Saudi King Abdullah Dead @ 90

by JASmius



The classic faux reformer, creating the appearance of "modernizing" Saudi Arabia, including empty gestures towards women's rights, while doing nothing of substance to actually accomplish any of it.  But at least he wasn't an actively overt U.S. enemy, aside from economically:

Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah, the powerful U.S. ally who joined Washington’s fight against al-Qaida and sought to modernize the ultraconservative Muslim kingdom with incremental but significant reforms, including nudging open greater opportunities for women, has died, according to Saudi state TV. He was ninety.

More than his guarded and hidebound predecessors, Abdullah assertively threw his oil-rich nation’s weight behind trying to shape the Middle East. His priority was to counter the influence of rival, mainly Shiite Iran wherever it tried to make advances. He and fellow Sunni Arab monarchs also staunchly opposed the Middle East’s wave of pro-democracy uprisings, seeing them as a threat to stability and their own rule.

He backed Sunni Muslim factions against Tehran’s allies in several countries, but in Lebanon for example, the policy failed to stop Iranian-backed Hezbollah from gaining the upper hand. And Tehran and Riyadh’s colliding ambitions stoked proxy conflicts around the region that enflamed Sunni-Shiite hatreds – most horrifically in Syria’s civil war, where the two countries backed opposing sides. Those conflicts in turn hiked Sunni militancy that returned to threaten Saudi Arabia.

Of course, Abdullah didn't counter the influence of the mullahs for our benefit, and his Wahhabist brand of Islamic Fundamentalism - which, recall, gave rise to Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda - has been among the biggest sources of jihadism, or what I like to refer to as the "Muslim Reformation".  The only factor that kept the Saudis from becoming actively hostile against the West is the fact that they are corrupt autocrats as opposed to crazed theocrats and have no desire for the proverbial 72 virgins when there are so many virgins down here that they can enjoy at their leisure.

So what changes with Abdullah pushing up sand?  His half-brother Salman will take over for now, but he's old (79) and sick as well.  Sooner or later that throne is going to fall into the hands of the Kingdom's "next generation," and then we are likely to see that actively overt hostility which we have been spared up until now.  The Persian Gulf will become the most dangerous body of water on the planet - one way or the other.