate security forces of the Lebanese state," Mr Tillerson said in a statement."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-41952533

Then, after reports on Friday that Trump and Putin would not meet in Vietnam and The Big Freeze was on, now the BBC reports they had THREE "very brief" meetings - the words "very brief" have since been dropped from the report.

It reports them as only discussing getting rid of IS.

Oh yeah!

They even wore matching shirts at the official photo session at the end.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-41953110

[iowa steve]

I agree with you. Too often the western powers use "US pressure" as a domestic political excuse to do exactly what they would do in any case. The elite in both Europe and the US share certain common interests.

[LondonBob]

Religion is always adapted to suit the people who practice it. No surprise that Protestantism in Europe arose amongst the Germanic/Nordic areas.

[jonst]

I respectfully disagree with you that the "....fundamental difference" between the two religions is who the relevant 'book' was delivered to. Thee fundamental difference between Islam and Christianity is one (Islam) claimed immediate and total political power, via a wink of approval from God, so to speak,, the other had 300 years or so dismissing said power, as well as dismissing 'this world'... Before it (Christianity) decided, how shall we say, to go for the gold.

[Babak Makkinejad]

The Western Fortress has stated its intention to get out of the JCPOA cease-fire deal; how could one expect it to pursue a policy such as you describe? Not in the cards.
Iranians have carved their Shia pie on the field of battle and are not going to go gently into that night.

[Poul]

Perhaps MbS is saying that in the new Saudi Arabia

"L'état, c'est moi"

[LeaNder]

Hmmm, ok. Oh dear, sweetheart.

Germanic/Nordic?

did it hurt the British much over the centuries of dissent? The lucky island? Because Henry VIII was inspired by it?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_VIII_of_England

[ex-PFC Chuck]

Just saw a Tweet from someone I know nothing about saying that Bandar Bush has been arrested in the purge. If I find more I'll pass it on.

[kooshy]

Absolutely, under assistance and leadership of Iran Shia muslims are now an independent determining power in entire Western Asia no matter if US, KSA and others like it or not.
IMO, US’ wrong, hard headed and at times stupid policy and animosity (through multiple US Adminstrations) toward Iran’ revolution, was a big factor for Iranians to realize that their security will be greatly enhanced, by fully supporting and rylying on a region wide collective Shia Muslim security in Western Asia. In Iran this policy change, was realized and took place as the resault of Iran, Iraq war, fully supported (prescribed?) and financed by entire West, Sunni Arabs and USSR. IMO Iran’ Revolution was one of the most effective events of late 20th century, after almost 40 years, it’ effects has not been ( refused to be ) accepted by West or the Sunni western clientele.

[Babak Makkinejad]

In understanding that Iranian security cannot be protected from inside the Iranian borders and acting upon that understanding, Iranian leaders had adopted what USA had done after WWII.

[Babak Makkinejad]

I think also that the Islamic Republic, in incorporating the ideas of Separation of Powers, Parliamentary Independence, Universal Sufferage, Devolution of Power to cities and hamlets, and election for executive positions has been channeling the European ideas quite firmly into Islamic political theory.

[Babak Makkinejad]

And then there are such things as high-ways around Tehran, Nuclear Industry, Aviation, Electronics, Rocketry, Military industries that could all be traced back to Western, largely US, technology transfers.

[outthere]

quote
One of the most famous is Prince Bandar bin Sultan, a former Saudi ambassador to Washington and confidant of former US president George W Bush.

There is no word on his fate, but Saudi authorities said that one of the corruption cases they are looking at is the al-Yamamah arms deal, in which Bandar was involved.

Bandar bought a hamlet in Oxfordshire, in a picturesque area of central England, and a 2,000-acre sporting estate with part of the proceeds from kickbacks he received in the al-Yamamah arms deal, which netted British manufacturer BAE £43bn ($56.5bn) in contracts for fighter aircraft.

As much as $30m (£15m) is alleged to have been paid into Bandar’s dollar account at Riggs Bank in Washington and the affair led to corruption probes in the US and UK, although the case was dropped in the UK in 2006 after an intervention by then-prime minister Tony Blair.

http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/exclusive-senior-figures-tortured-and-beaten-saudi-purge-1489501498

[The Beaver]

@ ex-PFC Chuck

I saw that detail in a piece in the MiddleEast Eye
http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/exclusive-senior-figures-tortured-and-beaten-saudi-purge-1489501498

[Mark Logan]

A speculation:

By simultaneously acting as if he is very much on board with the plan to Wahhabitize the Levant MBS made it difficult for the clerics to hate him overmuch, at least for the moment. This leads to a speculation this Lebanon war stuff could be, at least for the most part, but a gambit of his coup.

If he doesn't suspect Lebanon could become the quagmire of Yemen cubed SA and the region are in serious trouble.

[kooshy]

add Tehran and other large cities Metro, yes the Shia have proved they are better adapted to modernity , not only to modern technical and social lifestyles but also to be adaptive of modern law and politics, maybe the reason is, that they are minority and need commonly accepted norms for consensus?

[Babak Makkinejad]

Likely because of doctrine of Ijtihad and that they were Seljuk muslims earlier.