The New Saudi Agenda -- Yemen Houthis, Iran and Hezbollah, and Perhaps Lebanon

THE REAL NEWS TODAY IS THAT ONLY KING SALMAN KNOWS WHAT'S REALLY GOING ON IN SAUDI ARABIA. For the rest of us, it's like trying to solve Rubik's Cube using only one hand. • • • IT STARTED WITH IRAN AND YEMEN. On November 6, the Saudi-led coalition fighting rebel Houthis -- supported by Iran -- accused the Houthis of “dangerous escalation because of Iranian support” after Saudi air defenses intercepted a ballistic missile heading toward Riyadh. It was brought down near Riyadh airport without causing casualties. On November 7, Reuters reported that Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman -- in the Kingdom he is called MbS, so let's do it, too -- said Iran’s supply of rockets to militias in Yemen is an act of “direct military aggression” that could be an act of war. The Iran-allied Houthi militia that controls large parts of neighboring Yemen are fighters drawn mainly from the Zaydi shiite minority -- Iran is the leader of shiite Moslems -- which ruled a 1,000-year kingdom in northern Yemen until 1962. The Saudi-led coalition has been targeting the Houthis since they seized parts of Yemen in 2015, including the capital Sanaa, forcing President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi to flee and seek help from neighboring Saudi Arabia. • Saudi-led forces, which back the internationally-recognized Yemen government, have been fighting the rebel Houthis in a war which has killed more than 10,000 people and triggered a humanitarian disaster in one of the region’s poorest countries. Iran has denied it was behind the missile launch, rejecting the Saudi and US statements condemning Teheran as “destructive and provocative” and “slanders.” • In reaction to the missile, according to a Reuters report, the Saudi-led military coalition said it would close all air, land and sea ports to Yemen, which is on the southern tip of the Arabian Peninsula. Human Rights Watch said the missile launch was “most likely a war crime” but urged Saudi Arabia against restricting aid access to Yemen, where the United Nations estimates some seven million people are on the brink of famine and nearly 900,000 infected with cholera. The UN said : “This unlawful attack is no justification for Saudi Arabia to exacerbate Yemen’s humanitarian catastrophe by further restricting aid and access to the country." The Saudi coalition said aid workers and humanitarian supplies would continue to be able to access and exit Yemen despite the temporary closure of ports. • • • WAS LEBANON'S HEZBOLLAH BEHIND THE MISSILE ATTACK. In an interview with CNN last Monday, Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir accused the armed Lebanese Hezbollah group of firing the missile at Riyadh from Houthi-held territory : “With regards to the missile...that was launched on Saudi territory, it was an Iranian missile launched by Hezbollah from territory occupied by the Houthis in Yemen.” He said the missile was similar to one launched in July at Yanbu in Saudi Arabia and was manufactured in Iran, disassembled and smuggled into Yemen, then reassembled by the operatives of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards and Hezbollah, “then it was launched into Saudi Arabia.” Adel al-Jubeir said on his Twitter account that Riyadh reserved the right to respond to what he called Iran’s “hostile actions.” Bahraini Foreign Minister Sheikh Khaled bin Ahmed al-Khalifa, an ally of Saudi Arabia, also tweeted that Iran was the real danger to the region. • Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said Saudi Arabia was blaming Teheran for the consequences of its own “wars of aggression.” Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Qassemi “referred to the war crimes and aggression of the Saudis during the past years and said the reaction by Yemenis is an independent reaction...and not a move caused by another country’s action or incitement." US President Trump has also blamed Iran for the missile attack, but the head of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards rejected that view as “slander.” • • • OLD KING SALMAN AND THE SAUDI CROWN PRINCE. The Washington Institute's Simon Henderson had published on October 18 a report stating : "Speculation is widespread that King Salman may soon abdicate in favor of Crown Prince Mohammad, but that is just one of several possible options. Last June, King Salman of Saudi Arabia, one of the oldest heads of state in the Persian Gulf region, gave the title of crown prince to his favorite son Mohammad bin Salman, known as MbS. The thirty-two-year-old prince was the third to hold that title since Salman ascended to the throne in 2015, but he is widely regarded as his father's true choice to become the next king. When that happens and under what circumstances could have important consequences for Saudi Arabia, the wider Moslem world, and the international oil market." • Henderson ewplained that Saudi succession law does not lay out a strict system of primogeniture : "It merely states that rule passes to the sons and grandsons of the country's founder, Abdulaziz (Ibn Saud). This loose edict allows succession from brother to brother, creating a problem that has been growing with each transition -- the sons of Ibn Saud have been acceding to the throne at older ages and living longer while in power, eventually straining their physical and mental capacities for leadership....The accession of MbS could resolve that problem for years to come." Henderson suggested in October that MbS could take on nay of several choices as heir : "King Salman has two other titles as well: "Custodian of the Two Holy Places" and prime minister. This broadens the range of possibilities for transferring responsibilities to MbS" -- MbS could become King if King Salman abdicates (not likely); Salman could give up the throne but remain "Custodian," thus retaining the religious title but relinquishing political leadership would be consistent with the sense that the former is more important -- a key ingredient in Saudi Arabia's claim to leadership of the wider Arab and Moslem worlds; or, King Salman could appoint MbS as prime minister. At present, MbS is deputy prime minister. • The key to this succession issue, said Henderson, is that when King Salman dies, "As crown prince, MbS would become king provided his leadership is acknowledged by senior members of the House of Saud, who must give him the oath of allegiance. Yet reported schisms in the royal family could lead some figures to contest his new authority. When Salman made MbS crown prince four months ago, three of the thirty-four princes on the Allegiance Council voted against him. According to the New York Times, his predecessor, Muhammad bin Nayef, did not give up the role and swear loyalty to MbS until he had been denied sleep and access to his medication; he reportedly remains confined to his palace today. Another potential opponent is Mitab bin Abdullah, son of the previous king and head of the National Guard, a significant military force if the succession is contested. If his father passes away, MbS may be able to manoeuver around these family obstacles by carefully selecting a new crown prince, as is the king's right. At present, though, it is far from obvious who that might be." • • • BUT, SALMAN AND MbS HAVE ANOTHER SCENARIO IN MIND. Simon Henderson wrote again, on November 10, about the fact that "Mohammad bin Salman knows he can't rule alone -- which is why he's been quietly cultivating a group of young princes to serve his agenda. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman appears to be shredding our understanding about how Saudi Arabia is ruled. Seeking to consolidate his power, he threw caution and consensus-building -- the traditional techniques of Saudi leadership -- out the window months ago, proceeding instead with almost reckless speed and an apparent disregard for winning the support of his uncles and numerous cousins." • MbS began by arresting a reported 11 princes on charges of corruption, suggesting that the royal family, the House of Saud, is no longer above the law. • The Atlantic said those detained by MbS’s anticorruption committee included "Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, the billionaire investor, and at least 10 other prominent figures [many more have since been arrested]. Separately, King Salman replaced the minister of the Saudi national guard, who controlled the branches of the military that weren’t yet under the crown prince’s control. The move was announced on Al Arabiya, the Saudi-owned Arabic-language broadcaster, as part of an anti-corruption investigation. But the move comes just months after Crown Prince Mohammed is believed to have orchestrated the ouster of Prince Mohammed bin Nayef as the interior minister. Mohammed bin Nayef had served as crown prince until Prince Mohammed’s elevation in June." The Atlantic wrote : "What makes the present events in Saudi Arabia particularly surprising is that the monarchy rarely, if ever, airs its laundry in public. Princelings are privately sidelined and officials quietly demoted. The figurative defenestration of public figures such as Prince Alwaleed bin Talal could be a sign that the crown prince is sending a message to potential rivals to the throne. It also suggests that, if such rivals exist, the young crown prince is consolidating his power to fend them off." • David Ottaway, a Middle East Fellow at the Wilson Center, told the Atlantic : "Nothing like this has ever happened before in the history of Saudi Arabia, giving the sense the Kingdom is entering into unchartered waters with unknown consequences," adding that the actions “could well threaten the House of Saud’s stability for years to come.” • What this dour warning overlooks is that more than half of Saudi Arabia’s population is under the age of 25, and these young Saudis support the crown prince, unlike Saudi Arabia’s old guard is very skeptical of the pace of change under MbS. • • • THE MbS NEW SAUDI AGENDA. MbS has a lot on his plate -- the conflict in Yemen that is seen as a proxy war against Iran, Saudi Arabia’s main regional rival; the Saudi-led blockade of Qatar; his own Vision 2030 program, whose goal is to reduce the Kingdom’s economic dependence on oil; and, his plan to sell 5% of Saudi Aramco, the state-run oil company. The crown prince says he believes the sale will yield $100 billion. • So, with a wide-ranging modernization agenda, MbS is clearly not the hothead many of his rivals say he is. The Saudi attorney general said last week that the corruption investigations had been going on for three years, while Mohammed bin Salman mentioned the wide-ranging crackdown on corruption recently -- in a May interview, saying : "I assure you that any person involved in a corruption case, whether minister, prince, or whatever, will not escape." And, since April, MbS, 32, has been quietly orchestrating the appointments of a range of young princes in their late twenties or thirties to positions of power. They will likely be crucial to the success of his remodeling of the kingdom and could emerge as arbiters of power for decades. They are all either the grandsons or great-grandsons of the Kingdom's founder, Ibn Saud, who died in 1953. The Atlantic says : "Mohammed bin Salman is entirely prudent in promoting these younger cousins, appealing to their ambition and vanity, and securing their loyalty. It is a good way of internalizing any competition between family lines -- Ibn Saud had more than 40 sons, and the number of grandsons is in the hundreds. Mohammed bin Salman's actions have so far forestalled a collective family revolt, proving once again the utility of that old adage : divide and conquer....As in all monarchies, bloodline is often more important than competence for prospective leaders in Saudi Arabia. Mohammed bin Salman probably wants to promote talent -- but will also be paying attention to how to deflect resentment or the hint of opposition. Promoting sons can take some of the pain out of fathers being sidelined. The House of Saud has witnessed difficult transitions before. What's different this time is that age is no longer equivalent to seniority and instead may have become a handicap. Comparative youth necessarily means a relative lack of experience, but that is a risk which Mohammed bin Salman seems to have decided he can handle." • Another key MbS group is composed of princes in the military. They are essentially there to stop coups. A 1985 State Department cable released by WikiLeaks is dated but provides an explanation : "The mere presence of princes in the Armed Forces provides some degree of stability to the Al Saud regime." • Simon Henderson concludes : "King Salman is thought to see Mohammed bin Salman as a modern-day Ibn Saud, a potentially great leader with huge ambition, and much more promising than any other, older potential contenders for the throne. But even Mohammed bin Salman appears to realize that, in order to transform his kingdom's economy and cope with the challenges of regional chaos, he must be the leader of a royal team." • • • IS LEBANON PART OF MbS's PLAN? The prevalent media view of the resignation of sunni Saad al-Hariri as Lebanon's prime minister -- a resignation announced while he was in Saudi Arabia -- is that he was summoned to the Kingdom, the protector of sunnis in Lebanon, and then forced to resign. The media says that Hariri is essentially under house arrest and cannot return to Lebanon. The Jerusalem Post published on Monday a Reuters report about Hariri that lays out this version of the story. Reuters says : "When Hariri's plane landed in Riyadh, he got the message immediately that something was wrong....There was no line-up of Saudi princes or ministry officials, as would typically greet a prime minister on an official visit to King Salman, senior sources close to Hariri and top Lebanese political and security officials said. His phone was confiscated, and the next day he was forced to resign as prime minister in a statement broadcast by a Saudi-owned TV channel." • This, according to Reuters, "thrust Lebanon back to the forefront of a struggle that is reshaping the Middle East, between the conservative sunni monarchy of Saudi Arabia and shiite revolutionary Iran. Their rivalry has fueled conflicts in Iraq, Syria and Yemen, where they back opposing sides, and now risks destabilizing Lebanon, where Saudi has long tried to weaken the Iran-backed Hezbollah group, Lebanon's main political power and part of the ruling coalition." • Sources close to Hariri told Reuters that Saudi Arabia has concluded that the prime minister -- a long-time Saudi ally and son of late prime minister Rafik al-Hariri, who was assassinated in 2005 -- had to go because he was unwilling to confront Hezbollah. Multiple Lebanese sources told Reuters that : "Riyadh hopes to replace Saad Hariri with his older brother Bahaa as Lebanon's top sunni politician. Bahaa is believed to be in Saudi Arabia and members of the Hariri family have been asked to travel there to pledge allegiance to him, but have refused, the sources say." Sources close to Hariri said the Saudis were trying to orchestrate a change of leadership in Hariri's Future Movement by installing his elder brother Bahaa, who was overlooked for the top job when their father was killed. The two have been at odds for years. In a statement, the Future Movement said it stood fully behind Hariri as its leader. Hariri aide and Interior Minister Nohad Machnouk dismissed the idea Bahaa was being positioned to replace his brother : "We are not herds of sheep or a plot of land whose ownership can be moved from one person to another. In Lebanon things happen though elections not pledges of allegiances." • Saudi Arabia has dismissed suggestions that it forced Hariri to resign and says he is a free man. • Reuters says Hariri frequently visits Saudi Arabia : "On a trip a few days earlier, Prince Mohammed bin Salman had arranged for him to see senior intelligence officials and Gulf Affairs Minister Thamer al-Sabhan, the Saudi point man on Lebanon. Hariri came back from that trip to Beirut 'pleased and relaxed,' sources in his entourage said. He posted a selfie with Sabhan, both of them smiling. He told aides he had heard 'encouraging statements' from the crown prince, including a promise to revive a Saudi aid package for the Lebanese army. The Hariri sources say Hariri believed he had convinced Saudi officials of the need to maintain an entente with Hezbollah for the sake of Lebanon's stability. Hezbollah, the political power in Lebanon, has a heavily armed fighting force, in addition to seats in parliament and government. Saudi-backed efforts to weaken the group a decade ago led to sunni-shiite clashes and a Hezbollah takeover of Beirut. 'What happened in those meetings, I believe, is that (Hariri) revealed his position on how to deal with Hezbollah in Lebanon : that confrontation would destabilize the country. I think they [the Saudis] didn't like what they heard,' said one of the sources, who was briefed on the meetings. The source said Hariri told Sabhan not to 'hold us responsible for something that is beyond my control or that of Lebanon.' But, Hariri under-estimated the Saudi position on Hezbollah, the source said. 'For the Saudis it is an existential battle. It's black and white. We in Lebanon are used to grey.' " • • • SAUDI MOVES ON YEMEN AND LEBANON. On Wednesday, Reuters reported : "Saudi Arabia has called for an urgent meeting of Arab League foreign ministers in Cairo next week to discuss Iran’s intervention in the region, an official league source told Egypt’s MENA state news agency on Sunday. The call came after the resignation of Lebanon’s prime minister pushed Beirut back into the center of a rivalry between sunni kingdom Saudi Arabia and shiite Iran and heightened regional tensions. • And, on Thursday, Reuters reported that Saad al-Hariri, still in Saudi Arabia, warned on Sunday that Lebanon was at risk of Gulf Arab sanctions because of shiite Hezbollah’s regional meddling, and he said he would return to Lebanon within days to affirm he had resigned as the country’s prime minister. In a television interview, the Saudi-allied Hariri held out the possibility he could yet rescind his resignation if Hezbollah agreed to stay out of regional conflicts such as Yemen, his first public comments since he read out his resignation on television from Riyadh eight days ago. He repeatedly said Lebanon must stick by a policy of “disassociation” from regional conflict. He also indicated the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of Lebanese in the Gulf could be at risk, as well as trade, vital to the stability of the Lebanese economy. Hariri said his resignation was intended as a “positive shock” to his country, which he saw in danger. Ahead of the Hariri interview, Lebanese President Michel Aoun said Hariri’s movements were being restricted in Saudi Arabia, the first time the Lebanese authorities have publicly declared their belief that Riyadh is holding him against his will. But, in the interview, Hariri said he is a free man : “I am freely in the Kingdom, and if I want to travel tomorrow, I will travel.” Hariri said he would return to Lebanon "within two or three days....We know there are American sanctions (targeting Hezbollah), but (do) we add to them also Arab sanctions? What is our interest (in that) as Lebanese, because we see today interventions in Yemen and Bahrain by Iran and Hezbollah. Disassociation is the foundation of Lebanon’s interest. Where do we export our goods, is it not to the Arab states? Where do our sons work? We must work to preserve this interest, and this interest was threatened, so for this reason I did what I did.” • When he resigned on November 4, Hariri said he feared assassination. His father, a long-serving former prime minister, was killed by a bomb in 2005. Hariri said he must be sure his security had not been penetrated before returning. • We should also note that Hariri’s resignation from Saudi Arabia and the week of silence that followed has destabilized Lebanon, where sunni, shiite, Christian and Druze factions fought a civil war from 1975-1990, often backed by rival powers around the region. • After Hariri announced his resignation, Saudi Arabia accused Lebanon of declaring war against it because of Hezbollah. The Hezbollah leader on Friday said it was Saudi Arabia that had declared war on Lebanon. • Saudi Arabia has advised its citizens not to visit Lebanon and advised those there to leave as soon as possible. • • • DEAR READERS, some media analysts have gone so far in the last few days as to say that while the world is fixated on North Korea, it may be that Saudi Arabia and Iran start the next world war. Certainly, things are over-heated between the two Islam superpowers. • But, one thing has changed drastically for the better since November, 2016, President Trump has firmly re-established the US as the power to be reckoned with in the Middle East. The preliminary agreements between the US and Russia about how to manage peace in Syria were unthinkable under Obama. And, President Trump has already signaled that he supports the Saudi effort to clean up the corruption at the core of the royal family. • Another thing that few talk about is also in play. Gatestone Institute's Peter Huessy reminded us on Thursday that "the US deterrent holds at risk those military assets most important to our adversaries, the destruction of which would cripple them if they attacked the United States first." Huessy pointed out that the New York Times has suggested that the US should radically change its successful formula -- because, Huessy says : "The New York Times appears convinced the United States has plans to hurl 4000 nuclear warheads at Russian cities in the event deterrence breaks down, a retaliatory threat they claim is far beyond what is needed to keep the peace. Instead, they call for a unilateral cut in our nuclear force to roughly 1000. For some reason, the Times did not get the memo some half-century ago that the United States deterrent policy does not target an adversary's cities. Nor are the number of warheads in the American deployed nuclear arsenal anywhere near the 4000 claimed by the Times. They were reduced by half that number in 2002 under the Moscow Treaty, and to even lower by the 2010 New START Treaty. The Times, believing American nuclear deterrent policy is still based on burning down to the ground our adversary's cities, calls for the country to keep no more than a few hundred warheads to incinerate either Russian or Chinese cities, and roughly no more than a total of 1100 warheads to raze the cities of an expansive list of our nuclear-armed enemies. The Times's glaring error is its failure to grasp that since the late 1960's, the United States deterrent policy with respect to the Soviet Union and now Russia has been one of retaliating against or otherwise holding at risk the military capabilities of our enemies, and moving completely away from relying upon the assured destruction of cities that had earlier been adopted as part of US nuclear policy. Targeting civilian populations with nuclear weapons has long been held by America's leaders to be both an immoral and ineffective deterrent policy. Deterrence requires holding at risk what tyrannical societies value most -- and that is their military power, not their impoverished citizens. Despite these facts, the Times claims the alleged current American 'stockpile' of 4000 warheads the US now has is far too high and can safely be reduced unilaterally, as the US supposedly has more than enough warheads to target the cities of all our adversaries. Here, the Times is adopting the most radical position of the arms control community." • President Ronald Reagan pursued a strategy of peace through strength and built a strong nuclear deterrent. While simultaneously seeking major arms reductions, he modernized what was to be kept. Then in 1983, Reagan added the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), to enhance the US deterrent capability and undermine the Soviet push for first-strike threats. The Soviets had no diplomatic answer to nuclear reductions and could not economically match US modernization. That is still true today. Huessy, a defense specialist, says : "Radically changing this successful formula, as the Times wants the US to do, would be a reckless, dangerous mistake." • And, nowhere is the danger more obvious than in the tinderbox that is the Middle East. As Huessy states : "At any one time, roughly 1000 warheads -- not the 4000 the Times conjures up -- might be on alert and be available for retaliation....While it is true, for example, that the Soviets under SALT II had to dismantle many missiles, a point the Times emphasized, what was also true was that the remaining silos under the terms of the treaty became the homes of new, vastly more powerful missiles with a lot more warheads. Even if the Soviets adhered to the terms of the 1979 SALT II deal, the Soviets could double the number of their strategic warheads, from 5,000 in 1979 to 9,200 by 1986 and to 12,000 by 1990. Under the SALT framework, by the end of the Cold War, the Soviets could build more than 13,000 deployed strategic nuclear warheads, hardly characteristic of any "arms control" within the plain meaning of the term." But, says Huessy : "Reagan, on the other hand, sought real arms control -- reductions -- and spoke about it as early as 1977. As President, he persisted in pushing a strategy of peace through strength, and building a strong nuclear deterrent....the START process was a revolutionary change to build-down -- reducing while modernizing. But most importantly, while SALT led to dangerous instabilities with very large multiple warhead missiles dominating the Soviet force, START sought to channel modernization to vastly fewer warheads and more nuclear warheads based on submarines at sea, only single warhead missiles on land, and flexible bomber rules for the only recallable -- air -- portion of the US Triad....What was the result of the Reagan revolution in strategic thinking and doctrine of peace through strength? The US won the Cold War because President Reagan combined military reductions while pushing for modernization..." • This nuclear reduction gambit is just one more effort by the NYT Progressive mouthpiece to convince Americans that Globalism is the way to go, despite the clear fact that a great majority of Americans see Globalism as the death of the US Constitution and the American Republic. And, the Times suggestion would severely destabilize the Middle East, as well as Asia, by taking away the "the US deterrent [that] holds at risk those military assets most important to our adversaries, the destruction of which would cripple them if they attacked the United States first." And, that includes American allies, such as Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Arabs. Iran and Hezbollah know that. If it were not true, they would already be sitting in Riyadh firing ballistic missiles at Egypt and Israel.