by VIJAY PRASHAD
Construction projects on Sheikh Zayed Road in Dubai have come to a virtual standstill. Financial agents in the region can’t wait to offload the real estate deals that burden the books of the Emirates and its banks, not to mention the international banks whose chambers in London and New York shudder with any mention of more real estate failures. A fire sale has begun, with construction firms like Arabtec now being offered for a song, and as Dubai’s own sheikhs bend their knees to Abu Dhabi to help with the $150 billion debt (the IMF says $109 billion, EFG-Hermes pushes it upward). The Sultans of Arabia are displeased. Oil profits sail in, but these are magically converted into petro-dollars that then boomerang to Wall Street, where they are welcomed by Goldman Sachs and its élèves who, these days, lock them up in their vaults, afraid to lend to anyone despite the blandishments of Obama and Bernanke. Petro-dollars are no salve to Dubai’s ailments.
Riyadh’s first family looks at the margins of their peninsula with concern. The financial turbulence of Dubai is one indication. Another is the rising insurgency in southern Yemen, compounded with the restive radical Islamists, whether in or out of al-Qaeda. The Carter Doctrine (1980) protects U. S. interests in the Persian Gulf, toward which the U. S. created the Central Command to organize this defense. Till now, those interests have included the protection of the House of Saud, whose current king, Abdullah, has effectively governed since 1995. The huge U. S. troop presence in Saudi Arabia since August 1990 served as a barrier against Iraq, but also as a fire-starter for domestic Islamists who were outraged at the presence of U. S. troops in the land of Mecca and Medina (it is this that turned Osama Bin Laden from an anti-communist militant to an anti-American one). Drone attacks in Yemen continue the policy of preserving the petrified Saud family, whose king is now personally worth about $22 billion (he is the third richest royal, after Rama IX of Thailand and Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed of the United Arab Emirates). The U. S. is effectively pledged to protect all these billionaire blue bloods against the grievances and aspirations of their own peoples.
King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia recognized after 9/11 that the status quo is not permanent. U. S. wars against Afghanistan and Iraq, and Israeli wars against Lebanon and Gaza, as well as U. S. posturing against Iran have inflamed the Arab population and put the Sultans of Arabia in a box. They cannot be seen to be puppets of Washington, but nor can they alienate their principle benefactors. Anti-Saudi sentiment in the U. S. alarmed the royals (in 2002, a RAND expert told the Pentagon’s Defense Policy Board, without rebuttal, that Saudi Arabia is a “kernel of evil”; even the ever-pliant Prince Bandar, Saudi Ambassador to the Bush Family, was disheartened). In 2003, the U. S. government relocated much of its forces from their Saudi bases to Qatar. The U. S. then delivered Baghdad to the Shi’a political parties, who have a special relationship with Iran. On the political front, the Saudi royals no longer felt the warm embrace of Washington.
Counterpunch for more