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So the Saudis have gone from "we had nothing to do with his disappearance! Don't believe Iran's lies about us! We will destroy the world's economy if you won't believe us!"
to
"Yeah we only planned to interrogate him, get in some light torture, then kidnap him back to Saudi Arabia where he could rot in prison. Weren't expecting him to die. These were rogue agents! Acting without orders!"
So in the past few years they have asked their allies to help them...
1. fight a war in Yemen. In the UAE, this is the first time outside peacekeeping missions that soliders have been deployed and killed in battle.
2. blockade Qatar.
3. check for hidden assets of House of Saud royals in domestic banking systems outside Saudi
5. shut up while we take a dump on Canada
6. destroy the legitimacy of the GCC, and the eventual monetary union
7. now this.
All this from a country that has far fewer petroleum reserves per capita than 4 of the six Gulf countries. Saudi is asking a hell of a lot of its friends right now. Especially the UAE. The UAE has 1/28th the population and pumps 40% of the oil. Right now Saudi thinks the UAE is the junior partner in this relationship. Not for long, I'm betting. In fact I'm thinking the price of loyalty is very soon going to be affordable. Saudi is a timebomb. Once it can no longer feed itself, we're going to have roughly 15-20m highly radicalized and desperate people. Not next year or the year after, but this could be as soon as 10-15 years out. IMO the next step is that MbS is quietly deligitimized. Still crown prince, but Salman surely has to be thinking of taking back executive control. MbS gets credit for being an economic reformer, but only from politics or security people who don't know the economics very well. The old guard knows better.
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