The Saudi Squeeze

Today’s U.N. admonition from the Saudi Kingdom regarding its role it the killing of innocent children in war torn Yemen has come full circle.  Two points to ponder.

First, the Saudi’s aren’t very good at dealing with challenges in an upfront manner, everything about Saudi relations speaks indirectly; Saudi officials have grown accustomed to deft handling of issues outside the confines of any dominant media.  Their exposure at the U.N. was clearly driven by Iran and its need to assault the Kingdom, however, U.N. Secretary Moon was manipulated into dropping the Kingdom’s name from any U.N. sanctioned list of nation states that indiscriminately kill children.  Moon found himself accosted by Saudi allies keen to have Moon know of the financial consequences of any U.N. smear.  The Saudi’s exposed Moon as being complicit to open manipulation.  In any open society, Moon would be gone; now he’s a Saudi asset.  For now. . .

Secondly, the Saudi’s haven’t proven themselves capable of handling anything resembling a ‘market’.  As Hayek wrote of throughout his oeuvre ‘the extended order is akin to any communicative relation. . . ‘ Saudi failure here to master ‘market‘ signals is huge, especially given Saudi propensity toward liberalizing its regime and diversifying its domestic political economy out of oil dependency has now taken center stage.  The Saudi’s are masters of manipulating other regimes, although they have found themselves losing to the Iranian’s for lack of any institutionalized army, hence the need the Kingdom sought in soliciting Pakistan in Yemen’s ground campaign against the Iranians.  Islamabad was always a regent for Riyadh.  The Persian’s know this:  if you want to win any war, you master light infantry.  The U.S. learned this the hard way during the second Bush term under Petraeus.

As it stands now, the Saudi’s are furiously raising money domestically to hit back on Tehran in Syria.  Proxy battles are known for being vicious, especially when any one dominant player has abundant cash.

This will not end well for the Saudi’s nor Iran.

I miss the integrity of Dan Hammerskjold.  Rest in peace, over the Congo.