In the overall scheme of things, I don't believe that the Kingdom gets the analytical scrutiny it should.
There has been a very radical shift in Saudi politics over the past couple of years. The new guy claims he wants to be a reformer, and he's made a couple of token feints in that direction, specifically around women's rights.
He shook down various members of his own family for multiple billions, which of course anyone taking on corruption in Saudi would have had to do.
He's been courted by everyone from Trump to Putin to Netanyahu.
Once firmly in Uncle Sam's pocket, he's currently working very hard, in cahoots with Bad Vlad, to kill the US shale industry once and for all.
The US has used its bully trump card to coerce OPEC into production drawdowns for years, and then fills the market space with its shale product. That's always been seen as a stab in the back by their Saudi vassals.
Then there is the matter of the Yemen war.
Did the idea for the Yemen war originate in Riyadh? My hunch is that Riyadh, left to its own devices, would readily attain a detente with Tehran. The Yemen war is the child of those who most want to torment Tehran, and they are not in Riyadh, but in London, Washington, and Tel Aviv.
If MBS has indeed crossed over, who could blame him?
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