In
the six weeks before Khashoggi’s disappearance, MBS not only
managed to anger the U.S. military-industrial complex but the world’s
most powerful bankers.
by
Whitney Webb
Part
2 - Who really crowned the prince?
Back in
2015, there were already concerns in international intelligence that
an imminent power struggle in the Saudi royal family was brewing.
Notably,
concern within some intelligence communities regarding the likely
rise of MBS was so high that Germany’s intelligence agency BND
publicly released a memo slamming MBS as a destabilizing influence
who was responsible for the new Saudi “impulsive policy of
intervention.” It went on to warn that MBS, then head of the
Saudi Defense Ministry and an economic council aimed at overhauling
the country’s oil-dependent economy, was seeking to dramatically
concentrate power in his hands. Doing so, the memo warned, “harbours
a latent risk that in seeking to establish himself in the line of
succession in his father’s lifetime, he may overreach.” The
memo was right of course, but it largely fell on deaf ears.
Then,
last June, MBS made his move and deposed his predecessor Mohammed bin
Nayef after hours of interrogation, threats and alleged torture,
becoming the new crown prince in the process.
Bin
Nayef – who has remained under house arrest for over two years —
had been a close partner of the U.S. — particularly the CIA, which
bestowed upon bin Nayef one of its most prestigious medals. As
Federico Pieraccini recently noted at Strategic Culture, bin Nayef
had long been the CIA’s “go-to man” in Saudi Arabia and had
helped the CIA use the guise of “counterterrorism” to fund al
Qaeda and other radical Wahhabi groups to wreak havoc on countries in
the region, particularly Syria, that had become the targets of
American empire.
Normally,
the ouster of a Washington-allied Crown Prince close to the CIA would
have dramatically shaken the Washington establishment. However, there
was little public complaint from the American political elite over
MBS’ dramatic rise to power. Instead, the U.S. clearly supported
MBS’ new power, as demonstrated by the fact that President Donald
Trump called MBS to “congratulate him on his recent elevation”
the day he became Crown Prince, and the two subsequently pledged
“close cooperation” in security and economics.
Some
analysts have since speculated that the U.S. government had actually
helped facilitate MBS’ palace coup given that, just a few months
prior, MBS – not bin Nayef — had met with Trump in Washington.
Others
have suggested that powerful Western financial interests were behind
MBS’ rise, given that the king’s son had announced his
willingness to sell Saudi state assets to the highest bidder in a
January 2016 interview with the Rothschild-owned Economist a little
more than six months before he became crown prince. The interview
certainly made it clear to the international elite that MBS was
willing to support neoliberal reforms that had been rejected by Saudi
royals in the past.
Indeed,
wrapped within his economic reform program known as “Vision
2030,” MBS offered the Western elite something they had long
coveted but had never been able to obtain. He agreed to privatize
Saudi-state-held assets, including the biggest cash-cow of them all –
Saudi Arabia’s state oil company, Aramco.
Source,
links:
Comments
Post a Comment