Towards the
Collapse of Saudi Arabia
While the Saud family enjoys the last few moments of
its dictatorship, the decapitation of the leader of
the opposition, Nimr al-Nimr, deprives half of the
Saudi population of all hope. For Thierry Meyssan,
the fall of the kingdom has become inevitable. It
will probably be accompanied by a long period of
extreme violence.
By Thierry Meyssan
January 14,
2016 "Information
Clearing House"
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"Voltaire"
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In one year,
the new king of Saudi Arabia, Salman, 25th son of
the founder of the dynasty, has managed to
consolidate his personal authority to the detriment
of other branches of his family, including the clan
of Prince Bandar ben Sultan and that of the old King
Abdallah. However, we don’t know what Washington has
promised the losers in order to dissuade them from
making attempts to regain their lost power. In any
case, certain anonymous letters published in the
British Press lead us to believe that they have not
abandoned their ambitions.
Forced by
his brothers to nominate Prince Mohamad ben Nayef as
heir, King Salman quickly isolated him and
restricted his powers to the advantage of his own
son, Prince Mohammed ben Salman, whose reckless and
brutal nature is not restrained by the family
Council, which no longer meets. De facto, he and his
father govern alone, as autocrats with no
counter-power, in a country which has never elected
a Parliament, and where political parties are
forbidden.
So we have
seen Prince Mohammed ben Salman take over presidency
of the Council for Economic Affairs and Development,
force a new direction on the Ben Laden Group, and
seize control of Aramco. Each time, the goal is to
distance his cousins from power and place liegemen
at the head of the kingdom’s major companies.
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This is how Sheikh al-Nimr described
the life of the Shiites in Saudi
Arabia - « From the moment you are
born, you are surrounded by fear,
intimidation, persecution and abuse.
We are born into an atmosphere of
intimidation. We are even afraid of
the walls. Who among us is not
familiar with the intimidation and
injustice to which we have been
subjected in this country ? I am 55
years old, more than half a century.
From the day I was born until today,
I have never felt safe in this
country. You are always being
accused of something. You are always
under threat. The Director of State
Security admitted as much to me. He
told me when I was arrested - “All
of you Shiites should be killed”.
That’s their logic. »
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In terms of
its interior policy, the régime favours only the
Sunni or Wahhabi half of the population, and
discriminates against the other half. Prince
Mohammed ben Salman advised his father to have
Sheikh Nimr Baqir al-Nimr decapitated because he had
dared to defy him. In other words, the state
condemned to death and executed the leader of the
opposition, whose only crime was to have formulated
and repeated the slogan - « Despotism is
illegitimate ». The fact that this leader was a
Sheikh of the Shia movement only reinforces the
feeling of apartheid against non-Sunnis, who are
forbidden a religious education, and also forbidden
to enter into public service. As for non-Muslims,
about a third of the population, they are not
allowed to practise their religion and can not hope
to receive Saudi nationality.
On the
international level, Prince Mohammed and his father,
King Salman, are implementing policies based on
those of the Bedouin tribes of the kingdom. This is
the only way of understanding both their continued
financing of the Afghani Taliban and the Lebanese
Movement of the Future, the Saudi repression of the
Revolution in Bahreïn, their support for the
jihadists in Syria and Iraq, and the invasion of
Yemen. The Saudis always support the Sunnites – whom
they consider to be closest to their state Wahhabism
- not only against the Shiites of the twelver
Ja’fari school, but primarily against enlightened
Sunnis, then against all other religions
(Ismaelians, Zaydis, Alevis, Alawites, Druzes,
Sikhs, Catholics, Orthodox, Sabateans, Yazidis,
Zoroastrians, Hindus, etc.). Above all, and in all
cases, they support exclusively leaders from the
major Saudi Sunni tribes.
Incidentally, we should note that the execution of
Sheikh al-Nimr follows the creation of a vast
anti-terrorist Coalition of 34 states led by Riyadh.
Since we know that the victim, who always stood
against the use of violence, was convicted for acts
of « terrorisme » (sic), we may conclude that this
Coalition is in fact a Sunni alliance against all
other religions.
Prince
Mohammed took it upon himself to launch the war
against Yemen on the pretext of helping President
Abd Rabbo Mansour Hadi, who had been overthrown by
an alliance between the al-Houthi movement and the
army of ex-President Ali Abdallah Saleh. In reality,
the war was waged in order to seize the oil fields
and exploit them with Israël. Predictably, the war
went wrong, and the insurgents launched incursions
inside Saudi Arabia, where the army fled, abandoning
its equipment.
Saudi
Arabia is therefore the only state in the world
which is the property of a single man, governed by
this autocrat and his son, who refuse any form of
ideological debate, who will not tolerate any form
of opposition, and who accept only tribal serfdom.
What has for many years been considered a residue of
the past called to adapt to the modern world has
thus progressively congealed until it has become the
very definition of an anachronistic kingdom.
The fall of
the House of Saud may be provoked by a reduction in
the price of oil. Incapable of reforming its
life-style, the kingdom is borrowing hand over fist,
to the point that according to financial analysts,
it will probably collapse within two years. The
partial sale of Aramco may temporarily postpone its
demise, but this will only be possible at the cost
of a loss of autonomy.
The
decapitation of Sheikh al-Nimr will have been the
straw that broke the camel’s back. The fall of Saudi
Arabia is now inevitable because there is no hope
left for the people who live there. The country will
be plunged into a mixture of tribal revolts and
social revolutions which will be far more murderous
than the previous Middle-Eastern conflicts.
Far from
acting to prevent this tragic end, the US protectors
of the kingdom are awaiting it with impatience. They
continually praise Prince Mohammed’s « wisdom », as
if encouraging him to make even more mistakes.
Already in September 2001, the US Committee of the
Chiefs of Staff were working on a map for the re-modelling
of the « wider Middle East », which planned for the
separation of the country into five states. In July
2002, Washington was considering ways of getting rid
of the Saud family, during a famous session of the
Defense Policy Board. From now on, it’s just a
matter of time.
Keep in
mind : The United States have managed to solve the
question of the succession of King Abdallah, but
today, they are attempting to lead Saudi Arabia into
error. Their objective is now to divide the countrry
into five states. Wahhabism is the state religion,
but the power of the Saud family, both interior and
exterior, depends exclusively on Sunni tribes, while
it subjects all other populations to apartheid. King
Salman (80 years old) leaves the exercise of power
to one of his children, Prince Mohammed (30 years
old.) The Prince has seized control of his country’s
major companies, has declared war on Yemen, and has
just executed the leader of the opposition, Sheikh
al-Nimr.
French intellectual, founder and chairman of
Voltaire Network and the Axis for Peace
Conference. His columns specializing in
international relations feature in daily
newspapers and weekly magazines in Arabic,
Spanish and Russian. His last two books
published in English :
9/11 the Big Lie and
Pentagate.
Translation
Pete Kimberley |
