- And the Saudi implosion
The irony of ironies, as far as the Middle East goes, that the ominous prophecy of the late Col Gaddafi – that Saudi Arabia too, after Libya and Syria, would implode – is coming true. That the late dictator who ruled over one of the world’s biggest source of light sweet crude, the world’s richest oil, for four decades before the so called Arab Spring, uttered these words before Ben Ali and Mubarak were toppled makes it all the more chilling. Initially, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman’s (MBS) purge against corruption made the headlines for the right reasons – from Riyadh’s point of view, of course – but increasingly it is being seen, internationally, as that so, so typical ancient Arab power grab.
The plot has only thickened by now former Lebanese prime minister Saad Hariri’s mysterious resignation not long after he landed in Riyadh – on the Saudi king’s surprise summon, no less. If old timers in the foreign press are to be trusted, the resignation was shoved down Hariri’s throat to induce a power vacuum in Beirut, triggering an inevitable war between Israel and Hezbollah. Those familiar with the ’06 confrontation will know how Condoleezza Rice’s “birth pangs of a new Middle East” proved so far from the truth, and how a rerun will hurt Israel as much as Hezbollah.
Stakeholders are already busy hedging bets. President Trump’s tweet backing MBS did little to arrest a reversing market trend, just as it did little to calm nerves in the region. As Riyadh goes a step further in the proxy, and very diplomatic, war against Iran, even countries like Pakistan are visiting the Ayatollahs for contingency plans. That the Europeans are also beehiving, ahead of Trump’s scrapping of the Iran deal, makes the times all the more dynamic. The Arab Spring has, eventually, run into a brick wall every place it has visited. The sooner Riyadh can shed the uncertainty surrounding its actions the better for all, political and financial, circles.
