“Saudi Arabia had long seen Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood as a threat. After his ouster, it quickly pledged $5 billion (3.7 billion euros) in aid to Cairo, with Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates offering a combined $7 billion. King Abdullah also urged “brothers and friends to avoid meddling in Egypt’s internal affairs,” warning that harming Egypt would amount to “harming Islam, Arabism and Saudi Arabia.” The king appeared to be referring to Qatar, the only Gulf country to back Morsi, and whose relations with Saudi Arabia and most of its other neighbours in the region have been strained………….”
Saudi palace bureaucrats, with the help of the vastest and most expensive media oil money can buy, are trying to recreate the image of their king Abdullah. Even as the king is basking in the diversions of Morocco. (FYI: senior Saudi princes like to spend R&R in Morocco, it is a beautiful and relaxed country in which they often die).
The palace minions and the vast controlled media have been trying to show their king as some kind of Wahhabi Pope, but nobody outside the Persian Gulf states is buying it. Actually very few outside Saudi Arabia are buying it, with the exception of Bahrain’s ruling family and some tribal Wahhabi liberals in one other Gulf GCC state (Hint: it is not Oman or Qatar or the UAE). As for the wider Arab world, nobody is buying it except for the Salafis whom I correctly consider to be a fifth column for the princes.
This week, the Saudi king, or maybe rather his palace minions, surprised General Al Sisi after his election victory (he got 97% of those who bothered to vote) by sending him a public congratulatory message that is also a combination road map and twenty-five year plan for Egypt. Basically telling him to keep good thing going. It was a backhanded congratulatory message: basically the old king, or his minions, told Al Sisi and the Egyptians what to do. In other words, the oil potentate effectively punked Generalissimo Field Marshal President Al Sisi. Talk about interference in the internal affairs of another sovereign country.
The princes are also trying to pressure the
Qatari potentates into surrendering by abandoning their support for the
Muslim Brotherhood. Failing that, the King’s message also threatens to ‘excommunicate’ and expel Qatar from the GCC synods.
On the brighter side, the king called for a conference of all donor states to Egypt, presumably to drown the country with oil money, provided it continues to toe the Saudi line. As a down payment, 20 thousands heads of cattle arrived in Alexandria, with 80 thousand more to follow, gifts from the UAE rulers. The sheep and cows did not originate in the United Arab Emirates, but like almost everyone else in that country they were imported from elsewhere.
Cheers
mhg