Prince Mohammed bin Salman: Naive, arrogant Saudi prince is playing with fire

[bemildred]

At the end of last year the BND, the German intelligence agency, published a remarkable one-and-a-half-page memo saying that Saudi Arabia had adopted “an impulsive policy of intervention”. It portrayed Saudi defence minister and Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman – the powerful 29-year-old favourite son of the ageing King Salman, who is suffering from dementia – as a political gambler who is destabilising the Arab world through proxy wars in Yemen and Syria.

Spy agencies do not normally hand out such politically explosive documents to the press criticising the leadership of a close and powerful ally such as Saudi Arabia. It is a measure of the concern in the BND that the memo should have been so openly and widely distributed. The agency was swiftly slapped down by the German foreign ministry after official Saudi protests, but the BND’s warning was a sign of growing fears that Saudi Arabia has become an unpredictable wild card. One former minister from the Middle East, who wanted to remain anonymous, said: “In the past the Saudis generally tried to keep their options open and were cautions, even when they were trying to get rid of some government they did not like.”

The BND report made surprisingly little impact outside Germany at the time. This may have been because its publication on 2 December came three weeks after the Paris massacre on 13 November, when governments and media across the world were still absorbed by the threat posed by Islamic State (IS) and how it could best be combatted. In Britain there was the debate on the RAF joining the air war against IS in Syria, and soon after in the US there were the killings by a pro-IS couple in San Bernardino, California.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/prince-mohammed-bin-salman-naive-arrogant-saudi-prince-is-playing-with-fire-a6804481.html

[EdwardBernays]

1. Germany

looks at Yemen and sees another Syria/Iraq, and unlike the US and the UK feels a sense of responsibility - at least to a degree - for these civilian populations... but they ALSO know that they are at capacity... and their Europeans counterparts are typically much less willing to take refugees than they are... so they're saying... hey world, maybe now if the time to stop creating millions of new refugees...

It's not surprising that the main drivers of Yemen are three countries whose populations have given their government leave to ignore refugees: the US, the UK and Saudi Arabia; great at making refugees, but crap at dealing with them once they exist.

[bemildred]

2. I must say the Saudis fondness for terrorist failed states right next door to them is surprising.

But I expect they will regret it, in fact they already regret it.

The Turks too have shown a surprising affection for terrorist failed states right next door.

I think the internal politics of the House of Saud must be something.

[Jesus Malverde]

3. Houthis in their flip flops

Eating them for lunch...