Defending Democracy To the Last Drop of Oil
By Eric
Margolis
April 23,
2016 "Information
Clearing House"
- Poor President Barack Obama flew to Saudi
Arabia this past week but its ruler, King Salman,
was too busy to greet him at Riyadh’s airport.
This snub
was seen across the Arab world as a huge insult and
violation of traditional desert hospitality. Obama
should have refused to deplane and flown home.
Alas, he
did not. Obama went to kow-tow to the new Saudi
monarch and his hot-headed son, Crown Prince
Muhammed bin Nayef. They are furious that Obama has
refused to attack Iran, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and
Syria’s Assad regime.
They are
also angry as hornets that the US may allow
relatives of 9/11 victims to sue the Saudi royal
family, which is widely suspected of being involved
in the attack.
Interestingly, survivors of the 34 American sailors
killed aboard the USS Liberty when it was attacked
by Israeli warplanes in 1967, have been denied any
legal recourse.
The Saudis,
who are also petrified of Iran, threw a fit,
threatening to pull $750 billion of investments from
the US. Other leaders of the Gulf sheikdoms sided
with the Saudis but rather more discreetly.
Ignoring
the stinging snub he had just suffered, Obama
assured the Saudis and Gulf monarchs that the US
would defend them against all military threats – in
effect, reasserting their role as western
protectorates. So much for promoting democracy.
Saudi
Arabia and the Gulf states have been de facto
US-British-French protectorates since the end of
World War II. They sell the western powers oil at
rock bottom prices and buy fabulous amounts of arms
from these powers in exchange for the west
protecting the ruling families.
As Libya’s
late Muammar Kadaffi once told me, “the Saudis and
Gulf emirates are very rich families paying the west
for protection and living behind high walls.”
Kadaffi’s
overthrow and murder was aided by the western
powers, notably France, and the oil sheiks. Kadaffi
constantly denounced the Saudis and their Gulf
neighbors as robbers, traitors to the Arab cause,
and puppets of the west.
Many Arabs
and Iranians agreed with Kadaffi. While Islam
commands all Muslims to share their wealth with the
needy and aid fellow Muslims in distress, the Saudis
spent untold billions in casinos, palaces and
European hookers while millions of Muslims starved.
The Saudis spent even more billions for western
high-tech arms they cannot use.
During the
dreadful war in Bosnia, 1992-1995, the Saudis, who
arrogate to themselves the title of ‘Defenders of
Islam” and its holy places, averted their eyes as
hundreds of thousands of Bosnians were massacred,
raped, driven from their homes by Serbs, and mosques
blown up.
The Saudi
dynasty has clung to power through lavish social
spending and cutting off the heads of dissidents,
who are routinely framed with charges of drug
dealing. The Saudis have one of the world’s worst
human rights records.
Saudi’s
royals are afraid of their own military, so keep it
feeble and inept aside from the air force. They rely
on the National Guard, a Bedouin tribal forces also
known as the White Army. In the past, Pakistan was
paid to keep 40,000 troops in Saudi to protect the
royal family. These soldiers are long gone, but the
Saudis are pressing impoverished Pakistan to return
its military contingent.
The
US-backed and supplied Saudi war against dirt-poor
Yemen has shown its military to be incompetent and
heedless of civilian casualties. The Saudis run the
risk of becoming stuck in a protracted guerilla war
in Yemen’s wild mountains.
The US,
Britain and France maintain discreet military bases
in the kingdom and Gulf coast. The US Fifth Fleet is
based in Bahrain, where a pro-democracy uprising was
recently crushed by rented Pakistani police and
troops. Reports say 30,000 Pakistani troops may be
stationed in Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates and
Qatar.
Earlier
this month, the Saudis and Egypt’s military junta
announced they would build a bridge across the
narrow Strait of Tiran (leading to the Red Sea) to
Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula. The clear purpose of a
large bridge in this remote, desolate region is to
facilitate the passage of Egyptian troops and armor
into Saudi Arabia to protect the Saudis. Egypt now
relies on Saudi cash to stay afloat.
But Saudi
Arabia’s seemingly endless supply of money is now
threatened by the precipitous drop in world oil
prices. Riyadh just announced it will seek $10
billion in loans from abroad to offset a budget
shortfall. This is unprecedented and leads many to
wonder if the days of free-spending Saudis are over.
Add rumors of a bitter power-struggle in the
6,000-member royal family and growing internal
dissent and uber-reactionary Saudi Arabia may become
the Mideast’s newest hotspot.
Eric S.
Margolis is an award-winning, internationally
syndicated columnist. His articles have appeared in
the New York Times, the International Herald Tribune
the Los Angeles Times, Times of London, the Gulf
Times, the Khaleej Times, Nation – Pakistan,
Hurriyet, – Turkey, Sun Times Malaysia and other
news sites in Asia.
http://ericmargolis.com
Copyright
Eric S. Margolis 2016 - |