{"id":53040,"date":"2015-01-26T12:00:55","date_gmt":"2015-01-26T12:00:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=53040"},"modified":"2015-05-05T21:26:10","modified_gmt":"2015-05-05T20:26:10","slug":"saudi-arabias-tyrant-king-misremembered-as-man-of-peace","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2015\/01\/saudi-arabias-tyrant-king-misremembered-as-man-of-peace\/","title":{"rendered":"Saudi Arabia\u2019s Tyrant King Misremembered as Man of Peace"},"content":{"rendered":"

23 Jan 2015 – <\/em>After nearly 20 years as de facto<\/em> ruler of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, King Abdullah ibn-Abdulaziz al-Saud died last night at the age of 90. Abdullah, who took power after his predecessor King Fahd suffered a stroke in 1995, ruled as absolute monarch of a country which protected American interests but also sowed strife and extremism throughout the Middle East and the world.<\/p>\n

In a statement<\/a> last night Senator John McCain eulogized Abdullah as \u201ca vocal advocate for peace, speaking out against violence in the Middle East\u201d. John Kerry described the late monarch<\/a> as \u201ca brave partner in fighting violent extremism\u201d and \u201ca proponent of peace\u201d. Not to be outdone, Vice President Joe Biden released a statement<\/a> mourning Abdullah and announced<\/a>\u00a0that he would be personally leading a presidential delegation to offer condolences on his passing.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not often that the unelected leader of a country which publicly flogs dissidents<\/a> and beheads people for sorcery<\/a> wins such glowing praise from American officials. Even more perplexing, perhaps, have been the fawning obituaries<\/a> in the mainstream press which have faithfully echoed this characterization of Abdullah as a benign and well-intentioned man of peace.<\/p>\n

Tiptoeing around his brutal dictatorship, The Washington Post<\/em> characterized Abdullah as a \u201cwily king\u201d while The New York Times<\/em> inexplicably referred to him<\/a> as \u201ca force of moderation\u201d, while also\u00a0suggesting\u00a0that evidence of\u00a0his moderation included having had:\u00a0\u201chundreds of militants arrested and some beheaded<\/strong>\u201d.\u00a0(emphasis added)<\/p>\n

While granting that Abdullah might be considered a relative moderate within the brazenly anachronistic House of Saud, the fact remains that he presided for two decades over a regime which engaged in wanton human rights abuses, instrumentalized religious chauvinism, and played a hugely\u00a0counterrevolutionary role in regional politics.<\/p>\n

Above all, he was not a leader who shied\u00a0away from both calling\u00a0for and engineering more conflict\u00a0in the Middle East.<\/p>\n

In contrast to\u00a0Senator McCain\u2019s description of Abdullah\u00a0as \u201ca vocal advocate of peace\u201d, a State Department diplomatic cable released by Wikileaks revealed<\/a>\u00a0him in fact directly advocating for the United States to start more<\/em> wars in the region.<\/p>\n

In a quote recorded in\u00a0a 2008 diplomatic cable, Abdullah exhorted American officials to \u201ccut the head off the snake\u201d by launching fresh military action against Iran. Notably, this\u00a0war advocacy came in the midst of the still-ongoing bloodshed of the Iraq War, which had apparently left him unfazed about the prospect\u00a0of a further escalation in regional warfare.<\/p>\n

Abdullah\u2019s government also waged hugely destructive proxy conflicts wherever direct American intervention on its behalf was not forthcoming. Indeed, in the case of almost every Arab Spring uprising, Saudi Arabia attempted to intervene forcefully in order to either shore up existing regimes or shape revolutions to conform with their own interests.<\/p>\n

In Bahrain, Saudi forces intervened to crush a popular uprising<\/a> which had threatened the rule of the ruling al-Khalifa monarchy, while in Syria Saudi-backed factions<\/a> have helped turn what was once a popular democratic uprising into a bloody, intractable proxy war between regional rivals which\u00a0is now a main driver of extremism in the Middle East.<\/p>\n

Saudi efforts at counterrevolution and co-optation under Abdullah\u00a0took more\u00a0obliquely\u00a0brutal forms as well.<\/p>\n

In the midst of the 2011 revolution in Egypt, when seemingly the entire world was rallying in support of the protestors in Tahrir Square, King Abdullah stood resolutely and unapologetically on the side of Hosni Mubarak\u2019s regime. When it seemed like Mubarak was wavering in the face of massive popular protests, the king offered to step in with economic aid<\/a> for his government and demanded that President Obama ensure he not be \u201ccast aside<\/a>\u201d.<\/p>\n

A few years later when the pendulum swung back towards dictatorship after General Abdelfattah al Sisi\u2019s bloody 2013 coup, Abdullah and his fellow monarchs were there to lavish much needed financial assistance<\/a> upon the new regime. This support came\u00a0with the endorsement\u00a0of Sisi\u2019s unrelentingly brutal crackdown on Egypt\u2019s former revolutionaries.<\/p>\n

With increasingly disastrous consequences, Abdullah\u2019s government also employed sectarianism<\/a> as a force to help divide-and-conquer regional populations and insulate his own government from the threat of uprising. It also cynically utilized its\u00a0official\u00a0religious authorities<\/a>\u00a0to try and\u00a0equate political dissent with sinfulness.<\/p>\n

This ostentatiously reckless behavior nevertheless seemed to win Abdullah\u2019s\u00a0regime\u00a0the tacit approval of the American government, which steadfastly continued to treat him as a partner in fighting terrorism and maintaining regional stability.<\/p>\n

Despite recent tensions over American policy towards Iran and Syria, Saudi under King Abdullah played a vital role in U.S. counterterrorism operations. The country quietly hosts a CIA drone base<\/a> used for conducting strikes into Yemen, including the strike believed to have killed American-born preacher Anwar al-Awlaki.\u00a0More controversially, Abdullah\u2019s government is also believed to have provided extensive logistical support<\/a> for American military operations during the invasion of Iraq; an uncomfortable fact which the kingdom has understandably tried to keep quiet with its own population.<\/p>\n

Perhaps most importantly however,\u00a0King Abdullah upheld\u00a0the economic cornerstones of America\u2019s long and fateful alliance with Saudi Arabia: arms purchases and the maintenance of\u00a0a reliable flow of oil from the country to global markets. The one Saudi king who in past failed to hold up part of this agreement met with an untimely end<\/a>, and was seemingly on less positive terms<\/a>\u00a0with American government officials.<\/p>\n

Given the foundations upon which American-Saudi ties rest, it\u2019s unlikely that the relationship will be drastically altered by the passing of King Abdullah and the succession of his brother Prince Salman. Regardless of how venal, reckless, or brutal his government may choose to be, as long as it protects American interests in the Middle East it will inevitably be showered with plaudits and support, just as its predecessor was.<\/p>\n

_________________________<\/p>\n

Email the author: murtaza.hussain@theintercept.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 firstlook.org<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s not often that the unelected leader of a country which publicly flogs dissidents and beheads people for sorcery wins such glowing praise from American officials and the Western press.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-53040","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-middle-east-north-africa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53040","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53040"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53040\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53040"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53040"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53040"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}