The Obama administration could end up in a very dicey situation if/when the Arab Revolt spreads to Saudi Arabia. The House of Saud is likely to crack down on demonstrators with a very heavy hand. Oil prices could explode, and Israel would go bonkers. The Wall Street Journal just issued a detailed report describing how the Obama Administration is wavering in its support for democracy demonstrators, urging patience, and hoping the protesters work will with existing monarchies (Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Jordan, Morocco, etc.) as well as Yemen for gradual reforms (Libya excepted, of course) … the curious euphemism for the emerging desperation to stiffen the three pillars* of our crumbling Middle East policy is “regime alteration.”
The attached essay by veteran middle east correspondent Robert Fisk puts the theory of regime alteration into a moral and economic perspective.
Chuck Spinney<
The Blaster
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* The three pillars of our ME foreign policy are –
- Uncritical support for and protection of Israel.
- Protection of Saudi Arabia (and the Persian Gulf Arab states) in return for Saudi assurance of stable oil flows.
- Recycling of petrodollars via weapons sales (to countries at peace with Israel, like Egypt, Bahrain, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, UAE, etc.) and banking/investment houses.
(Note: Over these years, these pillars have been supported also by efforts to limit Soviet and Iranian influence in the Middle East and N. Africa.)
Saudis mobilise thousands of troops to quell growing revolt
By Robert Fisk, Middle East Correspondent
Independent, Saturday, 5 March 2011
Saudi Arabia was yesterday drafting up to 10,000 security personnel into its north-eastern Shia Muslim provinces, clogging the highways into Dammam and other cities with busloads of troops in fear of next week's “day of rage” by what is now called the “Hunayn Revolution”.
Saudi Arabia's worst nightmare – the arrival of the new Arab awakening of rebellion and insurrection in the kingdom – is now casting its long shadow over the House of Saud. Provoked by the Shia majority uprising in the neighbouring Sunni-dominated island of Bahrain, where protesters are calling for the overthrow of the ruling al-Khalifa family, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia is widely reported to have told the Bahraini authorities that if they do not crush their Shia revolt, his own forces will. Read more….
Phi Beta Iota: The Obama Administration means well, but it operates in a moral & intellectual vacuum. In combination, its bailing out of Wall Street and destitution of the middle class (while poverty doubled), its loss of integrity in not ending the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, its continued tolerance of out-of-control security and intelligence bureaucracies, and now its clear intent to join the UK in putting still more forces in the middle of what is rightfully a legitimate revolt of, by, and for the Arab people, represent the last death rattle of Empire.
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Continue reading “Regime Alternation: US Response to Arab Revolt + RECAP”
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