Saudi Arabia, as I wrote previously, is the most regressive force in the Arab world. This is a Kingdom that not only subjects its people to horrific Medieval oppression and whose salaried clerics have erected the most misogynistic order on earth (and the leader of that lousy establishment for several decades, the now deceased Bin Baz, once considered even the menstrual cycle to be a reflection of the depravity of women so as to hold the biological being of women against them, the bastard!), but Saudi Arabia has also used the accident of oil wealth to both spread Wahhabi ideology around the world (the most fanatical sect of Islam whose founder was condemned by both father and brother for his deviation from the faith in forming his cult of fanaticism) and for seeking to undermine democracy and progressive politics in the region. Saudi Arabia even backed Maronite Catholic fascists in Lebanon, who killed Lebanese and Palestinian Muslims indiscriminately, simply because the Muslim-Palestinian side in the Lebanese Civil War was aligned with the Arab left. This was merely one chapter of Saudi Arabia seeking to undercut the Arab left through corrupting parties and by financing militant Islamic fundamentalists to contour socialists and communists.
Saudi Arabia is equally opposed to the Arab Spring. Democracy in Tunisia is one thing, but the royal family was hoping for a bloody suppression to save Mubarak. Tunisians and Egyptians, by virtue of peacefully overthrowing their dictators and doing so alone, are too proud and intelligence to allow Saudi Arabia to hijack their revolutions. But Saudi Arabia may be allowed to undermine democracy elsewhere. For starters, the Saudis sent in their lousy army to aid the bloody repression of Bahraini pro-democracy demonstrators. So in Bahrain, as far as Saudi Arabia can see to it, it will put down any foreseeable hope for democracy.
In Syria, the Saudi government is not curiously expressing support for the Assad regime even though both regimes had been in disputes for years. But better to support a dictator than add momentum to the Arab Spring, the royals calculate.
And, final, Libya. The Saudis are trying to midwife the Libyan revolution by controlling the transition authority in Benghazi. It was always a mistake to appoint Gadhafi’s former justice [sic] minister to lead the transition. This would be akin to allowing Omar Sulieman to lead post-Mubarak Egypt. A man who supported a tyrant for years and then only opportunistically defected because he assumed the end of the regime and wanted to secure himself a place in the nation’s political future is a vile perfidious bastard to be excommunicated from any transitional body. But the Saudis have now wholeheartedly backed him and hope for heavy leverage in a future Libya were democracy will diluted in order to provide for a pro-Saudi regime since any Arab democracy would convey Arab opinion which detests the horrific and hedonistic Saudi royals.
The Libyan people need to be alert, particularly since the lousy “leader” of the council is starting to sound ominous tones akin to Arab dictators. He recently stated, on Saudi TV no less!, that “dismay with decisions made in the national interest is forbidden”. What? This is the rhetoric of the Syrian regime and Saddam under Iraq. No doubt he is being couched in vile Orwellian slogans by the House of Saud. Once the fighting is done the Libyan youth and professional class who started this revolution need to push forth to ensure than decent liberals lead the transition and the insidious arm of al-Saud is kept at bay.
This revolution has cost too much lives. Let not the House of Saud hijack it or the Arab Spring in order to undermine the movement from spreading inside the kingdom. But it will eventually reach it. Saudi Arabia will not be able to hijack all the movements, and Tunisia and Egypt are immune due to the hatred for the Saudi kingdom. Saudi Arabia feels comfortable living in a sea of despots and liberty next door unnerves the royals who fear that their people will seek to emulate their neighbors. This is why the support the tyrannical status quo. And this is why they’ll expend billions to maintain it or hijack it. And this is why the Arab people will not be liberated under the House of Saud sees its ignoble fall.
Saudi Arabia will not win this moment or the future. For as Victor Hugo once wrote, “All the forces in the world are not as powerful as an idea whose time has come.”
