Gang showdown in Riyadh

The very predictable end of the oil age - testified by the rising of Elon Musk’s "green" projects - and the disastrous outcome of proxy wars in Iraq and Syria are shaking the oligarchic kingdom of Saudi Arabia. More than a kingdom, the expression that better describes Saudi Arabia seems the “holding of gangs,” spanning from the corrupted interests of brigades of princes and dark businessmen, to some Wahhabi foundations who are particularly friendly with the so-called "Islamic State" and Boko Haram. The arrest of dozens of royal figures, ministers and businessmen is only the beginning of an anti-corruption drive, said the Saudi attorney general. The official narrative of a "wipe out" of wrong-doers in the Arabian peninsula received the official certification of U.S. President Donald Trump, who backed the move of Saudi authorities. Hence, the narrative is that bad guys in Saudi Arabia are at the end stop.

Think again. Maybe we can read yet another story behind the scene. This story tells of course about the unpresentable face of the Saudi leadership, but even about large economic interests at stake.

A famous Italian novelist of the early 20th century, Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, in his masterpiece "The Leopard", offered an interesting morale of "Changing things so everything stays the same." We just have to change this sentence a bit: "Changing things so everything stays the same until business is over." What kind of business? Arms, among others. Just a brief example: British arms companies have earned over six billion pounds from weapons business with Riyadh during the ongoing war conflict in Yemen. "War Child UK," a British charity organization, claimed that the actual revenue from the deal with Riyadh is several times higher for British companies, including BAE Systems, and that they are profiteering off "the death of innocent children, selling missiles and equipment to the Saudi-led coalition." Basically, London has gained ten times more from selling arms than providing humanitarian aid to Yemen. Even Washington signed off their largest arms deal with the Saudis during the period of Bush junior, then the deal was inherited by Obama, then passed on to Trump; several billion US dollars’ worth of weapons that the Saudi Army does not know how to properly use. Riyadh has one of the less efficient and combative army of the Arab world, but it is equipped with plenty of expensive, and deadly, "toys." So the Saudi Arabian regime cannot collapse before their business is over. It needs a revamping at least until the swap is accomplished.

"I have great confidence in King Salman and the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, they know exactly what they are doing," read a Trump tweet. It looks like a White House certification of the operation. Sheikh Saud al-Mojeb issued a statement describing the detentions as "merely the start of a vital process to root out corruption wherever it exists. The arrest of dozens of Saudi royal figures, ministers and businessmen is just the start of an anti-corruption drive.” However, one killing (resisting arrest) and one air crash occurred during the detention operations that appears as a way to purge embarrassing witnesses (of past dark businesses) or players of the “terrorism game” such as some Wahhabi foundations, businessmen or member of the royal family. The latter all had a role in funding the so-called “Islamic State” and Boko Haram, and in training and supporting "insurgents" in Iraq. Some of them were deeply involved in the U.S. economy, stock holders of primary U.S. companies, meanwhile funding insurgents who fight against the U.S. military and civilians in Iraq. An immoral situation that cannot last longer even in the most cynical "gang" that needs the support of the public opinion to hold the power.

An interesting point that would be worth monitoring is to see if the UK’s role of shadow global strategist for U.S. foreign policy got to an end. There are several signs about it. The British skill to deal with global hegemony matters, inherited from the Great Kingdom age, is no longer fitted for today’s complexity. The British approach to the Muslim world does not work anymore. Political cynicism could work under the pressure of economic and military power, but not when you have to deal with complex environments where you have to work more through consensus and cultural persuasion than by using "brutal" force. Realpolitik needs to be reshaped to avoid rage, riots and instability. And it needs new players and better rules. Crown Prince Mohammad bin Sultan is useful for this task.

Meanwhile, even the Saudi-Israel axis is on the road again, and Lebanese stability could be the target. It could be an unintended result of the "Riyadh operation." Saudi Arabia wants to stop the Iranian influence in the last available "battlefield": Lebanon. Israel wants to get rid of Hezbollah. If these two interests succeed in a joint project, Lebanon will most likely be reduced to rubble again. And the countdown has already started.

Lebanese PM Saad Hariri was called back by his Saudi sponsor in Riyadh just a few hours after he did his job as Lebanese Prime Minister, meeting a foreign envoy in Beirut. The problem was that the "envoy" was the Iranian Ali Akbar Velayati, very close to Ayatollah Khamenei. Hezbollah now shares power in Beirut and its primary ally, Gen. Michel Aoun (a Christian), is the president of Lebanon as a result of a complex balance of powers. In this situation, the main responsibility for any political force is to provide answers to the people they rule (jobs, stability, social needs) -- not plan a war against Israel and its mighty military apparatus. It doesn't make any sense. So we have to hope that seismic changes, unprecedented in Saudi Arabia’s long history as a nation - sponsored by the UK and then by the U.S. - will not spin off some deadly outcomes somewhere in the Middle East (or South West Asia, according to a new denomination).

What is real and what is fake in the Riyadh change? Just to give a few examples. The Crown prince announced the choice to allow women to drive in the Saudi kingdom. But this news is something periodically prompted on Western media with an attachment "from next year." It looks more the job of a good PR firm than a real change. Instead, good news should be the change in religious supremacism stance backed by Riyadh around the world. A policy that bogged down any reformism in Islam, any contextualization of religion to deal with modernity and make Islam a powerful mean to promote peace and prosperity in the world. A policy that pushed forward very harsh rules in some Muslim countries where several brilliant theologists and philosophers were jailed or hanged, with the blessing of Riyadh, just because their thinking was not aligned with the supremacist ideology of Wahhabism (of note, most of Daesh members are Wahhabi). Supremacism supports and promotes a literalistic interpretation of Islam that has brought to fragmentation, making it easier for ultra-fundamentalism to spin off and resulting in a "politically" weaker Islam. Perhaps this last outcome was intended by Riyadh’s old sponsor.

We shall wait and see what it is going to happen in the Gulf state after the big purge.