{"id":4740,"date":"2016-08-22T21:24:34","date_gmt":"2016-08-23T02:24:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/?p=4740"},"modified":"2016-08-22T21:24:34","modified_gmt":"2016-08-23T02:24:34","slug":"saudi-arabian-politics-ctd","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/2016\/08\/22\/saudi-arabian-politics-ctd\/","title":{"rendered":"Saudi Arabian Politics, Ctd"},"content":{"rendered":"

Adding to the swirl of Saudi Arabian politics are concerns about the impending American Presidential election, as Bruce Riedel reports<\/a> in AL Monitor<\/strong><\/em>:<\/p>\n

Trump is a scary unknown for the Saudis.\u00a0His vitriolic anti-Muslim rhetoric and tough talk about countries that preach radical Islam is seen as a threat.\u00a0They noticed that in his foreign policy speech last week, Saudi Arabia was not included in the list of friends of America (Trump listed Israel, Egypt and Jordan but none of the Gulf states).\u00a0He did talk about how poor Saudi visa vetting let al-Qaeda extremists into the United States before\u00a09\/11.<\/p>\n

Trump promises to tear up the Iran deal but he seems to be in cahoots with Russian President\u00a0Vladimir Putin.\u00a0He has no foreign policy experience<\/a> and his advisers aren’t known for their expertise on the Gulf.\u00a0Trump has also said that the United States should have kept Iraq’s oil wealth after the 2003 invasion, a very alarming precedent for the kingdom.<\/p>\n

Clinton, as secretary of state,\u00a0is a well-known figure in Riyadh.\u00a0The Saudis\u00a0are much more comfortable with her and her advisers, and\u00a0have a long history with the Clintons.\u00a0They were extremely disappointed that Bill didn’t press Israel harder and tougher in 2000 to resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict when they thought he would.\u00a0Instead, he blamed the Palestinians.<\/p>\n

Clinton sought to advance political reform in Bahrain during the Arab Spring, which helped prompt the Saudi intervention on the island.\u00a0She was part of the Obama team that dumped Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.\u00a0She backed the Iran deal. Riyadh expects a Clinton White House to be a continuation of Obama, whom they soured on years ago.\u00a0Continuity is not what the Saudis are hoping\u00a0for in US policy.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So the Saudi royal family is rather gloomy – neither candidate looks sympathetic to their concerns. Which are …<\/p>\n

Riyadh sees the ever closer relations between Iran, Russia, Syria, Hezbollah and Shiite\u00a0Iraqis as a fundamental shift in the strategic environment in the Middle East.\u00a0One Saudi commentator with close\u00a0connections to the royal family labeled the Russian\u00a0deployment a strategic “shock” that demonstrates how badly the United States underestimated Iranian and Russian aggressive intentions.<\/p>\n

The Saudis always feared the Iran nuclear deal would end Tehran’s pariah status and give it more strategic options.\u00a0Saudi efforts to buy off Moscow have been a failure. …<\/p>\n

Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir is a veteran America watcher.\u00a0Crown Prince Mohammed bin Nayef is the most pro-American prince since King Fahd. As defense minister, Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has sought to reassure Washington that he is ready for prime time despite his inexperience.\u00a0Riyadh has bought over $110 billion in arms from Obama.\u00a0But there is no confidence in the Saudi leadership about the future of American leadership.\u00a0Meanwhile, Putin and Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei are growing closer.\u00a0Saudi paranoia about Iran is exaggerated but nonetheless a reality unlikely to change.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Adding to the swirl of Saudi Arabian politics are concerns about the impending American Presidential election, as Bruce Riedel reports in AL Monitor: Trump is a scary unknown for the Saudis.\u00a0His vitriolic anti-Muslim rhetoric and tough talk about countries that preach radical Islam is seen as a threat.\u00a0They noticed that \u2026 Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4740","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4740","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4740"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4740\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4741,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4740\/revisions\/4741"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4740"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4740"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4740"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}