Jim W. Dean/Viktor Mikhin -- NEO – Saudi Arabia: On the Brink of Disintegration

NEO – SaudiArabia: On the Brink of Disintegration

By Jim W. Dean, Managing Editor on February 24, 2016

by Viktor Mikhin,  … with New Eastern Outlook,  Moscow

The seven golden domes of St. Petersburg

[ Editor’s Note: Viktor gives us a detailed review of the Arab Spring destabilization program which is now threatening Saudi Arabia, by its own hand… the old “be careful what you wish for because you just might get it” adage.

How much the US is pulling strings here — or thinking it is — remains to be seen. Some are claiming it wants the Royal family to fall, but that seems way out there, as the US would not want the huge remaining Saudi fortune tossed up into the air, along with its large military stockpiles to be placed under unknown control.

The old term, “The witch you know is better than the one you don’t”, comes to mind here. The US has historically had no problem dealing with flawed regimes if they could be looted via the assistance of corrupt local leaders, or militarily subverted via coups of the bloodfest type, like the long Iran-Iraq war which was a “two-fer”.

On the bright side, we have major progress on the Syrian front, thanks to the Russians and the steadfastness of the Syrian Army and its allies. But we are still waiting to see victory, which is a peace with Syrians really in control of their own country. Will they get negotiated or muscled out of victory and peace?

I don’t think the Russians and Iran have hung in there this long just to surrender to the US, Saudis or Erdogan at this point. I am seeing that, as the refugees come back to their homes and begin to rebuild, they will fight like banshees to defend them. Self-defense forces will cover the entire country like a rug.

BTW, Ralph Peters who is sourced below, is a long time NeoCon policy source which is the mark of Cain here at VT, as are all Fox News pundits. That stain never washes off, so readers beware.

The Syrian-Russian coalition will continue to be a demonstration of the close integration that is needed to defeat the Western terror tool, a template that those targeted will be paying close attention to. Although Russia has stated it will remain in Syria at the behest of the government as long as the terrorism fight lasts, for those in the West planning to continue a terror bombing war after a successful piece, that will just hand Moscow a permanent and active counter terrorism base there... Jim W. Dean ]

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Could Saudi Arabia actually behead itself?

– First published … February 24,  2016 –

The chaos, which its diabolical authors have brought to a number of Arab countries cynically calling it “the Arab Spring”, demonstrates that the process has not been completed and yet some other Middle East countries will fall under its bloody millstone.

A lot of these guys are dead now. As Putin said, “Better to kill them there”

Arising quite suddenly in Tunisia (that more or less successfully escaped the spring winds), the chaos, backed up by the Western armed forces, moved to the formerly prospering Libya, which, currently, has ceased to exist as a whole state having fallen apart into three separate regions – Tripoli, Cyrenaica and Fezzan.

The latest news reported by the global media evidence that the terrorist organisation, the Islamic State (IS), is planning to turn the Libyan territory in its own “jumping board” for penetrating and attacking European countries. In the north of Africa, only Egypt has held its ground; due to the enormous political experience of the Egyptian people and the determination of its army, it managed to remedy the situation in the very heart of the Arab world.

The situation is even worse in the Persian Gulf region where Bahrain at some point was occupied by Saudi troops, and that alone helped to suppress the violent riots of the Shiah who, according to different estimates, comprise over 70 to 80% of the population. But the fire of the riots is not extinct and from time to time its sparks serve as a reminder by burning Manama suburbs.

The situation is awful in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria. The first two states fell victim to unprovoked aggression on the part of the USA, resulting in the loss of national identity and destruction of infrastructure. As the proverb goes, one fool makes many, and the leaders of Saudi Arabia, blinded by their incredible wealth and incorrect analysis of the situation in the region, wished to establish a regime in Damascus, which would be obedient to them.

Until now, the Syrian people have been in hell fighting with countless mercenaries and defending their right to live and solve their own problems on their own, Syrian soil. The country is divided into parts, many cities and settlements have been demolished, several million Syrian nationals have left their homeland and are seeking asylum in other countries.

But the Riyadh Wahhabi leaders are still not satisfied with that, and their task is to establish their own regime in Damascus, which would be obedient only to them, no matter if Syria continues to exist as a single state or is divided into several “subcomponents”.

However the logic of the history of the so-called “Arab Spring” is as follows: the point currently at issue is whether Saudi Arabia itself will exist within its previous borders or there will be several states in the Saudi territory, in compliance with the map of former lieutenant-colonel Ralf Peters.

Fox News’ Ret. Colonel Ralph Peters

In this regard, it should be recalled that in June 2006 Ralf Peters, retired lieutenant-colonel working in the US National Military Academy, published prospective borders of the national states of the Greater Middle East in his article “Blood Borders” in the Armed Forces Journal. R.Peters’ last assignment was to the Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence in the US Department of Defense.

He is one of the most well-known Pentagon authors and has published numerous works on strategy in US military and foreign policy editions. Though the aforementioned map does not reflect the Pentagon’s official point of view, it was used in educational programs for senior military officers of the NATO Defense College and could be quite easily used, alongside other maps, by the National Military Academy and military specialists in the sphere of planning.

At this very complicated period of its existence, possibly the most dangerous one since the moment when Saudi Arabia was created by Abdulaziz ibn Abdul Rahman ibn Faisal Al Saud (Ibn Saud), its current leaders do not display any skills, far-sightedness and political thinking. They are doing everything possible in order that the earlier artificially created monarchy could be divided into several parts. Evidently, due to feeble mind and old age, the current Saudi King Salman ibn Abdulaziz Al Saud and his son Mohammad bin Salman Al Saud, the youngest Minister of Defense in the world, have been involved in three wars simultaneously or, as one may say, have begun a three-front war.

It is common knowledge backed by history, for example if we look at the history of Europe, that a state may succeed only if it leads one war and it will lose on two fronts. In 1870-1871, Prussia (Germany) only crushed France and imposed on it heavy war indemnity taking military actions on one front.

However, during the World War I and World War II, Germany, which was already united by these times, undertook military actions on two fronts and was heavily defeated in both wars, with the impacts of those losses visible to this today.

We might be absolutely astounded by the unreasonable behavior of the present Chancellor of Germany, Angela Merkel – if we were unaware of the fact that the German territory is still occupied by American troops and many American military bases are located there.

But it seems that Europe is too far from Saudi Arabia as the present Saudi leaders do not know the rudiments of history. Not surprisingly, due to this very fact they have got involved simultaneously in three complicated and cruel wars. The first war is, of course, the Syrian conflict, which has occurred and is being continuously fomented by the Saudis, who have spent hundreds millions of dollars on the creation and generous financing of terrorist groups such as the Islamic State, Jabhat al-Nusra, al-Qaeda, etc.

Riyadh skyline

At first glance, it may seem strange that these terrorist organisations just occasionally subject the Saudi regime to mild criticism for derogation from the norms of “real Islam”, but they do not go any far than that. For some reason, the terrorists do not take any military actions against the Saudis, though the terrorists, tempered in battle, need no more than three days to quickly cross the desert regions near the Saudi-Iraqi border in their Toyota trucks and occupy the main oil-bearing region of Al Hasa on the Persian Gulf shore.

However that does not happen and the terrorists, for no reason whatsoever, do not leave the Syrian and Iraqi territory and prefer to die as a result of effective bombing by the Russian Military and Space Forces. Evidently, the Saudi leaders have generously sponsored not only the terrorists’ military activities but their death as well. But, given the low oil prices, the Saudi treasury will run empty earlier or later, and what will the enraged terrorists do then?

The second Saudi Arabia front comprises the unsuccessful military actions in Yemen where barefoot Houthis rebels are not only putting up adequate resistance to the Saudis and their satellites but also inflicting significant damage on them. This being the case, when the rebels are armed with rifles alone. Since March 26, Saudi Arabia, supported by military air forces of Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates, has been carrying out a military air operation against the rebels using the most advanced arms supplied from the United States.

The coalition was also joined by Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, and Sudan. According to UN data, 2,795 civilians died and 5,324 were wounded during escalation of the conflict. At that, Riyadh is widely using the USA banned weapons – cluster bombs. This was reported by the American organisation, Human Rights Watch, which insists on conducting a most thorough international investigation of the fact.

Houthis fighting in Yemen against the Saudi invaders

Experts are asking quite a reasonable question: what will happen when Iran supplies modern weapons to the rebels (as all the Saudi media are loudly sounding the alarm of these prospects). It will happen, sooner or later. In these circumstances, Yemen will easily regain the disputed territories that now form part of the Saudi provinces Najran, Jizan and Ha’il. Therefore, all the southern part of the modern Saudi Arabia will become the territory of Yemen, as was in the old times, and that might serve as the catalyst for disintegration of the whole kingdom.

The third front, on which the Saudis are fighting without any success, is the ill-thought-of tactics of decreasing oil prices. In this case, the Riyadh leaders blinded by their wealth and seeking to take possession of the whole of the global market, decided to oust the major oil-producing states like the USA, Russia, Iran, Venezuela, Nigeria, Norway from the market. As the time goes on and the competitors do not leave the oil market, the world is gradually becoming accustomed to low prices.

But this has struck a blow to the finances of Saudi Arabia, originally regarded as “the fat cat”. Now its economy is beginning to experience certain difficulties caused by the low prices, the enormous expenses of making war in Syria and Yemen and expenses of supporting large social payments and subsidies.

There is a strain on the balance of payments and spending of state funds. The things have gone so far that there are rumours of privatization of the “sacred cow” – Saudi Aramco, the major donor of the economy.

It would seem that in these conditions, cutting external and non-core expenses (military operations expenses, financing terrorist organisations) and focusing on the economy would be a solution. However, the Saudi leaders, taking the bit between their teeth, are seeking a solution in yet new adventures. Some media reported that Saudi Arabia has taken the decision to start a land operation in Syria in the nearest future without waiting for the support from the other allies, as brigade General Akhmed al Asiri informed. This would be the case while the Saudis haven’t even succeeded in Yemen.

It is possible that Washington is deliberately drawing the Saudis into all kinds of adventures in order that changes in the state structure in the Arab Peninsula will occur sooner. There are up to $ 1 trillion worth of Saudi Arabia state funds stored in American banks, plus about half trillion dollars of private deposits. If Saudi Arabia falls apart it is almost impossible that any Saudi nationals will dare to make financial claims against Washington.

The people who will be heads of the new states will be undoubtedly grateful to the United States and will need their assistance and supervision. For example, if the representative of the Hashemite delegation, the now ruling King of Jordan Abdallah II heads Hejaz, as his ancestors did for many centuries, and becomes the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, he will evidently retain good feeling towards Washington and its rulers.

Beyond any doubt, the new adventures and ill-conceived external and domestic initiatives, where the authorities resort to repressions and numerous executions in order to calm down the people, only serve to draw the historical outcome and the “Arab Spring” in the Arab Peninsula closer. It is possible that we will be witnesses to the situation where the last son of the great ibn Saud, who in olden days created Saudi Arabia, will become the last king of the desert monarchy in the Arab Peninsula.

Victor Mikhin, corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook.”