The
Guardian has been struggling to stop itself from hyperventilating over
Saudi Arabia's effective new ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (or
MBS). He's apparently a "reformist" and
"moderniser" who is going to liberate women by letting them drive and
has been conducting a mass round-up of his cousins in what everyone is
pretending is a "corruption purge" (as though the Saudi system is not
rotten with corruption from top to bottom).
But MBS's latest offer to Saudi royals, that they can free themselves
from their confinement in five-star hotels by handing over 70 per cent
of their ill-gotten gains, raises questions the Guardian and others are
not addressing. (Let's set aside the temptation to offer this as an
intriguing wealth redistribution model for own royals and bankers).
The question we should be asking is why does MBS need to fill his
coffers with all this royal money now? Is it to pay off debts incurred
by his devastating war on Yemen, which the UK and US have been helping
him with? Is it to bribe Trump with promises of more arms deals to prop
up the failing US economy? Is it perhaps to create a war chest for the
Saudis' widely predicted efforts to engineer a confrontation with
Hizbollah in Lebanon, revive its campaign against Assad in Syria, or
take on Iran in some other theatre? Or something else?
It would
be good to see the corporate media starting to deal with real-world
politics rather the world of illusions it prefers to distract us with.
The Ritz-Carlton hotel in Riyadh, where many of those arrested are being held.
Photograph: Giuseppe Cacace/AFP/Getty Images
