On Friday as part of a longer post on exactly what Muhammad bin Salman is trying to accomplish, I made the following point:
Lebanon: This is a mess. Hariri’s party and his family are treating this as a Saudi driven plot. They’ve actually accused the Saudis of kidnapping Harriri, holding him against his will, and forcing him to do this. Regardless, it only empowers Hezbullah in regard to Lebanon’s government. And Hezbullah, which is not exactly an ally of Hariri’s, is also now claiming he has been taken hostage by the Saudis. All Hariri’s resignation and flight to Saudi Arabia has done is create another new opportunity for Iran to expand its influence in Lebanon. Here too Muhammad bin Salman’s failure as a strategist is clearly evident. His actions have achieved the opposite effect from that he desired.
Today Prime Minister Hariri made a hostage video:
Anyone noticed the guy with the message? #Hariri was definitely terrified. pic.twitter.com/XvVV6DfpW2
— Mohammed Al-Buainain (@Buenen) November 12, 2017
The question people on social media are asking is who is the man standing way behind and to the left of Hariri’s interviewer. Standing where Hariri can clearly see him, but the camera wasn’t supposed to.
Sources close to Hariri say Saudi Arabia has concluded that the prime minister – a long-time Saudi ally and son of late Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, who was assassinated in 2005 – had to go because he was unwilling to confront Hezbollah.
Multiple Lebanese sources say Riyadh hopes to replace Saad Hariri with his older brother Bahaa as Lebanon’s top Sunni politician. Bahaa is believed to be in Saudi Arabia, and members of the Hariri family have been asked to travel there to pledge allegiance to him, but have refused, the sources say.
Family members, aides and politicians who have contacted Hariri in Riyadh say he is apprehensive and reluctant to say anything beyond “I am fine”. Asked if he is coming back, they say his normal answer is: “Inshallah” (God willing).
Hariri, who has dual citizenship in Lebanon and Saudi Arabia has a home in the latter. And his wife and children live there…
On Friday I also wrote that:
Muhammad bin Salman (MBS) has used the slogan anti-corruption to try to further solidify his position as Crown Prince. From his perspective he’s 32 and the Crown Prince. His father is 80 and in poor health. If he can solidify his position, then he can essentially rule Saudi for five or six decades. I think that this is what a good part of what we saw last week is about.
Reuters had now reported that:
Prince Mohammed decided to move on his family, the person familiar with events said, when he realized more relatives opposed him becoming king than he had thought.
“The signal was that anyone wavering in their support should watch out,” said the person familiar with the events. “The whole idea of the anti-corruption campaign was targeted towards the family. The rest is window dressing.”
It is always nice when further reporting confirms one’s analysis.
Open thread!
rikyrah
I was watching Joy Reid. And, a journalist who specialized in the ME said that the ‘resignation’ didn’t sound right.
It was in the wrong vernacular.
The example she used to explain what was wrong with the ‘resignation’, was if the Prime Minister of Great Britain resigned, and he did in language written by someone from Texas.
Adam L Silverman
@rikyrah: Rula Jabreal. She’s Palestinian, though technically Israeli Arab. She knows what she’s talking about.
Brachiator
So, is there a connection between what Muhammad bin Salman is doing at home, and what is happening in Lebanon?
Will there be some reaction from Iran?
Or Putin.
piratedan
I can only sit back and wonder what a fully staffed State Department and a supported intelligence branch might be able to offer a President in times like these, instead we have a political party that has apparently abdicated the belief in government all in the hope that rich people can have even more money than they apparently need (perhaps in a way to keep any more strivers from breaking the ceiling) and so bigots and evangelicals can get their hate and brimstone on.
While Trump appalls me (and his entire cadre of grifters), its guys like McConnell, Pence, Ryan (and yes, even McCain) who should have a glimmer of an idea on what it takes to run a nation and completely pissing it away for the aforementioned reasons. The fact that the media gives them any credence at all for their petty agenda of self aggrandizement is damn near as loathsome.
Fair Economist
@Brachiator: This does seem to scramble Putin’s plans by going after one of the main supports for Assad.
It’s also disturbing to realize that amongst the Mideast top powers – Israel, Turkey, Iran, and Saudi Arabia – Iran may now be the sanest, not because they got much better but because all the others have gone nuts.
dr. bloor
It is a truth universally acknowledged that a privileged man born on third base will step on his dick and stumble whilst running to home plate.
Adam L Silverman
@Brachiator: Read my post on Friday. The Lebanon stuff is section 4.
Mike in NC
Wife’s cousin lives in Beirut; former US Ambassador to Lebanon. But he’s currently on a long ocean cruise and we’re not really able to communicate right now.
Montanareddog
MBS intends to turn Lebanon into a KSA vassal state? I am sure the Christians and the Shia will love that. There will be a reaction in Lebanon; the Israelis and the Iranians will meddle,too; and the civil war kicks off again. Trump has been “orbed” into a non-neutral position and the State Department gutted. Another perfect storm of megalomania and sectarian strife
mike in dc
This has the potential to turn into outright war between KSA and allies, and Iran and allies(Hezbollah, Assad, Shia Iraq). Which, in turn, has the potential to turn into World War Three. So of course Boy Blunder Jared Kushner is involved somehow.
Amir Khalid
@Adam L Silverman:
He’s a complete newbie at wielding power, I said. What could go wrong, you said. Seriously, you were right about him. People are going to have to protect themselves, and Crown Prince MBS is likely to get taken out, sooner rather than later.
Adam L Silverman
@Amir Khalid: As I wrote on Friday, it would not surprise me if he’s dead within 60 days. Or there’s at least a credible attempt on his life from within the royal family.
Cacti
Is this the start of World War III?
Adam L Silverman
@Cacti: Probably not.
Amir Khalid
@piratedan:
I don’t know that the US, even with a fully operational State Department, could do much more than monitor the situation from a distance. The US is not driving this.
TenguPhule
Wonderful, a Saudi Civil War.
We could just give everything there to Iran now and save a lot of time, blood and treasure.
TenguPhule
@Cacti: Possibly.
TenguPhule
@Adam L Silverman: What was that law of unintended consequences again?
NotMax
Pulling the
wagonscamels into a circle.You betcha.
TenguPhule
Let’s see, what would be the stupidest thing Saudia Arabia could do now?
Oh, I know. Kill their hostage and blame Israel or Iran for it.
Adam L Silverman
@TenguPhule: They won’t kill him. If he’s allowed back to Lebanon they’ll insist his family stay in Saudi as guests under the protection of the Crown Prince.
NotMax
Also too, what’s unfolding in the KSA will nudge Egypt between the proverbial rock and a hard place.
Mart
@NotMax: I think you meant pulling the Toyota pick-ups into a circle…
piratedan
@Amir Khalid: very true Amir, but would something like this have even been tried under the Obama Administration? With the US being essentially a non-factor at this point, does this allow more “freedom” for this kind of activity?
Granted, perhaps not, essentially what could the US actually do? Perhaps I’m giving 44 too much credit for something that could have been well nigh inevitable… just thinking out loud that with Trump in place, our foreign policy is truly in the shitter because whoever was last to blow smoke up his ass will be given preference it seems.
Mart
@piratedan: @piratedan: I blame President Cheney.
TenguPhule
@Adam L Silverman:
Because it would be stupid?
The same guy who is stepping on his dick on every major situation in the region?
Felonius Monk
@mike in dc:
Is it too much to hope that he might become a “casualty of war”?
Amir Khalid
@piratedan:
Could a competent State Department, e.g. John Kerry’s, have forestalled this with a quiet word in the right ears? Possibly, I suppose, but it might have entailed second-guessing the King on his choice of successor. Kings don’t like that.
Mary G
@Amir Khalid: I am full of cliches today, but nature does abhor a vacuum. Adam, I saw someplace on twitter that the non-royal Saudis (are there even enough of those to matter?) are enthusiastically supporting MBS because they are sick of all the corruption. Your thoughts?
Ken
@Cacti:
Who cares about trivia like that? The real question is, how will this impact the Aramco IPO?
West of the Rockies (been a while)
@dr. bloor:
Very funny! A nice take-off on the original.
Adam L Silverman
@Mary G: I’m not sure anyone’s done a poll, but that’s what is being reported. Unfortunately consolidating all power in MBS’s hands isn’t going to fix the corruption problem. It is just going to consolidate it in fewer hands.
Anthony
@Adam L Silverman:
Christ, that is what they’re going to do, isn’t it? I still don’t understand what it is they want from him. It doesn’t sound like any of the major players in Lebanon want to be Saudi proxies.
Mary G
@Adam L Silverman: They sound like Trump voters. Are you going to do anything about the white power march in Poland, or did I miss it? Pretty scary.
Adam L Silverman
@Mary G: I haven’t done a post yet. I’m getting ready to rack out for the night. Maybe tomorrow.
SectionH
@Amir Khalid: I think that would have depended on a basically-sane US administration. So, theoretically, yes. Sigh. I have friends, career State ppl, who spent many years in several countries in the region. No they don’t gossip, ffs. Happily? for them, they were on rotation back this year. They’re beyond distressed. I don’t think either of them have said they’re retiring, but it wouldn’t surprise me.
Mary G
@Adam L Silverman: Sleep well, or as well as you can when the president is a clown.
NotMax
@Mary G
Partially generational, attributable to the skew of the citizen population. More than half are under 30. Approximately one-third of the citizen populace are under 15.
N.B.: Younger generation majority is not limited to KSA, being the general but not universal situation among the Gulf states. KSA, however, skews significantly more youthful than the current regional norm.
Fair Economist
@NotMax:
Given the current trends to electrifying transport, and KSA’s dependence on oil revenue, that could become an absolutely explosive situation in a decade or two. Double the population and half the income, with continuing deterioration likely, and climate change thrown in for a longer-term threat.
mai naem mobile
I’ve never understood why the Arab ME countries haven’t worked harder towards diversifying their countries’ economies. It’s not like they had extreme poverty holding them back. They could have worked on water technology. Desalinization,water conservation etc. Also,IT.
Davebo
@Mary G: I’d imagine not.
The largest bank in KSA, the National Commercial Bank was originally formed by a Yemeni and the family still controls it I believe. Can’t believe they are wild about what’s going on these days.
Comrade Colette Collaboratrice
OT: I hit a bicyclist with my car this afternoon.
Thank G-d, she’s not badly injured – looked like a small scrape on her knee and some bumps and bruises. I am SO GRATEFUL she’s OK.
I honestly cannot tell how it happened. I was at a 4-way stop on a very busy roadway in a highly trafficked, touristy area of San Francisco near the beach. I was creeping forward, turning right, after having ascertained that all of the other vehicular traffic at the intersection was stopped and it was my turn to go. I never saw her until the moment my front license plate contacted her front wheel. Of course I stopped my car instantly and ran to her and made sure she was alive and in one piece. I and some onlookers got her to the curb, checked her over, put an icepack on the knee, rescued the bike, etc, etc. Someone ran up to me and gave me her card and said, “I saw that. She hit you, not the other way about.” (Huh. Maybe that’s true. Too soon.)
I have never been in this situation before and I just blanked. We exchanged insurance info, she called her husband, he arrived in minivan with kids in tow and they drove away. Only then did I remember that “injury accident = must call cops,” so I had to call them back to the scene and call the police, and they and EMT came and took statements and checked her all out. Did I mention that I AM SO GLAD SHE’S OK? I bet she’ll be plenty sore tomorrow, though. It all took hours, and all I could think was that the poor woman probably wanted to just be at home resting instead of getting stiff and sore in the gathering gloom of a Pacific twilight.
Later I e-mailed that witness who gave me her card and she sent back a statement that the cyclist had totally blown the stop sign and turned right in front of me – which may be true but does not make my front bumper any less the immediate cause of her injuries.
I know this all makes me sound hideously self-justifying and excuse-making but I can’t help but feel horrible about this poor woman and how much pain she must be in now and how SHE MIGHT HAVE BEEN DEAD OR IN ANOTHER LIFE THAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN ME BECAUSE I RIDE, TOO.
Gah.
VOR
Obligatory video reference. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wBp2VusRhE
Amir Khalid
@mai naem mobile:
Saudi Arabia in particular is a very conservative tribal society (not even feudal, as Adam noted in explaining to me how come it’s a monarchy without an aristocracy), old-fashioned by many centuries, with a leadership that tends to regard change with deep suspicion. Oil money has only helped to entrench that leadership and its conservatism, and to discourage change rather than foster it. You can’t run a nation like your 7th century forebears ran a tribe, but damn if the House of Saud isn’t trying.
sm*t cl*de
@mai naem mobile:
IKR? US politicians would never design their economic and international policies to benefit the fossil-fuel extraction industry.
TenguPhule
@mai naem mobile:
Because the people who make all the decisions there are a bunch of greedy corrupt bastards who think short term only.
Amir Khalid
@Comrade Colette Collaboratrice:
Take a deep breath and remind yourself that the cyclist fortunately suffered no worse than a scraped knee, and that a witness saw her hitting you, not you hitting her. Take another deep breath. Repeat as necessary.
Calouste
@mai naem mobile: Some of them have, the UAE for example. Dubai is the 3rd largest airport in the world, bigger than LAX.
Comrade Colette Collaboratrice
@Calouste: Yup, Dubai has worked hard to position itself as the navel of the world, and in many ways that’s right. It’s notably central to the rest of the air-travel-connected planet, which it’s also worth remembering is a grotesquely distorted worldview enabled only by huge tax subsidies and petroleum production. So, I guess it has a kind of economic diversity, but still one utterly dependent on non-renewable resources and temporarily leveraging their position on the globe.
TL;DR: visit now while you can, and stock up on saffron.
Comrade Colette Collaboratrice
@Amir Khalid: Thanks. Even if this is eventually determined to be all my fault, I’m still glad it was not as bad as it could have been.
Amir Khalid
@Calouste:
Haven’t been through LAX in many many years, but I can tell you that it was way too big when Bill was president. Big isn’t better when it comes to airports. And unless the passenger/cargo traffic grows enough to make it profitable, a huge modern airport could be a multibillion-dollar waste of public funds. There have been too many prestige development projects in the developing world that stroked a PM’s ego (or a king’s) but didn’t justify the outlay.
J R in WV
@Comrade Colette Collaboratrice:
Small disaster, personal disaster, always on topic, really. I got really whacked by an old British sports car way back in late 1972, early December IIRC while riding a borrowed bike in a thunderstorm. The guy was in the oncoming traffic lane and turned left across my lane in which I was going through the intersection. He t-boned me in my left side, so first I was thrown left across his hood, which smacked my skull and split my scalp open.
Then I was thrown to my right into the road as he had the brakes slammed on as soon as he saw me, so he didn’t run over me. I woke up lying on my face in the road in an inch of two of rainwater, and given that I was profusely bleeding from my scalp and soaking wet both, it looked like I would have bled to death quickly.
I gave my wife’s work phone number to a bystander and asked him to call her just as an ambulance arrived to take me to the ER, where they x-rayed my head repeatedly seeking a non-existent fracture – I so have a hard head, but that doesn’t help the concussions. They clamped my big impact cut on the left side of my head over my left ear.
When my wife showed up I was on that original gurney from the ambulance dripping onto the floor, it looked like a huge pool of blood, but was mostly rain water. She was a little distraught. Eventually they let us go home, after showing her the signs of more serious brain damage and telling her to check my eyes every 60 minutes to be sure my pupils were the same and that my eyes were tracking together.
No pain killers of any sort, tho. I was OK the next day, and late that afternoon the medics on ship (this was all when I was still a swabbie in the USN) started me on pain pills and muscle relaxants. After another week my ship went from Pascagoula, Mississippi to home port in Key West, where a Navy doc found that my fracture wasn’t in my skull, it was in my neck which stubbornly kept hurting worse while the rest of me was getting better, so I got to wear a stiff plastic collar for the next 8 weeks, until after I was discharged, really.
So your biker was really lightly injured on the scale of things. Over 40 years later I still get odd crunchy noises in my neck when I turn my head. And stiff necks at times… glad your event was on a nice evening, as opposed to a winter thunderstorm.
Oh, and the guy who hit me, he was a college student, and his dad was a big shot lawyer, I didn’t even get the value of the shattered bike back! I did still have my faculties, mostly, ask anyone!
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Amir Khalid: LAX is pretty compact as modern airports go. The main problem is it’s built up around it and getting folk in and out of the place is a nightmare.
SectionH
@Amir Khalid: LAX is not “too big.” It sucks for international incoming, to this day. That’s their moronity. Although I will also say, it depends on the airline sometimes.
No one who flies a lot gives a shit about those sorts of statistics. I hate Or from LAX, but transferring there is tolerable if you have a decent airline.
Dubai? Emirates? I wouldn’t let anyone I care about book on Emirates now. Can you say Pilot fatigue? Pilot turnover? Catastrophe in the works.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@SectionH: LAX was originally built way out in the country, nothing was there. It was one of the first airports that expanded and was redesigned for the jet age in the late 50’s. I’ve arrived from overseas at LAX and haven’t had too many problems, however my last flight from overseas(Tahiti) was in 2000. That said, I avoid LAX at all costs and usually will pay extra to fly out of Burbank(it has it’s own issues).
ETA: Most of the airports in the LA area were originally built out in the middle of no-where, but the city has engulfed them. NIMBY really constrains many plans to improve all of them.
Amir Khalid
@SectionH:
The Tom Bradley Terminal is indeed an unpleasant place for an international arrival. I remember once going for a long bus ride* to another terminal building for an already delayed connecting flight to Las Vegas, only to find out we’d been sent to the wrong building and had to wait another hour or so. I remember O’Hare as a much more pleasant place.
* Well, it certainly felt long.
SectionH
@?BillinGlendaleCA: I wasn’t dissing LAX, srsly. I think I still know most of the secret ways around most of the traffic to get in there. And which lanes to be in to get to the terminal we need… FSM knows I’ve done that often enough. Don’t we wish everybody did!
You’re right, international arrivals can be srsly sucky. I’ve only done half a dozen or so there since 1999. We usually stop over somewhere in Haiwai’i, so we have to clear there.
Burbank? Ah, man. I spent so many Thanksgiving “holidays” working my ass off at the Hilton almost across the street from that airport. Loscon. Did fly out of there once, WN to Portland maybe. And back. So I can say I have flown Southwest. It was ok. So long ago that they still had the excellent train-like seats in the back of the plane that faced the back.
SectionH
@Amir Khalid: Orchard Field? Oh no…
Pleasant and O’Hare do not inhabit the same plane of reality in my mind. Still, I believe you because, you. You were a very lucky man then. I used to fly through ORD when I was a kid in college. It sucked then. Then UA thought they owned it, and it got uglier.
Sorry about Bradley. I totally agree about the general shit. It sucks to this day. I said that above. I will still say that some airlines try to make it less horrible. That’s all.
SectionH
@Amir Khalid: *it probably was long. ;->
and with that, Good Night and Good Luck to us all.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Amir Khalid:
You must have gotten lucky. As far as a long bus ride to another terminal, the only time I’ve had that is when we deplaned at the remote(and it’s really remote) terminal by the ocean(I think we were coming back from Paris). I think they only use that if there aren’t any open gates at Bradley*.
@SectionH: No problem dissing LAX, I avoid the place. The only time I’ll fly in or out of LAX is if there’s not another choice(International). The only other airports I’ve been through customs are JFK(but that was in the late 70’s) and DFW in 2002 and they made LAX look good.
*One night I was walking from my office to the Bonaventure Hotel next door and saw the rather imposing black gentlemen in suits following me out of the corner of my eye. I looked back again and noticed that one of them was Mayor Bradley. He was a very big guy.
daveNYC
@Adam L Silverman:
Or they let him go and kill his ass when he gets to Beirut. The Saudi plan, as much as they actually have a plan, requires Lebanon going to shit. With either Hezbollah starting shit or someone moving against them, and then the whole thing gets violent and Israel drops some bombs, Hezbollah starts lobbing rockets and finally the USA gets suckered into the situation. Taking out Hariri while he’s in Beirut is something that could be pinned on Hezbollah, or at least it could have been if KSA hadn’t spent the last week at maximum derp.
This whole thing is basically KSA trying to set up a ‘lets you and him fight’ between the USA and Iran, and this MBS clown seems the doubling-down type of guy.
SectionH
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Wow! Bradley… That’s v. cool. I’d tell you the Mayor of Yokohama story, but it’s a bit complicated. Well, mayors, right? Some other evening.
Just one more canuck
@dr. bloor: the little known first draft of Pride and Prejudice
sdhays
@Amir Khalid: Presumably under a normal administration, even Republican, MBS wouldn’t also be taking Lebanese leaders hostage. The internal stuff may have happened anyway, but this stuff with Hariri crosses a line from “internal Saudi matter and not really any of our business, officially” to “crime syndicate destabilizing an already unstable region”.
Caravelle
I’ve been listening to this a bit on French national radio and their take is that everything is A-OK – they seem to be regurgitating the French foreign ministry’s lines as gospel, which I shouldn’t be surprised by since it’s a thing they do but the apparent total lack of critical thinking still struck me. And I don’t get why the foreign ministry is taking that line in the first place.
Cheryl Rofer
Adam, here’s a thread on the video from a commentator I frequently don’t agree with. It was retweeted by Laura Rozen, whose judgment I respect. I have no idea what is going on in all this. It would have seemed to me plenty for a country that is already in a major war in Yemen to have had a purge, without trying to start a war somewhere else. That MBS is overreaching and being dumb seems the best explanation.
The US has done something. Trump, who believes that he alone can handle foreign relations and needs no State Department, has touched the orb and given Saudi Arabia a free hand, because they projected his photo on his hotel. He is doing something similar now, yukking it up with Duterte in the Philippines. Trump dispatched his princeling to yuk it up with MBS.
So here we are.
Joey Maloney
@Comrade Colette Collaboratrice: One late afternoon I was turning left with the sun in my eyes and almost ran right over a bicyclist crossing the intersection in the other direction. It shook me badly. I ride both bicycles and motorcycles so I’m super-watchful behind the wheel, but he was completely invisible to me, lost in the glare and then there he was, almost on my hood.
I took the rider’s middle finger gratefully, happy that he was able to flip me off and continue on his way.
Fair Economist
@mai naem mobile:
The economics of resource extraction make it very difficult to develop industry. It’s referred to as the “Dutch disease” due to problems the Netherlands developed after a major gas find in 1959.
Incidentally, they did develop water technology. They pumped all the water out of the aquifers and the old oases have pretty much all dried up. Sometimes these interventions make things even worse.
Gretchen
All I can think of when I read this is that Jared Kushner was there a few weeks ago, up all night planning. Who knew that two princelings who inherited great wealth and think they’re brilliant and earned it, could screw things up?
Chris
So basically, they want to restart the Lebanese Civil War.
That sounds like them.
Ken
@Comrade Colette Collaboratrice:
Actually, it makes you sound like a normal compassionate person.
It’s just that those voices aren’t being heard so much these days, what with the press’ fascination with Trump voters, which are neither.
Mike G
Arresting Saudi princes for corruption is like giving speeding tickets at the Indy 500.
catclub
@Amir Khalid: I think yes. Forcefully telling the Saudis that we will NOT back them in attempts to go to war in Lebanon
would be bracing. Telling them we will help Iraq shoot down any planes that cross Iraq toward Lebanon would also be bracing. Dropping support for their bombing in Yemen.
Now the only thing I am amazed at: Saudis shot down a ballistic missile. Isn’t that a big deal – if it really happened?
catclub
@Mike G: But if you seize their bank accounts it is like removing the tires on those Indy cars.
No One You Know
@Comrade Colette Collaboratrice: Just because you were in the car doesn’t make you wrong.
Cyclists are vehicles. It’s scary, yes, but she survived.