We continue from the previous part 1 of this article. The last major point noted was the death of King Faisal, in March 1975. Upon Faisal’s death, the next in line to assume the leadership was King Khaled.
Faisal’s refusal to give permission to Kissinger to bring about a peace treaty between Egypt and Israel, leaving Syria out of the equation, was what led to his assassination. President Sadat of Egypt signed a peace deal with Israel, called the Camp David Accords, in 1979. Many Arab states broke off diplomatic ties with Egypt, including Saudi Arabia.
The next major geopolitical bomb in the region was the overthrow of the Shah of Iran, and his replacement, the Ayatollah Khomeini, in February 1979. The full and complete story of this Iranian Revolution is told in the 3-part series on Iran. See the Iran Files.
When the Iranians seized the US Embassy on November 4th 1979, they were looking for copies of the tapes. If these tapes could not be found, Khomeini instructed the students to stay on and continue the occupation. The tapes were dangerous to Khomeini, for they proved that he was put into power with the help of the CIA and MI 6.
A few days later, under instructions from David Rockefeller, Carter froze all of Iran’s’ funds in western banks. Teheran was furious, to put it mildly. But, how to hit back at America, more specifically, the Rockefellers? Saudi Aramco was the greatest economic prize for the Rockefeller Empire. And it was time to hurt them. Remember, at this point in time, the Saudis still owned only 20% of Aramco. They would get the remaining 80% the next year, in 1980. Saudi Arabia was vulnerable to some destabilization by Teheran. And so it came to pass. It was a point of causing great embarrassment to the Saud Family,
1979 – Extremists seize the Grand Mosque of Mecca; the government regains control after 10 days and those captured are executed.
1980 – Saudi Arabia takes full control of Aramco from the US.
The First Gulf War (1980 – 1988)
In September 1980, Saddam Hussein of Iraq, under wrong advice (deliberately from the CIA and the Mossad), launch a full-scale invasion on Iran. Over the next 8 years, the war caused massive loss of live (300,000 Iraqis and 700,000 Iranians) plus about a combined $800 billion in damages and costs. At the end of the war, in 1988, the borders had not changed. The cost to Saudi Arabia was about $50bn. More on this when we are doing the geopolitical series on Iraq, and other countries.
The Soviet Union Invades Afghanistan (1980 – 1988)
It was also in December 1980 that the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan. Also, another 8 year long, costly and futile war. Both the Arabs and the US built up a guerrilla force, called the mujahideen, in Afghanistan, in order to make the Soviet occupation a costly affair. It was the Soviet’s “Vietnam”.
One of the principal causes for both Iran and the Soviet Union throwing in the towel was financial. In 1986, New York used their controls over oil prices to achieve this. Both of these countries were at war, and desperately needed the foreign exchange that oil sales brought. When New York and Riyadh began to flood the markets with oil, the price collapsed from $18 to as low as $10. This devastated the finances of Moscow and Teheran. Moscow withdrew from Russia, and within 2 years, the Berlin Wall came down. A year later, he Soviet Union ceased to exist. With Teheran, Khomeini surrendered, and agreed to peace terms.
1981 May – Saudi Arabia is a founder member of the GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council).
1982 June – King Khalid dies of a heart attack and is succeeded by his brother, Crown Prince Fahd.
1987 – Saudi Arabia resumes diplomatic relations with Egypt, severed since 1979.
The Second Gulf War (1990 – 1991)
In order to better understand the reason why Iraq invaded Kuwait in August 1990, a few brief facts are important.
Israel & The End of the 40-Year Curse
When our Creator told their Prophet Moses (AS) to take over Palestine from its occupants, the Canaanites, they refused. God banished them to wander in the Sinai desert for 40 years. This, then, is the genesis of the “40-year curse”. The Rothschilds, as leaders of international Jewry, had feared the end of the “40-year curse”, from the time they had established a political state in the Middle East. The 40 year period from 1948 ended in 1988.
When no major problems hit Israel in 1988-89, the Rothschilds said to themselves that , “ Now that we have passed this “curse-period”, it is now time to rejuvenate our Empire, and aim for total global control – their version of a “new World Order”.
Many changes took place – The end of the Soviet Union and the collapse of communism (which was their brainchild), the move to topple white control of South Africa, the transition from the analogue to the digital age, amongst many others.
Between 1989 and 1992, about a million Jews emigrated from Russia, and most of them ended up in Israel. There is a direct corollary of Jewish emigration from Russia into Israel, followed by a new Middle East war. It is what happened in 1948, in 1967, and now, the Arabs feared another war in the region.
The Palestinians had just begun the Intifada in the West Bank and Gaza. The only Arab leaders helping the Palestinians were Saudi Arabia and Iraq. Iraq had also sent a military force (including fighter jets) to Jordan to threaten Israel, and as well as providing financial support for the Palestinians.
Now, going back to 1975. Israel managed to neutralize Egypt through the Camp David Accords. Israel was now free to concentrate on those Arab countries to the north, and its aim was to destabilize them in such a manner that Israel would be free to expand north, crushing all resistance, both internally and externally. Both the CIA and Mossad ignited the civil war in Lebanon. Syria was under tremendous pressure because of this, and was eventually sucked into the Lebanese civil war. In this manner, Syria posed no threat to Israel. . Then there was Iraq, busy bleeding in its war with Iran. When the war with Iran ended, in 1988, Iraq, once again posed a mortal threat to Israel.
Iraq, a nation of 16 million people, emerged from 8 years of a fruitless war with Iran, which had accomplished little more than provide profits to its arms companies and to reduce the power and potential of two rich and strong nations. The benefits all went to the west. This is called geopolitical profits.
Iraq emerged from the war with an enormous foreign debt burden of $65 billion. This was in stark contrast with the position Iraq was in at the beginning of the war: Iraq had $50 billion in cash and no debt!
In June 1989, a top-level business delegation from the US came to Baghdad on the request of Saddam Hussein. He wanted to discuss an Iraqi post-war plan to develop his country’s agricultural and industrial potential. The American delegation was astounded at the advanced state of Iraq’s industrial base. They all wanted in on the financial bonanza that Iraq’s reconstruction would bring them. The leader of the delegation was Alan Stoga of Kissinger & Associates, Henry Kissinger’s consultancy business. Saddam Hussein knew where the real power lay, by spending 3 hours alone with Alan Stoga.
Stoga told Saddam that he must first restructure his foreign debts, and in return agree to privatize Iraq’s oil resources. In other words, let the Rockefeller oil companies gain exploration concessions. Iraq is the largest unexplored oil region in the world, up to that time.
Predictably, Saddam refused the American “offer” to surrender sovereignty in exchange for vague assurances on future loans. Stoga warned Saddam that if he denied Iraq’s oil to the Rockefeller Group, then New York would deny Iraqi oil to its people and government.
One of the ways the US used to help Iraq was to channel funds through the Atlanta subsidiary of the Italian BNL bank. By late 1989, some $2.3 billion had been sent through BNL. Six weeks after the Stoga-Saddam meeting, on 2nd August, the money pipeline from Washington to Iraq, was cut off. This credit cut-off followed a series of sensational articles in the London Financial Times (a Rothschild paper), which claimed that the monies were secretly being used by Iraq to build its war machine, instead of purchasing food. The combined effect of the Stoga talks and the BNL expose was a total western bank credit cutoff to Iraq by years end.
Into this critical situation, Kuwait enters the picture. The Anglo-American game plan was to lure Saddam Hussein into a trap he could not resist, in order to provide a pretext for a military intervention from the west. This is how it went.
Following the debacle of the 1986-87 oil price collapse, OPEC agreed on production ceilings in order to stabilize world oil prices. The oil price was at $16 in December 1989. It had risen from $10 in late 1987. In December 1989, Kuwait was told to flood the markets with oil. By July 1990, Kuwait succeeded in dropping oil prices to $9. Every $1 drop reduced Iraq’s income by $1 billion a year. Furthermore, Kuwait had lent Iraq some $10 billion. When Saddam asked Kuwait to cancel this debt and to advance fresh funds he was rebuffed by Kuwait. Historically, Kuwait was a part of Iraq, but due to British cunning, it was peeled away, and given recognition by the British. Adding insult to injury, Kuwait was stealing oil from the Rumaila field that belonged to Iraq.
Repeated Iraqi diplomatic efforts to persuade Kuwait to stop the deliberate economic pressure on Iraq fell on deaf ears. Kuwait was listening to London and New York. Iraq was bot even able to service its old debt or finance needed food imports. In February, Saddam gave a speech in which he warned that the Arab world faced special dangers, pointing out that the US military forces in the Gulf were on the increase.
Looking at things from Saddam’s point of view, Jews were flooding into Israel, and more land was being forcibly taken from the Palestinians to build homes for these newly-arrived Russian Jews. The Americans were putting Iraq under tremendous pressure financially, in order to get their hands on Iraq’s oil. Thirdly, Kuwait was not being helpful to Iraq’s plight. Considering that it was these very countries that had urged him to start the war with Iran, it looked like he needed to do something to rectify the situation.
Saudi Arabia arranged a final meeting between Iraq and Kuwait in Jeddah in July 1990. It was not a success as Kuwait refused to help at all. After receiving a diplomatic “green light” from the US ambassador in Baghdad, Iraq invaded Kuwait on 2nd August. Saddam Hussein fell into the trap!
Within a few days US Defense Secretary Dick Cheney was in Riyadh, to inform, not ask, that US military planes are about to land in Saudi Arabia. And that they are here to defend Saudi Arabia from Saddam Hussein. And when asked by then Crown Prince Abdullah when would US forces leave Saudi Arabia, Cheney turned red in the face and did not reply!
The results of the war are quite well known. Iraq was pushed out of Iraq, and placed under economic sanctions. This war cost Saudi Arabia many billions of dollars in covering part of the total cost.
As a side note, the Kuwait Investment Office (KIO), Kuwait’s sovereign wealth fund, operating out of London, had roughly $150 billion in assets. After the Americans entered Saudi Arabia, the Kuwaiti royal family, the Sabahs, took refuge in Saudi Arabia. So, one day, Al-Sabah complained to King Fahd, and said that the Americans are asking him for lots of money as a condition for restoring his rule again over Kuwait. Fahd replied with a question : “Do you want your throne back, or do you want to keep the money?”; Sabah replied that he wants his throne back, so Fahd advised him to pay up and stop complaining. And Sabah paid the Rockefellers more than $100 billion – money which came from the KIO!
Most of this money went to prop up various Rockefeller entities, especially its banks. In November 1989, one of their main banks, Citicorp, was bankrupt. This Kuwaiti money came at the right time. A part of this extorted loot was used to fund a broke Saudi prince, Al Waleed, to act as a nominee for the Rockefellers. Al Waleed was given funds and instructed to invest these funds in various Rockefeller companies. The most visible and publicised of these investments was Al Waleed’s purchase of a 5% stake in Citicorp! Do remember this point, when we are discussing the rise of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman or MBS.
A few years later, when the US was squeezing Iran, then Teheran retaliated against the US by bombing a US military housing compound in 1996 June – A bomb explodes at the US military complex in Khobar near Dhahran killing 19 and wounding over 300. This was conveniently blamed on Osama bin Laden’s group, Al Qaeeda. At this time, the US was carefully building up Bin Laden as a future public enemy. The groundwork was being laid.
Terror attacks within Saudi Arabia – A covert war between the Saud and Rockefeller Families
Unwritten agreements between American presidents and Saudi leaders have been a key to the relationships between the two countries since 1932. As a Saudi official says, “We know our interests – both of us – We have special differences and special points of agreements”. Aramco is the largest oil company in the world. Started by 4 Rockefeller oil companies, it had sold out its shares to the Saudi government in the late 1970s.
Between 2001 and 2006, the American media exhibited an anti-Saudi bias, and within the country, many terror attacks took place between 2003 and 2006. A covert war was being fought in the shadows between the Saudi leadership and the Rockefeller family. And since the Rockefeller family is in firm control of Washington, we can say that the US-Saudi war is something that no one has picked up. Revealed here, for the first time, is the truth behind those events. Remember, always “follow the money”.
Our story starts in 1995, when then-King Fahd suffered a stroke. His brother, Crown Prince Abdullah took over the running of the country. Abdullah was a no-nonsense man. In 1996, oil prices began sliding, leaving Saudi finances in a bad shape. After countering speculative attacks on its currency, Abdullah invoked budget cutbacks, among many other measures.
Abdullah then put out a welcome mat to the international oil companies, or IOC’s in August 1998, inviting them to invest in the country’s oil industry. In February 1999, Abdullah changed the focus from oil to gas. The idea was to use the gas, which was flared and wasted, to be converted into power generation, water desalination, and petrochemicals. This was called the “Saudi Gas Initiative” or the SGI.
Over the next 2 years, the heads of the American, British and French oil companies were regularly flying into Riyadh.
In June 2001, Saudi Arabia signs preliminary agreements with seven IOC’s. The planned gas projects were divided into 3 areas Core Venture 1 (South Gwadar), Core Venture 2 (Red Sea Coast) and Core Venture 3 (Shaybah).
Intense opposition from the Rockefeller Group of oil companies (Exxon, Conoco, Marathon and Chevron/Mobil) to this SGI deal came up. One has to remember that it was the Americans that had originally started the oil business in Saudi Arabia and ran it until the Saudis took over in the late 1970s. The Americans wanted these three deals to be limited only to the Americans, and not be given to the European (or Rothschild) oil companies, such as BP, Shell or Total. David Rockefeller was very upset with Abdullah, to say the least!
Pressure from Washington and New York intensified on the Saudis to change the terms of the deal, as well as to grant exclusivity to the American firms. Abdullah refused to budge. America then began to increase the pressure on Riyadh.
It was at this time that the 9-11 attacks took place. Very conveniently, 15 of the 19 hijackers were identified by the FBI as Saudi nationals! Saudi intelligence did their own research, and found that all the hijackers were alive and well, and residing in Saudi Arabia; with one exception, who had passed away a few months earlier! Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al Faisal even invited the international media to go and interview these hijackers. But, the damage was done, and this “fact” became firmly rooted in the minds of the public.
2002
April – Saud al Faisal went to Moscow, hoping to entice the Russians with closer economic and strategic partnerships. The Russians jumped at the chance. New York went into a panic mode. Pressure was once again exerted on Riyadh, but to no avail, as a great deal of bitterness had now set into the relationship. New York then put into motion a plan to destabilize and threaten Saudi Arabia, indirectly at first; and if this failed, then even more drastic actions were planned.
July – In late July, Saudi Arabia took delivery of three new advanced frigates built by France, with stealth capabilities and advanced weapons systems. These new frigates gave the Saudi Navy a long and powerful reach, capable of operations throughout the Middle East.
A few days later, a secret meeting at the Pentagon’s Defense Policy Board, resulted in statements, saying that if Riyadh did not comply with Washington’s wishes on a range of issues, then Saudi oil fields and Saudi overseas financial assets should be targeted. An unnamed American official told the Washington Post that opinion about Saudi Arabia was changing rapidly within the capital.
August – The majority of the Saudi people were sick and tired of hearing about 9-11. Many believed that the attack was the work of the CIA or the Mossad. The festering public anger towards America gives the Saudis little incentive to co-operate. The Saudi ruling families were worried about the effect on the “street in the Arab world. Personal lobbying by Abdullah on Washington to restart the peace process and put more pressure on Israel had no effect. Abdullah then told Washington to remove its military forces from the country. In short, the US military was expelled from Saudi Arabia. They went across the border to the al-Udeid base in Qatar!
Between mid-September 2001 and August 2002, private Saudi investors had withdrawn some $200bn from the US in anticipation that a class action suit which cites the Saudi royal family as respondent in the claim by family members of the 9-11 victims might succeed in having an estimated $700bn in Saudi assets in the US frozen!
September – On the 25th the White House added Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Yemen to a list of countries whose citizens must undergo fingerprinting when entering the US. A war of words followed between Riyadh and Washington. Not long after this, the US issued a policy of issuing NO visas to Saudis wishing to visit the US. Then the White House very quietly let out its feelings that it is opposed to Abdullah becoming king after Fahd, because of his position on Israel, the gas deal, the withdrawal of funds from the US, its various deals that it hoped to accomplish with Russia, and, more recently, over Iraq!
October – During the third week of October, Prince Turki went to Moscow to sign the agreement reached in April by his brother Saud. New York went ballistic, and launched a highly provocative terror attack designed to humiliate Moscow and send a message to Saudi Arabia (read about this here). It did not work, as the agreement was signed.
November – When New York saw that their actions had no effect, they launched a personal attack on Prince Bandar, Saudi Ambassador to the US. In late November, congressional investigators leaked the story that Haifa al-Faisal, wife of Bandar (and sister of both Saud and Turki) had given money to associates of two of the 9-11 hijackers.
See the tricks they play. The Americans are quick to accuse, very loudly and in public, but there is no evidence to back it up. When confronted with this fact, they then say that they have no proof- and this is said so quietly that the media does not publish this statement of retraction! The games that evil men play!
This whole episode finally convinced the Saudi leadership to forge closer ties with other nations – nations on the UN Security Council that oppose the US, especially over Iraq and Eurasian geopolitics. The word went out to win over France, Russia, and China, especially by oil and arms deals. 2002 November – Saudi foreign minister says his country will not allow the US to use its facilities to attack Iraq, even in an UN-sanctioned strike.
2003 April – US says it will pull out almost all its troops from Saudi Arabia, ending a military presence dating back to the 1991 Gulf war. Both countries stress that they will remain allies.
2003
Throughout the first few weeks of 2003, the drumbeat of war was growing louder, until March 7th, when the Americans finally invaded Iraq. By end-April, the Americans had pulled all its remaining troops out of Saudi Arabia.
April – By mid-April, talks on reaching an agreement between ExxonMobil and Riyadh had broken down. Riyadh refused to accept the terms that ExxonMobil wanted for the deal. David Rockefeller was extremely furious, to put it mildly. He resolved to teach the Saudis a lesson.
May – On May 6th, Saudi Defense Minister Sultan, and his brother Nayef, the Interior Minister, were the targets of an assassination. Fortunately, the attempt on both was foiled due to the superb security surrounding them. Now the gloves were off. Quick counter-intelligence work from Nayef and his son Mohammed, led to the arrest of several men, while many others fled, and went underground. The next day, May 7th, the security forces caught up with the assassins, and a large-scale battle was fought in the suburbs of Riyadh.
Then, on May 12th, the Americans hit back. Several teams, in a multi-layered operation plotted as carefully as any military raid, hit three gated and guarded estates housing westerners in Riyadh. One of the companies targeted is the regional headquarters of a shadowy firm of American mercenaries accused by many of being a CIA front. This firm is Vinnell Corp.
Since 1974, Vinnell Corp has been used by the Pentagon to perform various functions, first in Southeast Asia, and from 1975, in Saudi Arabia. It has held an extremely lucrative contract, worth some $800 million annually, and has some 800 American employees working in Saudi Arabia. It operated “off-the-books”, and is a company within the Rockefeller orbit.
This attack on Vinnell opened the eyes of the Saudi leadership, for they knew about the pedigree of both Vinnell, ExxonMobil, and the CIA. They were all owned by the same family – the Rockefellers! The logic and mind-set of New York works like this: “Use our controlled networks to attack certain facilities used mainly by Americans. In this manner, we can show Riyadh that their internal conditions are becoming unstable. Thus, by doing without us, things could become even worse. Obviously, everything can be blamed on Al Qaeda! It is the perfect patsy, for no one can come forward to deny this. And if they do, the authorities will arrest them.
What is interesting about the Vinnell bombing is that most of the staff was away on a training exercise. The death rate was 9 killed. A day after the attack, Abdullah gave an unprecedented TV speech in which he condemned the attackers. Hundreds of extremists were detained in the crackdown that followed. Many religious figures were also detained. But, Riyadh had a masterstroke for those detained. They were sent next door to Iraq, to satisfy their urge to kill Americans.
July – On July 16, the Saudis awarded the contract for Core Venture 3 to a consortium, whose partners were Shell (40%), Total (30%), and Conoco (30%). One hour before the signing, Conoco (a Rockefeller Company) withdrew. Aramco took its place. With the signing of this accord, (the final agreement was to be signed in November), New York, in a fit of rage, decided to show its British (Shell) and French (Total) rivals (both in the Rothschild orbit), a thing or two about muscling in on territory long considered to be off limits to everyone but the Americans.
Several so-called Al Qaeda cells were activated, and this time were given instructions to target anything British, inside Saudi Arabia. This time, Naïf and Saudi security forces were on the ball. In their ceaseless hunt for the renegade cells, they uncovered more information, which led them to capture even more of these radical cells.
When it was discovered that British interests were being targeted, British Airways immediately suspended all flights to Saudi Arabia and Kenya. It was only a month later, in August, after all these cells were eliminated, that BA resumed its flights into Saudi Arabia. More than 30 raids were carried out in Riyadh, Jeddah, and Dahran, with 5 Saudi security deaths and an unknown number of radicals killed.
September – In the first week of September, Abdullah would up a historic 3-day visit to Russia in which the world’s two largest oil exporters signed a key agreement aimed at stabilizing oil prices. The visit, a first by a Saudi ruler since 1926, marks a strategic rapprochement between the two countries. The 5-year deal was worth some $25 billion.
Washington was aware that close ties between the two countries will affect America’s plans for its grab on oil resources in the region. Further, Russia has the military know-how and the capacity to fully arm Saudi Arabia and Syria with the kind of arms to defeat America’s military advantage on the battlefield – as we witnessed in Iraq. With Saudi money, Russian military and industrial expertise, who knows how far these ties could develop. For Washington, close ties between these two countries is a geopolitical nightmare. But, Riyadh was not bowing down to the unrelenting pressure from Washington to cancel this deal.
November – Due to its tight counter-intelligence work, and now aware of the modus-operandi of the Americans, Riyadh was bracing itself for more attacks. And, as expected, the problems began. On November 3, in Mecca, a Saudi police officer killed 2 armed men and captured 6. Again, 3 days later in Mecca, two renegades blew themselves up in a shootout to evade capture. They preferred to die rather than betray the operation scheduled three days hence. On the same day, Riyadh police killed the third renegade who had escaped from Mecca.
Riyadh was very mad at the Americans. A quiet war of words and threats went back and forth. In fear, the Americans shut down all its diplomatic missions in Saudi Arabia, on November 8.
The next day, renegade cells struck once again, this time targeting the Al Muhya housing compound in Riyadh. It housed mainly westernized Muslims, and the death toll reached 17 with 100 wounded.
To say the Saudi royal family was upset is the understatement of the year. On November 15, the Gas Agreement was signed in Riyadh with Total, Shell, and Aramco.
2004
Various think-tanks, along with the media, began questioning the validity of the US-Saudi relationship. A quiet campaign began to demonise the Saudi royal family. Other articles called for the break-up of the kingdom into several parts, and, for “regime-change “in Riyadh.
Hollywood was instructed to produce anti-Saudi movies. The result was a movie called “Fahrenheit 9/11”, produced by Michael Moore. It opened up to 500 screens on June 25, 2004, to insatiable crowds – logical; given the pre-publicity the movie was given. Merit or evidence was not the issue. Passion and mobilization is. By understanding the motives and histories of the personalities, we can uncover, and more fully comprehend the growing case for war against Saudi Arabia. But, unlike the build up to war in Iraq, an informed decision will serve the world in a way that hidden plans, illogical rationales, and one-sided messages on sale at the box offices cannot.
To understand their independence from America and the Rockefeller Empire, Riyadh deliberately excluded all American oil companies from any future energy deals in the Kingdom. Recent events have coincided with a significant shift in Riyadh’s foreign policy, away from America, and towards America’s competitors – Russia, China, and Europe, all of whom opposed the war in Iraq, and are at odds with Washington to one degree or another.
2004 May – Attack at petrochemical site in Yanbu kills five foreigners. Attack and hostage-taking at Oil Company compound in Khobar; 22 people are killed.
2004 June – Three gun attacks in Riyadh within a week leave two Americans and a BBC cameraman dead. The same week, a US engineer is abducted and beheaded, his filmed death causing revulsion in America.
2005 1 August – Saudi royal court announces death of King Fahd. He is succeeded by the former crown prince, Abdullah.
2005 September – Five gunmen and three police officers killed in clashes in the eastern city of Dammam.
2006 February – Government says it has foiled a planned suicide bomb attack on a major oil-processing plant at Abqaiq.
2006 June – Six men allegedly linked to al-Qaeda are killed in a shootout with police in Riyadh, the latest of several incidents involving Islamist militants. 2007 February – Four French nationals are killed in a suspected terror attack near the north-western ruins of Madain Saleh, which are popular with tourists.
Between 2004 and September 2006, Riyadh managed to neutralize all the CIA-controlled Al Qaeda cells within the Kingdom. With the defeat of Israel in 2006, by the Hezbollah militia in southern Lebanon, Washington changed tack. When America invaded Iraq in 2003, it deliberately incited, encouraged and brought about a civil conflict between the Sunni and Shia population of Iraq. This was in order to speed up the break-up of Iraq into three areas- a plan that was on the drawing boards since the early 1980s.
It now began a new policy of siding with the Sunni Arabs against the Shia forces. A reconciliation with Riyadh was carried out. They were friends again! The Saudi Intelligence services told the Sunni fighters in Iraq to stop attacking the Americans, and to re-direct their fire at all Shia groups in Iraq. Furthermore, most of the radicals and terrorists belonging to Al Qaeeda, were freed from jail and told to go to Iraq and fight the Americans and the Shia militias there. King Abdullah solved many security problems with this masterstroke.
This goes to prove that Saudi Arabia is not America’s puppet, contrary to what the media and many others feel on this topic. They have shared interests, but at times have opposing policies. This was one of those.
Al-Yamamah Arms Deal
The background to the Al Yamamah arms deals between Saudi Arabia and Britain is as follows: Following the 1973 Arab-Israeli war, Israel gained great favour with Washington, and New York. Remember this war took place to make the petro-dollar, a Rockefeller idea to boost the dollar after Nixon closed the gold-dollar convertibility in August 1971.
When Saudi Arabia needed to buy AWAC planes from America to help monitor Iran’s activities in the Iran-Iraq War, the Israeli-controlled lobby in the US Senate and Congress opposed this vigorously. Saudi Arabia succeeded in the end to purchase these AWAC planes. But the word from Riyadh was that never again would their arms purchases from America be subject to the Israeli lobby in Congress.
It was then decided to purchase arms THROUGH Britain, and Britain would buy these arms for Saudi Arabia from the US and other countries. Payment would be done by supplying oil to Britain. Britain, in turn allocated this oil to BP and Shell. The proceeds will be deposited into a special account with the Bank of England, and the name of this account was Al Yamamah. Saudi oil minister Yamani opposed this “off-the book” transaction, and was very publicly fired by King Fahd. Only those at the top in London and Riyadh know the value of these transactions. To date, it is still ongoing!
Britain’s biggest arms contract, first signed in 1985, involves aircraft, ships and support for Saudi military, worth £40bn for BAE Systems and partners. New order for 72 Eurofighter Typhoon jets confirmed in 2007
2005 November – World Trade Organization gives the green light to Saudi Arabia’s membership following 12 years of talks.
2009 June – US President Barack Obama visits Saudi Arabia as part of a Middle East tour aimed at increasing US engagement with the Islamic world.
2009 November – Saudi troops move to enforce buffer zone in northern Yemen after becoming involved in border clashes with Yemeni rebels. The US began focusing more on Yemen, from the moment Obama took office. More on this in the forthcoming article called, “The Geopolitics of Yemen “. In response to increasing problems that Yemen holds for Saudi Arabia, a year later, in 2010 October – US officials confirm plan to sell $60 billion worth of arms to Saudi Arabia – the most lucrative single arms deal in US history.
Dear reader, we have covered the period up to the end of 2010. In the next article, we will discuss the Arab Spring, and Washington’s geopolitical tango in the region, and lay the background for the rise of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
