Many people around the world have a firm belief that Saudi Arabia is an American colony, or vassal state. This belief is so far off the mark, that we have to correct this, and clarify the issue for the millions out there that this is not so. To understand the present it is important to know the past. So, in order to get to the truth, one has to start right at the beginning. Firstly, in this case, what led to the formation of the state of Saudi Arabia? Before we proceed, one has to admit several undeniable facts – not assumptions!

These are that Saudi Arabia is the home base of Islam- the only religion or way of life acceptable in the eyes of our Creator. Second, Saudi Arabia is the geographical center of the world. Thirdly, it is the nexus of three continents – Africa, Europe, and Asia. Finally, it has the largest reserves of oil in the world – exceeding some 1 trillion barrels. Even this figure is an understatement.  Saudi Arabia political map.

The Beginning

The emergence of what was to become the Saudi royal family, known as the Al Saud, began in Nejd in central Arabia in 1744, when Muhammad bin Saud, founder of the dynasty, joined forces with the religious leader Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab founder of the Wahhabi movement, a strict puritanical form of Sunni Islam^.  This alliance formed in the 18th century provided the ideological impetus to Saudi expansion and remains the basis of Saudi Arabian dynastic rule today.

The first “Saudi state” established in 1744 in the area around Riyadh, rapidly expanded and briefly controlled most of the present-day territory of Saudi Arabia sacking Karbala in 1802 and capturing Mecca in 1803, but was destroyed by 1818 by the Ottoman viceroy of Egypt, Mohammed Ali Pasha. A much smaller second “Saudi state”, located mainly in Nejd, was established in 1824. Throughout the rest of the 19th century, the Al Saud contested control of the interior of what was to become Saudi Arabia with another Arabian ruling family, the Al Rashid. By 1891, the Al Rashid were victorious, and the Al Saud were driven into exile in Kuwait.

At the beginning of the 20th century, the Ottoman Empire continued to control or have a suzerainty over most of the peninsula. Subject to this suzerainty, Arabia was ruled by a patchwork of tribal rulers, with the Sharif of Mecca having pre-eminence and ruling the Hejaz. In 1902, Abdul Rahman’s son, Abdul Aziz—later to be known as Ibn Saud—recaptured control of Riyadh bringing the Al Saud back to Nejd. Ibn Saud gained the support of the Ikhwan, a tribal army inspired by Wahhabism and led by Faisal Al-Dawish, and which had grown quickly after its foundation in 1912.

With the aid of the Ikhwan, Ibn Saud captured Al-Ahsa from the Ottomans in 1913. In 1916, with the encouragement and support of Britain (which was fighting the Ottomans in World War I), the Sharif of Mecca, Hussein bin Ali, led a pan-Arab revolt against the Ottoman Empire to create a united Arab state^. Although the Arab Revolt of 1916 to 1918 failed in its objective, the Allied victory in World War I resulted in the end of Ottoman suzerainty and control in Arabia. Ibn Saud avoided involvement in the Arab Revolt, and instead continued his struggle with the Al Rashid.

Following the latter’s final defeat, he took the title Sultan of Nejd in 1921. With the help of the Ikhwan, the Hejaz was conquered in 1924–25 and on 10 January 1926, Ibn Saud declared himself King of the Hejaz.^] A year later, he added the title of King of Nejd. For the next five years, he administered the two parts of his dual kingdom as separate units. After the conquest of the Hejaz, the Ikhwan leadership’s objective switched to expansion of the Wahhabist realm into the British protectorates of Transjordan, Iraq and Kuwait, and began raiding those territories. This met with Ibn Saud’s opposition, as he recognized the danger of a direct conflict with the British.

At the same time, the Ikhwan became disenchanted with Ibn Saud’s domestic policies which appeared to favour modernization and the increase in the number of non-Muslim foreigners in the country. As a result, they turned against Ibn Saud and, after a two-year struggle, were defeated in 1929 at the Battle of Sabilla, where their leaders were massacred. In 1932 the two kingdoms of the Hejaz and Nejd were united as the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

Britain Enters the Region

In 1914, the Arabian Peninsula was a part of the Ottoman Empire. The First World War broke out in 1914, and ended in 1918. It was Britain, France, Russia and the US against Germany and the Ottoman Empire. The British were eyeing the Middle East, both for oil reasons and as well as securing Palestine for the Rothshilds. The Rothschild aim was to evict the Ottoman Empire from the Middle East.

A deal was made between London and the ruler of the western Arabian region which contained the two holy cities of Mecca and Medina. The deal was this: “help us get rid of the Turks from Arabia, and we will make you and your sons the ruler of these lands (which included Transjordan, Palestine, Iraq and Arabia)”. Deal done. The Hashemite family was armed and financed by the British (Lawrence of Arabia), and were successful in defeating the Turks.

When the new communist government in Russia revealed the secret agreement between the two branches of the Rothschild family –the British and French – (called the Sykes Picot Agreement) all hell broke loose. The Sykes-Picot plan called for dividing the former Ottoman lands between the British and French, over-riding the British promise to the Sheriff Hussein clan.  The Hashemite ruler questioned London about this. London realized that they had better “re-insure” their hold over Arabia. So Lawrence was sent to the enemy of the Hashemites – Ibn Saud. London then armed and financed Ibn Saud’s military success over his rival clans, such as the Rashid and Hashemite clans. It took 12 years – from 1918 to 1930, to finally overcome these two chief rivals.

1930 – 1950

By 1930, London has made the defeated Hashemite leader and his sons as kings of Jordan and Iraq.  In 1930-31, a minor border dispute between Jordan and Ibn Saud threatened to turn nasty. By now relations between Ibn Saud and London had become chilly. This was due to the new support for the Hashemite leader, as well as British sponsorship of Jewish and Zionist immigration to Palestine, especially in the light of the Balfour declaration of 1917, some 15 years earlier.  When the British threatened to invade Arabia with Hashemite help, Ibn Saud was stumped. At that time, the world was in the grip of the Great Depression, which reduced the income to the state due to a lower influx of pilgrims.

It was at this point that the Americans intervened. The Rockefellers had missed out on the oil riches of the Middle East. In 1908, the British had found oil in Iran, and had brought Iran under its control. In Iraq, the British, in 1927, were forced to give the Rockefeller Group a 40% stake in the Iraq Petroleum Company. Suspecting that there might be oil in the Arabian Peninsula, New York began cultivating its ruler, Ibn Saud. When the British threatened Ibn Saud over the border conflict with Transjordan, the Rockefellers purchased 30,000 gold coins in European cities and sent it to Ibn Saud, along with arms, and the tide began turning in Ibn Saud’s favour. This was the first direct link between the Rockefellers and the Saud family. At this point, Ibn Saud developed an intense dislike for the British.

In 1932, Ibn Saud proclaimed the founding of his country, aptly naming it the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The only country in the world whose constitution is based on divine scripts – the Holy Quran!

By 1932, Ibn Saud controlled almost all of Arabia, except for Yemen, and the smaller coastal states which were then British protectorates (Oman, Kuwait, Bahrein, Aden, etc.). Between Hejaz and Yemen were several tribal regions over which the Ottomans had previously held weak suzerainty, and which both Ibn Saud and the Imam of Yemen now aspired to control.

The First Yemen Conflict

In 1923, Emir Idrissi, the ruler of the Emirate of Asir, maintained an uneasy independence between Nejd, Hejaz and Yemen. He was at peace with his traditional rivals in Hejaz, but in dispute with Imam Yahya of Yemen, to the south of Asir. The area controlled by the independent Idrisi emirate fluctuated during the ten years of its independent existence.

In 1926, the tribal ruler of Asir assented to Saudi suzerainty, and in 1930 it was incorporated into the Nejd and Hejaz Kingdom.

The war started when the new Saudi kingdom started growing at the cost of Yemeni-controlled areas, also known as Greater Yemen (Yemen proper and its three self-ruled Yemeni provinces: Al-Baha, Asir, Jazan and Najran).

The war was sparked when Emir Idrissi of Jizan and Abu Arish recanted his previous temporary allegiance to Ibn Saud and fled to Yemen to join Imam Yahya Muhammad Hamid ed-Din, the King of Yemen.

A treaty was made in 1931 but soon broken. In November 1933, the Yemenis advanced on Najran.

A peace delegation sent by ibn Saud was jailed by King Yahya including the son of the Saudi king.^] This was the day when King Yahya famously said: “Who is this bedouin coming to challenge my family’s 900-year rule?” The king of Yemen then sent the Idrissi back to his lands with an army. London was upset at Ibn Saud, and having lost in the north, Britain made sure that Saudi Arabia would not be able to incorporate Yemen into its territory. In short, Britain stopped the advance of Saudi Arabia to the south.

So, Ibn Saud was accumulating a list of grievances he had with the British. There were several; The Balfour Declaration, the Jordan-Saudi border issue, and Yemen, plus the increasing numbers of Jews arriving in Palestine. Ibn Saud found succour when the Rockefeller Empire stepped in to help him. Since adopting the Holy Quran as his country’s constitution, Ibn Saud used a verse from the Quran to guide his attitude to the British – ruled by the Rothschild family, as the Zionists’ premier family. The verse is from chapter 5, verse 82: “You will surely find the most intense of people in animosity towards the believers to be the Jews – and you will find the nearest of them in affection to the believers those who say ‘we are Christians’”.

In February 1934, at the start of the war, the Yemen Government and the British representative in Aden made a “treaty of friendship”, which resolved some of the disputes between Yemen and Britain over Aden and the border between Yemen and the Aden Protectorate, and under which the British guaranteed the independence of Yemen for forty years. The Imam agreed to stop attacking Aden. At this point in time, the British had a “treaty of friendship” with both the Saudi and Yemeni sides in the war

In March 1934, King Ibn Saud ordered the Crown Prince of Arabia (later King Saud) “to re-occupy townships in the highlands of Tehama which the Imam of the Yemen has seized”. A communique states that “Ibn Saud has tried all diplomatic means of seeking an agreement, but the Iman has persisted in a policy of oppressing the inhabitants and ‘eradicating’ all who have not surrendered”.

In May 1934, the Saudi forces pressed forward their attack in the coastal region, occupying Hodeida. The Saudi tribesmen threatened to loot the Indian trading businesses in Hodeida, but were dissuaded by the arrival of British sailors to maintain order. Unrest occurred in Sanaa, due to lack of food.

In May 1934, after capturing Hodeida, Saudi forces advanced towards Sanaa, where a battle was expected. The mountains were problematical for their armoured cars and tanks. Neither the British nor Italian forces in the region were expected to intervene. Although the Saudis had better weapons, including tanks, the Yemenis had more experience with mountain warfare.  However, on 14 June 1934 it was reported that a Treaty had been signed between the King and the Imam guaranteeing 20 years of peace.

The Saudi’s relinquished Hodeida and the Yemeni coast, but the other disputed areas were incorporated into Saudi Arabia. Jizan/Jizin, Asir, and Najran are today part of Saudi Arabia.

Discovery of Oil

On January 15, 1902, Ibn Saud took Riyadh from the Rashid tribe. In 1913, his forces captured the province of al-Hasa from the Ottoman Turks. In 1922, he completed his conquest of the Nejd, and in 1925, he conquered the Hijaz. In 1932, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia was proclaimed with Ibn Saud as king.

Without stability in the region, the search for oil would have been difficult, as evidenced by early oil exploration in neighbouring countries such as Yemen and Oman.

Prior to 1938, there were three main factors that triggered the search for oil in Arabia:

• The discovery of oil by the Anglo-Persian Oil Companyat Masjid-i-Sulaiman in the mountains of north-western Iran  in 1908; but the consensus of geological opinion at the time was that there was no oil on the Arabian peninsula, although there were rumours of an oil seepage at Qatif on the eastern seaboard of al-Hasa, the eastern province of Arabia.
• The demand for oil during World War I. It became obvious that oil was going to be a crucial resource in warfare for the foreseeable future. Examples that proved this were “General Gallieni’s commandeering of the Paris taxi fleet to ferry soldiers to the front. This happened when the city seemed about to fall”.  In addition to this, Germany’s shortage of oil supplies hindered their ability to produce aircraft, automobiles, and engines. The allies took advantage of this by producing thousands of vehicles to aid their war effort.

The Onset of The Great Depression

Prior to the depression, a major source of income for the ruler of Hijaz was the taxes paid by pilgrims on their way to the holy cities. After the depression hit, the number of pilgrimages per year fell from 100,000 to below 40,000.  This hurt their economy greatly and they needed to find alternate sources of income. This caused Ibn Saud to get serious about the search for oil.

In 1922, Ibn Saud met a New Zealand mining engineer named Major Frank Holmes.

In 1923, the king signed a concession with Holmes allowing him to search for oil in eastern Saudi Arabia. In 1925, Holmes signed a concession with the sheikh of Bahrain, allowing him to search for oil there. He then proceeded to the United States to find an oil company that might be interested in taking on the concession. He found help from Gulf Oil. In 1927, Gulf Oil took control of the concessions that Holmes made years ago. But Gulf Oil was a partner in the Iraq Petroleum Company, which was jointly owned by Royal Dutch/Shell, Anglo-Persian, the Compagnie Française des Pétroles (which became known as Total), and “the Near East Development Company, representing the interests of the American Rockefeller  companies. The partners had signed up to the “Red Line Agreement” which meant that Gulf Oil was precluded from taking up the Bahrain concession without the consent of the other partners; and they declined. Despite a promising survey in Bahrain, Gulf Oil was forced to transfer its interest to another company, Standard Oil of California (SOCAL), which was not a bound by the Red Line Agreement.

Meanwhile Ibn Saud had dispatched American mining engineer Karl Twitchell to examine eastern Arabia. Twitchell found encouraging signs of oil, asphalt seeps in the vicinity of Qatif, but advised the king to await the outcome of the Bahrain No.1 well before inviting bids for a concession for al-Hasa.

On 31 May 1932, the SOCAL subsidiary, the Bahrain Petroleum Company (BAPCO) struck oil on Bahrain.  The discovery brought fresh impetus to the search for oil on the Arabian Peninsula.

Negotiations for an oil concession for al-Hasa province opened at Jeddah in March, 1933. Twitchell attended with lawyer Lloyd Hamilton on behalf of SOCAL, and was granted the concession on 23 May 1933. Ibn Saud did not want any British/Rothschild companies in his country, in light of what he perceived as British/Zionist hostility to his country. Ibn Saud favored the American oil companies, plus they were Christian.  Soon after the agreement, geologists arrived in al-Hasa and the search for oil was underway.

SOCAL set up a subsidiary company, the California Arabian Standard Oil Company (CASOC) to develop the oil concession. SOCAL also joined forces with the Texas Oil Company when together they formed CALTEX in 1936 to take advantage of the latter’s formidable marketing network in Africa and Asia.

When CASOC geologists surveyed the concession area, they identified a promising site and named it Dammam No. 7, after a nearby village. Over the next three years, the drillers were unsuccessful in making a commercial strike, before the drillers finally struck oil on 3 March 1938.  This discovery would turn out to be first of many, eventually revealing the largest source of crude oil in the world. For the king, oil revenues became a crucial source of wealth since he no longer had to rely on receipts from pilgrimages to Mecca. This Dammam No. 7, the first commercial oil well in Saudi Arabia, struck oil on 4 March 1938. The discovery would alter Middle Eastern political relations forever.

In 1943, the name of the company in control in Saudi Arabia was changed to Arabian American Oil Company (ARAMCO). In addition, numerous changes were made to the original concession after the striking of oil.

In 1950, a fifty-fifty profit-sharing agreement was signed, whereby a tax was levied by the government. This tax considerably increased government revenues. The government continued this trend well into the ‘80s.

Ghawar is the largest single oil field in the world. Discovered in 1948, it has been producing oil at the rate of 5 million bpd since the early 1970s!

1950 – 1975

The Nasser-Saudi Alliance

In 1953, Ibn Saud passed away, and was succeeded by his eldest son Saud as the king of Saudi Arabia, until 1964 when he was deposed in favour of his half-brother Faisal of Saudi Arabia, after an intense rivalry, fuelled by doubts in the royal family over Saud’s competence.

In 1952, the CIA helped Nasser and his group take power in Egypt. The reason was simple. Nasser was a nationalist, and wanted to remove the British from Egypt. The Americans helped Nasser, with the aim of Egypt wresting control of the Suez Canal away from the Rothschilds. In 1956, Israel, France and Britain invaded the Suez Canal area, after Nasser had nationalized it. Under immense American pressure, all three countries withdrew, and both Nasser and the Rockefellers claimed victory.

Nasser offered the Arab world a new vision, an intoxicating blend of nationalism, and set the Middle East alight with pride, ambition and excitement. The Arabs, declared Nasser, was one nation. They had been subdued by the Ottoman Turks, and then divided by the western powers, which created Israel. When Nasser declared the “Arab oil is for the Arabs, and not American, British, or French”, the entire Arab street backed him. When the new king Saud saw Britain create a military pact called CENTO, in 1954, he realized the British were once again ganging up on him. CENTO brought together Britain, Turkey, Jordan, Pakistan and Hashemite-rule Iraq, as threatening because it included Saudi Arabia’s traditional enemies, Britain, the Turks and the Hashemites, he teamed up with Nasser.

In 1955 Saud contracted to have a 200- man Egyptian military mission train the Saudi army. The following year Saud responded to CENTO by joining Egypt and Syria in an alliance. Egyptian teachers and engineers arrived in Saudi Arabia in the thousands. The Arabs love for Nasser was so strong that Nasser’s visit to Riyadh in 1956 produced the largest show of support in its history. Saudi oil money and Egyptian manpower could transform the region.

Saud was not alarmed but the Rockefellers were, and by extension, so was Washington. The big guns were being stacked against Nasser. Nelson and David Rockefeller thought that Nasser was now assuming the role of spoiler to their neatly laid-out plans to assume control of the Middle East’s oil wealth. Nasser had to be stopped. They sent the “prime minister” of their empire, John J McCloy to the region. At that time McCloy was head of the CFR, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the Chase Bank. These were three of the most important institutions within the Rockefeller Empire, and we find McCloy heading all three. That’s why I refer to him as the “prime minister”.

The Rockefeller oil bank, Chase Manhattan had become the personal banker to the Saudi royal family. The Kingdom’s central bank, the Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency, or SAMA, began using Chase as its foreign depository. Oil revenues were rising, reaching $750 m compared to $500,000 only 20 years earlier. Saud was on a spending spree, and was always asking Aramco for advance payments.

When Nasser became popular, Saud began financing Egyptian arms purchases from the Soviet bloc. Closer ties were being forged between China and Saudi Arabia. This, in itself was alarming to the Rockefellers. What followed was even worse. Some of the points of contention between New York and Riyadh were as follows:

1. CIA reports suggested that Saudi money was behind Nasser’s arms purchases and various covert operations in Jordan and Iraq aimed at destabilizing these Hashemite monarchies.
2. The Saudi claim to the Buraymi oasis on their border with the British-controlled UAE had recently resulted in armed clashes with British troops.
3. Saud wanted to transfer one large account from Chase to a Swiss bank, Aramco quickly went to McCloy about this.
4. In 1954, Greek shipowner Ari Onassis and Saud formed a joint venture called the Saudi Maritime Company. This was to carry Saudi oil to markets. Definitely not to the liking of the oil majors.

So these, among other deals, got Washington very worried. And that was one of the main reasons for McCloys journey to the Middle East. Long story short (as space doesn’t permit us to go into the details and more), McCloy sorted out a whole host of these and other issues. The full story of Saudi Arabia’s geopolitics is told in “The Geopolitical Series”, wherein each of the major powers in the world are analysed, such as America, Britain, Russia, China, Turkey, Egypt,  Saudi Arabia, Iran and India.

When war broke out in 1956, with Egypt declaring victory in “the Suez War” ,  of 1956, Saud increased his help to Nasser, and ordered Aramco to cease all sales to Britain and France. The Rockefeller-owned Aramco were only too happy to comply.

But, at heart, King Saud was furious with Nasser. Saud had to plead with Nasser for the safety of the TAPLINE oil pipeline, running from Saudi Arabia to the Mediterranean through Syria.  Iraq had failed to grovel in time and saw her own pipeline blown up. The closure of the Suez Canal, and the oil boycott of Britain and France meant that Saudi Arabia had to suffer a 40% decline in income, at a time when Saud was heavily in debt – and all of this sacrifice was for the greater glory of Nasser.

It was all too much for the considerable pride of King Saud, and towards the end of 1956, he was invited to Washington. The January 1957 trip to Washington was a smashing success for both sides.  The US forgave and forgot the recent differences between Washington and Saud.

The Saud – Nasser Feud

By the spring of 1958 Crown Prince Faisal was watching the behaviour of his eldest brother Saud with mounting dismay. Faisal was the second eldest son. What prompted King Saud’s abdication was his poor knowledge of finance. The country was in debt.  Secondly, was Saud’s bungled Syrian adventure.

In 1957, King Hussein of Jordan, with the help of the CIA, overthrew his pro-Nasser cabinet. America prevailed on King Saud on King Saud to cast aside the historical Saudi-Hashemite enmity, and to support King Hussein. This time Saudi Arabia used money against Nasser, and stationed Saudi troops in Jordan to help stabilize it. It was the first use of Saudi troops in an Arab dispute beyond its borders.

Nasser’s threat to the entire Middle East edifice of the 2 families was anchored in the desire of the Arab people for unity. In 1958 Syria joined Nasser as a junior partner in the union with Egypt. A month later, in March, Yemen also joined this union, and Egypt thus gained a foothold on the Arabian Peninsula. In the Saudi markets, radical Nasserite pamphlets started circulating. Merchants were fleeing the riyal, whose exchange rate against the dollar fell.

That same month, Nasser survived an assassination when his plane was landing in Damascus, and was followed by other assassinations of pro-Nasser figures in Syria. All of this was approved and financed by Saud. Nasser got considerable mileage out of exposing the plot and giving reporters a copy of the $3 m cheque the Saudis paid the Syrian head of intelligence to do the job. Instead of eliminating Nasser, the plot played right into his hands and he convinced the Arab people, including many unhappy Saudis, that King Saud was a Western puppet, and that America was the plot’s real instigator.

The Saudi royal family felt embarrassed, humiliated and threatened. Their leader had scarcely involved them in his decisions, but now his recklessness threatened them all. Saud’s financial policies had brought his country to the brink of bankruptcy, and his bungled Syrian conspiracy had produced the ultimate Arab catastrophe: loss of face.

Arabs can accept defeat with an equanimity known to few other races. Shame is quite another matter. Saud had brought disgrace upon the al-Saud, which stirred the family into prompt action. On the evening of 22 March, 1958, a decision was reached, wherein Saud would remain Kong, but Faisal would take charge of the day-to-day running of the Kingdom. The first thing Faisal did was to focus on financial matters. Within 9 months, the cash balance in the vaults went from 317 riyals to 60m riyals!

In 1964 King Saud abdicated, with Khalid becoming Crown Prince. Nasser was now faced with a united House of Saud, and found a worthy adversary in Faisal. And the first contest between these two took place in Yemen.

King Faisal’s Rule & The Second Yemen War

At this time Yemen was divided into two. The British ruled South Yemen from their massive military port at Aden. North Yemen was under the control of Imam Ahmed. Opposition to Imam Ahmed’s rule was centred in the army. Egypt supported these dissidents, and made several attempts to assassinate the Imam. Nonetheless, the Imam passed away peacefully in September 1962.

His son had hardly taken over the throne when pro-Nasser officers staged a coup and declared a republic. The young Imam escaped to launch a civil war, drawing support from upcountry tribes on the Saudi border, and from the Saudis. The Saudi royal family were terrified by the events in Yemen, seeing them as the first stage in a plot by Nasser to displace them from their own Kingdom.

The war quickly became a big power affair. The Russians immediately began a military airlift out of Cairo to aid the Republicans (who had ousted the young Imam and declared a republic). This was the first time the Soviets had long- range airlift capability, and it made a big difference in this war. When Egyptian Ilyushin’s started dropping bombs on southern Saudi towns, the Ilushins reached their targets without difficulties, as Saudi air defences were non-existent. Soon American fighter jets flew over Riyadh and Jeddah. The Russians did not venture north again.  Britain, Israel and Iran got involved in this war.

Nasser had little hope of turning Yemen into an Egyptian puppet, still less of using Yemen as a springboard for taking over Saudi Arabia. Even with Russian aid, the campaign was extremely costly, and it tied up one third of the Egyptian army – 70,000 troops. The Egyptians were bogged down, despite lavish bombing.

Saudi Arabia invited Pakistani troops to guard the oil fields.  Over time, Faisal grew stronger and Nasser weaker. Nasser was over-extended in Yemen, and against Iraq (after the CIA put Saddam Hussein in power), in Jordan, the Sudan, as well as helping the Algerians in their independence struggle against the French. Russia would not provide him with the financial support he needed but were more than willing to provide him with arms, payable up-front in hard currency.

The Six-Day War – June 1967

Both New York and London were getting fed up with Nasser. This was now Israel’s time to shine.  We are going to skip the machinations of the events that led to this war. Nonetheless, on May 30, 1967, the head of Mossad, Meir Amit was told to go to America to obtain their permission to attack Egypt and Syria. He returned a few days later and met with the key Israeli leadership, and reported to them on his trip. After a long discussion, Amit kept the answer to the most vital question until last: How would Washington react to an Israeli attack on Egypt? Why this was important? Recall the 1956 war, when Israel, Britain and France attacked Egypt over the nationalization of the Suez Canal.  The resulting anger of the Americans knew no bounds.  To avoid a repeat of that was the purpose of Meir Amits trip to Washington.

Amit said simply: “I am given to understand that the Americans (meaning the Rockefeller brothers) would bless us if we were to break Nasser into pieces”. This announcement had a great effect on the assembled group there, that Saturday night, June 3^rd, 1967. A few days later the war broke out, with Israel victorious over Egypt, Jordan and Syria.

The Six Day War marked the beginning of a strategic relationship between America and Israel. As one veteran CIA officer said of the war, “That was the time that the Israelis really proved themselves as a strategic asset”.

A point of note: Whenever the phrase  – “In the national security interests “ of the United States, is said by senior American officials, this is code-speak for what they really mean, which should be taken to read as “for the protection and security of the Rockefeller Empire”; a diplomatic code word. That fact alone was sufficient to ensure that the US and the Rockefeller Empire interests always comes first.  Anyone who dared to suggest, or even make a move towards the Saudi oil fields will first have to contend with the Rockefellers and the power of the American military. Nasser tried and was destroyed.

King Faisal Uses Islam as an Anti-Nasser Move

The heavy hand of the West in the Middle East, Africa and various parts of Latin America and Asia was explained away by the “fight against communism”, when in reality it was a fight against colonialism. The local populations were fighting for economic freedom, and were at heart nationalists, not communists. The Saudis, and other rich Gulf state leaders were not communists at all – it was against their religion and faith. So, this left nationalism, and figures such as Nasser, the ultimate Arab nationalist.

A plan was put into motion to counter both communists and nationalist, and this was Islam! King Faisal, with help from CIA agents attached to Aramco, encouraged the formation of Islamic groups in the oil centre of Dhahran. The then leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, Sayed Kuttub, a man Faisal sponsored to undermine Nasser, openly admitted that during the 1960s, “America made Islam”.

When Nasser threw the Muslim Brotherhood out of Egypt – they were trying to kill him, most of them went to Saudi Arabia. The CIA secretly persuaded the Saudi leadership to help rebuild the banned Muslim Brotherhood, thereby creating a fusion between Islam and Saudi wealth to wield a weapon across the entire Muslim world against feared Soviet incursions. By 1956, Saudi Arabia had become the centre of worldwide Muslim Brotherhood activity.

By 1961 the MB were able to persuade the Saudi King to create the Islamic University of Medina, the majority of whose students came from outside the Kingdom. The vehicle for their worldwide mission was the Muslim World League, headquartered in Mecca, with the Saudi government as the official sponsor. The MWL created offices in the Muslim world, as well as in the West. The alliance of the MB with Saudi wealth was to remain from this time until 2010, when the Saudi monarchy, amid the upheaval of the Arab Spring, began to increasingly fear the MB, who at some point would turn against the Saudi leadership.

Said Ramadan ended up in exile in Switzerland, under the protection of the Swiss government. From his Islamic Centre in Geneva, Ramadan maintained his influence around the world with his fellow Brothers in the aftermath of the murder of his father-in-law, Hassan al Banna, founder-along with British Intelligence – of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Each of these various Islamic organizations spread their influence around the world, mostly supported by the CIA and Saudi wealth. It would only change around 2010.

The Creation of OPEC

Following Prime Minister Mossadeq’s nationalization of BP’s holdings in Iran in 1952, and Nasser’s calls that “Arab oil is for the Arabs”, New York decided to tackle this issue of resource nationalization. A plan was devised to shift the oil resources into the hands of the oil producers, as well as to grant them pricing authority. It required manipulating people and events to ensure that a new oil exporters association would be formed without any proof leading back to New York. Thus, any negative movements in the oil industry would be blamed on the oil exporting countries, and not on the oil majors.

The creation of OPEC was the handiwork of two people; Abdullah Tariki, Saudi Arabia’s first Oil Minister, and Juan Perez Alfonzo, a Venezuelan. Both were fiercely nationalistic and critical of the way the oil majors treated the oil exporting countries. And a third was a lady called Wanda Jablonski. She was the editor of Petroleum Intelligence Weekly, and was the most influential oil journalist of her time. She provided a channel for communication and intelligence in the oil industry’s great years of global expansion. She knew virtually anybody of significance in the oil industry.

In the 1950s, the Soviet oil industry expanded, and Russia was exporting huge volumes of oil to Europe, at a discounted price. This was hurting the profit margins of the oil companies. At that time, the 7 largest oil companies, nicknamed “the Seven Sisters”, dictated the price of oil. Any changes to the oil price were not done in consultation with the oil producers. It was always a unilateral decision.

BP made the first move in early 1959, when it cut the posted price by 10%. Its actions instantly set off a torrent of denunciations from the oil exporters. Juan Alfonzo and Abdullah Tariki were outraged. With the stroke of a pen, a major oil company had unilaterally slashed the national revenues of the oil producers. The exporters were galvanized into action, and called for a meeting.

In April 1959, an Arab Oil Congress met in Cairo. Wanda Jablonski introduced Tariki to Alfonzo. The two men agreed to hold a secret meeting with the representatives of the other major exporters. A Gentleman’s Agreement was signed by Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Kuwait and Iran. By this agreement, these governments would defend the price structure, establish an Oil Ministry, as well as establish national oil companies.

As usual, Wanda Jablonski was near the centre of the action. She had just been the matchmaker for an alliance that would develop into OPEC.

With the oil market in a glut, Exxon, on August 6, 1960, reduced the posted price by 7%. The other companies followed suit. The exporters were furious and they wasted no time. In September 10-14, 1960, they all met in Baghdad, and formed OPEC, and it made its intentions clear: to defend the price of oil. In its early years, OPEC ensured that the Seven Sisters would be cautious about taking any major steps unilaterally, without consultation. And they would not dare cut the posted price again.

The creation of OPEC paved the way for the 1973 oil shock, and the raising of the oil price by 400%. The Seven Sisters laughed all the way to the bank. And OPEC? They took the blame in the eyes of the public! The next step was for these oil exporting countries to assume full ownership of the oil assets in their countries. Between 1968 and 1972, this phase was carried out.  Thus, by October 1973, all the oil exporters had sovereign control of their oil. It was not owned by the oil companies any more.  More on this when we discuss the geopolitics of oil.

In 1972, Saudi Arabia gained a 20% control in Aramco, thereby decreasing US control over Saudi oil. In 1980, Saudi Arabia bought out the American interests in Aramco, and the company became known as Saudi Aramco. That 8-year period gave the Rockefeller owners of Aramco a financial bonanza of between $50bn and $70bn dollars. This would not have been possible had Aramco been fully nationalized in 1972, instead of the 20% stake.

The 1973 Ramadan/Yom Kippur War

This war that broke out in October 1973 was closely tied to the US dollar, and the New York financial powers. We go a bit back in time to get to the cause of this war.

At the end of World War 2, America emerged victorious. She imposed a new set of economic and political rules. These took form in such entities as the UN, the IMF, the World Bank, etc. More importantly, a new financial regimen was created, the Bretton Woods System. This made the US dollar convertible to gold, while all other currencies were linked to the dollar.

This system worked fine until the late 1960s. America was embroiled in the Vietnam War, plus other economic decisions resulted in an outflow of dollars to the rest of the world.  Central banks of these nations took these surplus dollars, to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, and cashed them in for gold. This resulted in a fast- dwindling American gold reserve. It all came to a head when a British financial delegation went to Washington, and demanded gold for their surplus dollars. That Monday 15 August 1971, as per David Rockefeller’s instructions, US President Nixon closed the gold-dollar convertibility window. Now, the dollar was backed by nothing!

From the Gold-Dollar to the Petro-Dollar – The Saltsjobaden Meeting

Between August 1971 and October 1973, the dollar lost about 20% of its value against other major currencies. But, the Rockefeller Empire had a plan to restore the power of the dollar. The design behind the August 1971 demonitisation of the dollar was used by the Rockefellers to buy precious time while policy insiders prepared a bold new monetary design. The design behind Nixon’s August 1971 dollar strategy did not emerge until October 1973, and even then, few persons other than a handful of insiders grasped the connection. The Rockefellers had devised a strategy to create again a strong dollar, thus increasing their relative political power in the world, just when it appeared they were in decline.

In May 1973, with the dramatic fall of the dollar still vivid, a group of 84 of the world’s top financial and political insiders met at Saltjobaden, Sweden, the secluded island resort of the Swedish Wallenberg family (within the Rothschild orbit, just as the Oppenheimer family is in South Africa ). This gathering of David Rockefeller’s Bilderberg Group heard an American participant, Walter Levy outline a “scenario” for an imminent 400% increase in the price of oil. The purpose of this secret meeting was not to prevent the expected oil price shock, but rather to plan how to manage the about to be created flood of oil dollars, a process Kissinger later called “recycling the petrodollar flows”.

What the powerful men grouped around Bilderberg had decided that May was to launch a colossal assault against industrial growth in the world, in order to tilt the balance of power back to the advantage of Anglo-American financial interests (meaning the 2 families) and the dollar. In order to do this, they were determined to use their most prized asset – control of the world’s oil flows. Bilderberg policy was to trigger a global oil embargo, in order to force a dramatic increase in oil prices.

Never in history had such a small circle of interests, centred in London and New York, controlled so much of the world’s economic destiny.

Rockefeller‘s geopolitical thug, Henry Kissinger, spearheaded the next phase of this project.  In short without going into the details, Kissinger orchestrated the entire lead up to the outbreak of the war, including while the war was on.  The result- brilliantly manipulated, was that the price of oil shot up by 400% from its price a year earlier.

The next step was to enforce this “new petro-dollar” system.  The key was Saudi Arabia. As the largest oil producer in OPEC, Saudi Arabia had the clout to get what it wanted.  The plan was for Saudi Arabia to announce that from now on, all oil sales will be priced in dollars, and in no other currency!

The Saudis were resisting, and hesitating. In November 1974, both the Saudi Foreign Minister, Omar Saqqaf and the head of SAMA (Saudi central bank) Anwar Ali went to the US to discuss this issue. Both had instructions not to agree to anything, but to report back to King Faisal first. Because these two Saudi officials were not in agreement with many of the fine points proposed by the Rockefeller people, Nelson Rockefeller made a decision to eliminate them. On November 14, Anwar Ali was found dead in New York’s Waldorf Astoria Hotel. That same day, in Washington, the Saudi Foreign Minister, Omar Saqqaf, was also found dead! It is not a coincidence. The CIA (the Rockefeller’s personal intelligence agency – it was created from taking various parts of the Standard Oil intelligence operations to form the CIA, in 1946/47), are masters at making murders seem like a suicide or a natural death.

In late 1973, the Nixon administration described a plan of attack against Saudi Arabia to seize its oil fields in a classified Joint Intelligence Report entitled “UK Eyes Alpha”. British MI5 and MI6 were informed.  The oil embargo had been over for only three weeks but “Eyes Alpha” suggested that the “US could guarantee sufficient oil supplies for themselves and their allies by taking the oil fields in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and the Gulf State of Abu Dhabi”. It followed that “preemptive” action would be considered, and that two brigades could seize the Saudi oilfields and one brigade each could take Kuwait and Abu Dhabi.

In February of 1975 the London Sunday Times revealed information about this.  The plan, drawn up by the Pentagon, was code named “Dhahran Option Four” and provided for an invasion of the world’s largest oil reserves, namely Saudi Arabia.  See below.

And this was followed in the same month of  February (just before King Faisal’s murder) of the same year by an article in Harper’s Magazine by a Pentagon analyst using a pseudonym, Miles Ignotus, emphasizing the need for the US to seize Saudi oilfields, installations and airports entitled “Seizing Arab Oil”. According to James Akins, former US diplomat, the author was Henry Kissinger, Secretary of State at the time. Kissinger has neither confirmed nor ever denied the charge.

Further, in August of 1975, a report entitled, “Oil Fields as Military Objectives: A Feasibility Study”, was produced for the Committee on Foreign Relations. In this report, the CRS stated that potential targets for the US included Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Venezuela, Libya, and Nigeria. “Analysis indicates … [that military forces of OPEC countries were] quantitatively and qualitatively inferior [and] could be swiftly crushed.”

King Faisal and the Saudi royals got the message – loud and clear! There was no more opposition to David’s Petro-Dollar System! Suddenly, an unwanted currency – the US dollar – became the most sought after currency. Nations need to import oil, and to pay for oil imports, one had to have dollars. What a turnaround for the dollar.

One consequence of the directed recycling of these petrodollars into London and New York was the emergence of American banks as the giants of world banking, paralleling the emergence of their clients, the Seven Sisters oil giants, as giants of world industry. The Anglo-American oil and banking giants so overwhelmed the scale of ordinary enterprise that their power and influence seemed invincible.

Kissinger and David Rockefeller had in effect replaced the old gold exchange standard (controlled by the Rothschilds) of the post-war world with their own “petrodollar” standard, which the Rockefellers controlled.

Kissinger left nothing to chance. David Mulford, heading White Weld & Co’s London Eurodollar operations, was appointed director and principal investment advisor to SAMA, in January 1975.  His job was to guide the Saudi petrodollar investments to the correct banks in London and New York. The Bilderberg scheme was operating just as planned.

The Assassination of King Faisal

In the aftermath of the war, Kissinger initiated his famous “peace shuttle” between Israel, Egypt and Syria. His principal aim was to take Egypt out of the conflict, thus making it easier for Israel to expand, without fear from its most powerful adversary. In February 1975, Kissinger landed in Riyadh to meet with King Faisal, and to persuade the King to give the green light on establishing a separate peace treaty with Egypt first, then with Syria later on (Kissinger had no desire or instructions to do a peace deal with Syria).

Since Omar Saqqaf, the Saudi Foreign Minister was murdered in Washington the previous November; there was no one to receive Kissinger. So, King Faisal sent his Oil Minister Zaki Yamani to meet Kissinger. At the meeting between King Faisal and Kissinger, Yamani explains that Kissinger requested King Faisal’s permission to do a deal with Egypt first, then followed by Syria.  Faisal’s reply was they had both fought Israel together, and a peace deal with them must be done together. When Kissinger kept on pressing Faisal on this issue, Faisal replied, “No, I will oppose that “. Kissinger did not achieve what he wanted. He left empty-handed. On the way back to the airport, Yamani recalls that Kissinger was nervous and biting his nails, all the while muttering, “Now we will not have a second agreement.”

He knew that as long as Faisal opposed the second agreement (a second disengagement agreement between the Israelis and the Egyptians), Egypt would never have signed it over Faisal’s opposition. Then, one month later Faisal was assassinated in his office by a disgruntled nephew, Faisal bin Musaid, who was brainwashed by the CIA, under a program called MK Ultra! And Kissinger got his agreement between Egypt and Israel. So, in a matter of 3 months, the CIA had murdered an Arab King and two of his senior cabinet members.  On Mach 25, 1975, King Faisal was assassinated by his nephew, Faisal ibn Musad. The assassin is condemned to death and promptly decapitated, without having explained his act.

The CIA is always on the lookout for disgruntled members of the Saudi royal family. They could be of some use down the line.  In 1965, Khalid bin Musaid was the son of Musaid ibn Abdul Aziz. He was a playboy, but changed into a more serious young man. Upon returning to the Kongdom, he joined a group of conservative religious people who were not happy about the introduction of TV in the Kingdom. In September 1965 Khalid ibn Musaid led his comrades in an assault on the Riyadh TV station. The police intervened, and the demonstrators retreated to Khalid’s palace, where the prince started firing on the police.

The chief of the security forces General Mohammed Hillal went to tell King Faisal of the trouble. The police could storm the palace quite easily, the general told the king. But there was the risk of bloodshed, and he was not happy at shooting a prince.

King Faisal thought for a minute, and looked up at General Hillal: “It does not matter who the man is, none of us is above the law. If the prince fires at you, then you must fire back.” So, Hillal returned to Khalid’s palace, and when he saw Prince Khalid himself in the act of firing, took careful aim, and shot the king’s nephew dead.

The CIA came to know about this, and began cultivating his brother, Faisal.

Faisal ibn Musaid lived in the US for 10 years, from 1964-1974, and during his studentship at the University of Colorado, to have fallen in love with an actress, Christine Surma, who persuaded him to move to Berkely. There she introduced him to a radical hippy group (a CIA-run outfit, one of many that the CIA had on American universities in the 1960s, adopting the “rock-drugs-counterculture” ), and turned him into an LSD addict. From there, the CIA enrolled Faisal- unwittingly- into a covert drug program called “MK Ultra”. This was a program the CIA had run to create a group of “mind controlled” assets which could be deployed for various purposes.

Before returning to Riyadh in January 1975, he had a brief “psychiatric conditioning “in Beirut clinic operated by the CIA. According to an investigation published by Executive Intelligence Review (EIR) on December 26, 1978, Faisal ibn Musaid was the target of a project inspired and orchestrated by the CIA, whose purpose was to use Saudi students in the US to destabilize Saudi Arabia. It is unfortunate that space does not permit us to do a review of such networks within Saudi Arabia.