New Saudi Regime: The Dour Prince Turns Toward the Past
”A Gulf source said that this is the second crisis Saudi Arabia has manufactured this year about its border with the UAE......”
Clearly the new Saudi order is taking shape. The fingerprints of Prince Nayef isare being felt all over the kingdom: from banning movie theaters, to banning Lebanese television networks owned by Saudi rivals, to punishing the UAE for worrying about neighborly hegemony. The UAE has publicly and noisily withdrawn from the plan for a unified GCC currency, and her media have hinted of attempts at hegemony. Then there is rival independent Qatar, little Qatar which has sustained a continuous barrage of vicious media attacks in recent months, all paid for by the petro-money. Could this change also extend to recent and future escalations in Iraq? Don’t expect a Saudi embassy in Baghdad any time soon.
Then there are the recent arrests of “al-Qaeda” sleepr cells…
Prince Nayef (Naif) also famously criticized another Gulf state for having an elected but noisy parliament, and had his minions in the offshore, and onshore, press suggest that Gulf state should perhaps establish an appointed assembly, unconstitutional like Bahrain’s, to water down the popular will. He was most likely behind the Saudi move not to renew the useless municipal elections, automatically changing them to appointed councils. Not a protest was heard from the Saudi or other Persian Gulf press about this blatant reversal. Then there are the recent open attacks in Saudi and Egyptian media on Prince al-Waleeed, not exactly a reformer, but considered part of some “liberal” wing of the oligarchy. He is also son of Prince Tala Bin Abdulaziz who has been publicly critical of the promotion of Prince Nayef.
It looks like the reign of the cheerful King Abdullah the Alleged Reformer may be nearly over, and the reign of the dour King Nayef the traditional is here. It is back to the future in the kingdom.
Cheers and Ramadan Kareem
mhg
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