[GHung]

CNN reporting Saudi King Abdullah has died. No reaction from KSA yet. No surprise there, but I'm expecting things to get interesting,, maybe not.

Saudi Arabia's 'reformer' King Abdullah dies
http://www.cnn.com/2015/01/22/middleeas ... index.html



(CNN)Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz al Saud has died, according to an announcement on Saudi state TV. He was 90.

The next king will be Prince Salman bin Abdulaziz, state television reported.

The announcement of his death comes several weeks after the state-run Saudi Press Agency said Abdullah was suffering from pneumonia and had been admitted to the hospital.

King Abdullah became the oil-rich nation's sixth king in August 2005.

In the context of the kingdom's conservative circles, King Abdullah was seen as a reformer and often came up against more hard-line clerics.

R.I.P.

[Pops]

Can you imagine the fight?

LOL, I've seen my relatives go at each other like dogs over a few thousand bucks stuck in a cookie jar by a parent.

What if it were billions in the cookie jar and there were hundreds of siblings and thousands of cousins?

Bar the door!

[westexas]

Some background info in a 1/5/15 article follows, and a good book on Saudi Arabia is “On Saudi Arabia.”

I have long thought that a good description for Saudi Arabia is that it is, to use a physics term, metastable, i.e., superficially stable, but actually inherently unstable.

Saudi Arabia’s Succession Time Bomb

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_world_/2 ... s_are.html

Since the first king of modern Saudi Arabia, Abdulaziz, died in 1953, the country has been ruled by five of his sons in roughly descending age order. There were quite a few options available: Abdulaziz, who cemented alliances with tribal leaders by marrying their daughters, fathered 45 sons by at least 22 wives as well as an unknown number of daughters.

But the first generation of sons is getting up there in years. Salman, who is next in line for the throne and is thought to be Abdulaziz’s 25th son, is 79. In May, Abdullah took the unprecedented step of naming his youngest brother, Prince Muqrin, as deputy heir, making him second in line for the throne. The choice, which leapfrogged some older brothers, reportedly prompted some grumbling among palace insiders over the fact that Muqrin’s mother was a Yemeni concubine who was never formally married to Abdulaziz. But he’s a close adviser to Abdullah, has diplomatic experience, and at 69, is a spring chicken by House of Saud standards.

Sooner or later, of course, the crown will have to move to the next generation. At that point, things may get a little dicey. Under Saudi succession law, the king has to be a male descendant of Abdulaziz, but beyond that, the incumbent king has wide latitude to determine his successor. Given that many of the brothers took after Dad or even exceeded him—King Saud, the second king, had 53 sons—there are now thousands of these descendants, many of whom have senior government positions, and the potential for palace intrigue is high.

In the meantime, whoever sits on the throne will have his hands full, as the coming years have the potential to be among the most transformative in the nation’s history. The country’s longtime dominance of global oil markets is being challenged by new projects in Africa, the United States, and the Arctic, and the government is now pursuing a risky strategy of keeping oil prices low to discourage new exploration and preserve its market share. (This has the added benefit of making life miserable for petrostates Russia and Iran, opponents of Saudi Arabia in the proxy war over Syria, which has those governments smelling a Washington-Riyadh conspiracy.)

Book description for "On Saudi Arabia" from Amazon:

From the Pulitzer Prize–winning reporter who has spent the last thirty years writing about Saudi Arabia—as diplomatic correspondent, foreign editor, and then publisher of The Wall Street Journal—an important and timely book that explores all facets of life in this shrouded Kingdom: its tribal past, its complicated present, its precarious future.

Through observation, anecdote, extensive interviews, and analysis Karen Elliot House navigates the maze in which Saudi citizens find themselves trapped and reveals the mysterious nation that is the world’s largest exporter of oil, critical to global stability, and a source of Islamic terrorists.

In her probing and sharp-eyed portrait, we see Saudi Arabia, one of the last absolute monarchies in the world, considered to be the final bulwark against revolution in the region, as threatened by multiple fissures and forces, its levers of power controlled by a handful of elderly Al Saud princes with an average age of 77 years and an extended family of some 7,000 princes. Yet at least 60 percent of the increasingly restive population they rule is under the age of 20.

The author writes that oil-rich Saudi Arabia has become a rundown welfare state. The public pays no taxes; gets free education and health care; and receives subsidized water, electricity, and energy (a gallon of gasoline is cheaper in the Kingdom than a bottle of water), with its petrodollars buying less and less loyalty. House makes clear that the royal family also uses Islam’s requirement of obedience to Allah—and by extension to earthly rulers—to perpetuate Al Saud rule.

Behind the Saudi facade of order and obedience, today’s Saudi youth, frustrated by social conformity, are reaching out to one another and to a wider world beyond their cloistered country. Some 50 percent of Saudi youth is on the Internet; 5.1 million Saudis are on Facebook.

To write this book, the author interviewed most of the key members of the very private royal family. She writes about King Abdullah’s modest efforts to relax some of the kingdom’s most oppressive social restrictions; women are now allowed to acquire photo ID cards, finally giving them an identity independent from their male guardians, and are newly able to register their own businesses but are still forbidden to drive and are barred from most jobs.

With extraordinary access to Saudis—from key religious leaders and dissident imams to women at university and impoverished widows, from government officials and political dissidents to young successful Saudis and those who chose the path of terrorism—House argues that most Saudis do not want democracy but seek change nevertheless; they want a government that provides basic services without subjecting citizens to the indignity of begging princes for handouts; a government less corrupt and more transparent in how it spends hundreds of billions of annual oil revenue; a kingdom ruled by law, not royal whim.

In House’s assessment of Saudi Arabia’s future, she compares the country today to the Soviet Union before Mikhail Gorbachev arrived with reform policies that proved too little too late after decades of stagnation under one aged and infirm Soviet leader after another. She discusses what the next generation of royal princes might bring and the choices the kingdom faces: continued economic and social stultification with growing risk of instability, or an opening of society to individual initiative and enterprise with the risk that this, too, undermines the Al Saud hold on power.

A riveting book—informed, authoritative, illuminating—about a country that could well be on the brink, and an in-depth examination of what all this portends for Saudi Arabia’s future, and for our own.

[Lore]

Not important... Let's get back to deflated footballs. Oh, and by the way Yemen has also fallen today.

[Subjectivist]

Can you imagine the fight?

LOL, I've seen my relatives go at each other like dogs over a few thousand bucks stuck in a cookie jar by a parent.

What if it were billions in the cookie jar and there were hundreds of siblings and thousands of cousins?

Bar the door!

I saw a fist fight break out at a funeral once, not my family fortunately but a friends family. Flying fists, bloody lips and black eye over a perceived insult. Picture that about 1000 times worse with money fueling and pride boosting things off the scale. We will soon know how peaceful and respectful the hundreds of princes are.

[GHung]

Yeah, Pops, I've seen the same thing, though I expect all involved already have their chess pieces ready for the next move. Keep your eye on the Clerics, who Abdullah has apparently kept in check.

[GregT]

Thanks Ghung,

This is indeed big news.

[BobInget]

Adding to succession problems have to be several oil wars in the region.
I seriously doubt the King's death will add more political instability. This would hardly be impossible.

After all, how much stability has Saudi Arabia provided in the last few months.

Iran is under fire to relinquish any nuke pretentious or get hammered. Has anyone even asked if KSA is all nuked up?
Maybe, it's time for Israel and KSA to come clean before all 'our' oil gets burnt up in one week.

[Pops]

Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah died early on Friday and his brother Salman became king, the royal court in the world's top oil exporter and birthplace of Islam said in a statement carried by state television.

King Salman has named his half-brother Muqrin as his crown prince and heir.
...
King Salman has been part of the ruling clique of princes for decades and is thought likely to continue the main thrusts of Saudi strategic policy, including maintaining the alliance with the United States and working towards energy market stability.

During his five decades as Riyadh governor he was reputedly adept at managing the delicate balance of clerical, tribal and princely interests that determine Saudi policy, while maintaining good relations with the West.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/01/ ... RQ20150122

[GHung]

Very comforting article from Reuters Pops. Thanks. I especially liked this part:

"King Salman... is thought likely to continue the main thrusts of Saudi strategic policy, including maintaining the alliance with the United States and working towards energy market stability."

Funny that, as if these guys have much wiggle room.

[BobInget]

http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2015/0 ... MGqL8a5I20

USD Boots on Yemeni ground comes even sooner then expected.

Excerpts: read entire article.

U.S. officials said that counterterrorism remained their No. 1 interest in Yemen, but whether they’ll be able to salvage a partnership seems to depend largely on who or what emerges to take the place of President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi’s government.

“The phrase, ‘Yemen on the brink’ is one of the most pervasive clichés in coverage of the region. But Yemen is clearly more on the brink than it’s ever been in its history of being on the brink,” said Adam Baron,

The most urgent concern for the Obama administration was protecting U.S. personnel who remain in the country...........

Read more here: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2015/0 ... rylink=cpy


If the reader is reading between the lines, I assure you, it's not about Yemen. The US needs to 'stabilize' this situation before Saudi Arabian contagion takes hold.
Saudi Troops may engage before US Marines.
The next 48 hours are crucial to W/O violence, subdue any KSA pro-democracy demos.

While dogs wag this tail, Iran may seek to advantage itself by setting Hezbollah
loose on KSA perping hit and run attacks.. (drive-by shootings) on oil distribution points.

Such poor intel, even with US personal on the ground we still are caught unawares.

If Israel or the US or Saudi Royals feel pressured, Israel may feel this is their last, best opportunity to strike Iran's nuclear infrastructure. Hezbollah, Iranian surrogates, will launch with conventional weapons. Israel will proceed, using tidy bunker busters on Iran's nuclear facilities.

Fallout will spread across the region IF Iran is bombed.
Iran has in place highly advanced, mobile anti aircraft super sonic surface to air missiles. Doubtless a few missiles will penetrate enough to kill thousands.
All it takes now is one religious zealot or a nervous missile crew.
Everyone knows, attacks must be made swiftly before US troops hit the ground.

Friday could the third day of eight that changes history.

[Keith_McClary]

According to Hezbollah’s official media outlet, Al Manar TV, the Israeli airstrike on the Syrian side of the Golan Heights recently which saw top Hezbollah and Iranian officials killed, was facilitated by an unlikely partner, Saudi Arabia.

The claims came during a report on the TV channel regarding the Israeli Air Force’s slaying of Jihad Mughniyeh and Iranian field commander, General Mohammad Ali Allahdadi, on Monday.

According to the report, which quoted Hezbollah sources, the Saudis had provided “direct information” to Israel about the movements of the two vehicles Mughniyeh, Allahdadi, and other Hezbollah terrorists were traveling in.

Hezbollah says that Saudi Arabia and other Sunni Gulf states are sending “regular and constant reports” to Israel about the movements of Hezbollah, Iran, and pro-regime Shia militias in Syria.

http://www.inquisitr.com/1774454/saudi- ... -in-syria/

[Sixstrings]

Saw in the news that the new king is 79, in poor health, and suffers from "dementia." He was also always more conservative than his brother.

So.. if he's ill and with dementia.. who will be in charge?

[Keith_McClary]

http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2015/01/22/5464803/with-yemens-president-out-us-ponders.html#.VMGqL8a5I20

Read more here: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2015/0 ... rylink=cpy

Both the same. Was there supposed to be two?

[Keith_McClary]

World leaders head to Saudi Arabia after king's death
Are these the same World Leaders who converged on Paris for the Charlie parade?

[Subjectivist]

World leaders head to Saudi Arabia after king's death
Are these the same World Leaders who converged on Paris for the Charlie parade?

Sure, but this time President Obama is going to join in.

[Synapsid]

The most interesting idea I've seen about how the US should respond to any Israeli attack on Iran is:

Take out everything Israel launches or flies, and don't say a word.

It'll never happen, but it does seem tidy.

[Keith_McClary]

World leaders head to Saudi Arabia after king's death
Are these the same World Leaders who converged on Paris for the Charlie parade?

Sure, but this time President Obama is going to join in.

I guess they won't be talking about Charlie, free speech, women's rights, or flogging at the funeral. That would be disrespectful and undiplomatic.

[Shaved Monkey]

or the record number of be-headings
http://www.news.com.au/world/middle-eas ... 7037172765

[Shaved Monkey]

or 9/11

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/kin ... 00611.html