{"id":29451,"date":"2017-11-07T12:27:11","date_gmt":"2017-11-07T07:27:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tns.world\/?p=29451"},"modified":"2017-11-07T12:27:11","modified_gmt":"2017-11-07T07:27:11","slug":"trump-praises-saudi-purge-voices-confidence-in-king-crown-prince","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tns.world\/?p=29451","title":{"rendered":"Trump praises Saudi purge, voices confidence in King, Crown Prince"},"content":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON Nov 07 (TNS):<\/strong> US President Donald Trump has endorsed a move by Saudi Arabia\u2019s future king that tightened his grip on power through the arrests of royals, ministers and investors in an anti-corruption purge.<\/p>\n

The endorsement cemented a US-Saudi relationship that has improved dramatically under Trump\u2019s presidency, partly because of both leaders\u2019 vision of confronting Riyadh\u2019s arch-rival Iran more aggressively in the region.<\/p>\n

Trump tweeted on Monday that he had \u201cgreat confidence in King Salman and the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia\u201d following the mass arrests – the biggest such purge of the kingdom\u2019s affluent elite in its modern history.<\/p>\n

The purge was the latest in a series of dramatic steps by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, or MbS as he is commonly referred to in Western circles, to assert Saudi influence internationally and amass more power for himself at home.<\/p>\n

A US official who declined to be named told Reuters that MbS \u201chas become the primary driver of Saudi policy-making. He has moved aggressively to sideline opponents, concentrate decision-making authority, and establish himself as the undisputed heir to the al Saud legacy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201dHe seeks to reinvigorate the public\u2019s confidence in the Saudi monarchy by diversifying the economy, loosening religious restrictions, and carrying out wide ranging social reforms,\u201d the official said.<\/p>\n

\u2018Impressive feat\u2019<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, the president\u2019s senior adviser, who has cultivated a close relationship with MbS, recently returned from Saudi Arabia, fuelling speculation on whether he may have had wind of MbS\u2019 plans.<\/p>\n

The White House said at the time the trip was reported that it was within the context of Kushner\u2019s efforts on Israeli-Palestinian peace conversations.<\/p>\n

Among those arrested were billionaire investor Alwaleed bin Talal, who is one of the kingdom\u2019s most prominent businessmen and whose investments in companies like Twitter make him the most recognized Saudi name on Wall Street.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s an impressive feat to have basically neutered virtually all of the sources of potential opposition, dissent rivalry, whether it\u2019s religious, media, political, military,\u201d said Rob Malley, vice president for policy of the International Crisis Group.<\/p>\n

\u201cOn the other hand… it\u2019s always risky to make too many enemies at the same time. It\u2019s not clear how those enemies can react,\u201d said Malley, a former senior adviser on Middle East affairs under President Barack Obama.<\/p>\n

Also detained was Prince Miteb bin Abdullah, who was replaced as minister of the National Guard, a pivotal power base rooted in the kingdom\u2019s tribes. That recalled a palace coup in June that ousted Mohammed bin Nayef as heir to the throne.<\/p>\n

A former senior US intelligence official cautioned that given the National Guard\u2019s loyalties, MbS could face a backlash.<\/p>\n

\u201cI find it difficult to believe that it (National Guard) will simply roll over and accept the imposition of new leadership in such an arbitrary fashion.\u201d<\/p>\n

Anti-Iranian confrontation<\/p>\n

US-Saudi ties had been strained under Obama, who Riyadh felt considered their alliance less important than negotiating the Iran nuclear deal.<\/p>\n

But the Trump administration has vowed to confront Iran much more aggressively in the region, where it shares the Saudi view that Tehran is fomenting instability via a number of proxies in Lebanon, Syria and Yemen among other countries. Tehran denies the allegations.<\/p>\n

Events in Saudi Arabia in recent days appeared to open the prospect for a sharper confrontation with Iran and its proxies.<\/p>\n

Saudi Arabia accused Lebanon on Monday of declaring war against it because of what it called aggression by the Iran-backed Lebanese Shi\u2018ite group Hezbollah.<\/p>\n

Saudi-allied Lebanese politician Saad al-Hariri quit as prime minister on Saturday, announcing his resignation from Riyadh and blaming Iran and Hezbollah in his resignation speech.<\/p>\n

Also on Saturday, Saudi Arabia\u2019s air defense forces intercepted a ballistic missile fired from warring Yemen over the capital, Riyadh.<\/p>\n

The Pentagon praised Saudi Arabia for \u201cexposing\u201d Iran\u2019s role in Yemen and Tehran\u2019s provision of missile systems to Houthi militia fighting there.<\/p>\n

\u201cBetween that (Hariri\u2019s resignation) and the missile launch on Riyadh … the coincidence of those two does mean that the prospect of some escalation, some strike either against Hezbollah or against Iran or against both is more likely, certainly than it was a few days ago,\u201d Malley told Reuters.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON Nov 07 (TNS): US President Donald Trump has endorsed a move by Saudi Arabia\u2019s future king that tightened his grip on power through the arrests of royals, ministers and investors in an anti-corruption purge. The endorsement cemented a US-Saudi relationship that has improved dramatically under Trump\u2019s presidency, partly because of both leaders\u2019 vision of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":29001,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,303],"tags":[304,733],"class_list":["post-29451","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world","category-washington","tag-washington","tag-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29451","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=29451"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29451\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29452,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29451\/revisions\/29452"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/29001"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=29451"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=29451"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=29451"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}