Saudi Arabia has threatened to blockade its neighbouring Gulf State Qatar by land and sea unless it cuts ties with the Muslim Brotherhood, closes Al Jazeera, and expels local branches of two prestigious U.S. think tanks, the Brookings Doha Center and the Rand Qatar Policy Institute. The threats against the television station Al Jazeera, Brookings Institute and the Rand Corporation, were made by the Saudi Foreign Minister Saud bin Faisal in a foreign ministers meeting of the Gulf Cooperation Council in Riyadh last week, according to a source who was present. Bin Faisal said only these acts would be sufficient if Qatar wanted to avoid being punished.... The increasingly McCarthyite tone adopted by the Saudi monarchy in its public pronouncements about the Brotherhood is thought to be a sign of desperation at the way events in Egypt are turning out. Supporting the military dictatorship in Cairo is costing the kingdom and its ally in the United Arab Emirates dear. Together they have spent $32 billion propping the coup up, with no end in sight to the chaos... Analysts elsewhere in the Gulf expect the Saudi tactics to backfire. They have already paralyzed the Gulf Cooperation Council, with Oman refusing to expel Qatar and Kuwait deeply uneasy. It is also propelling the start of a significant regional realignment. Within hours of the Saudi decision to withdraw its ambassador to Doha, the Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan called the emir of Qatar Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad in support. Doha has also become closer to Iran as a result of its bust up with Riyadh. The open diplomatic warfare between Riyadh and Doha pits two generations of Gulf ruler against each other -- the 89-year-old Abdullah bin Abdulaziz versus the 33-year-old Tamim bin Hamad. It will be interesting to see which generation prevails. huffingtonpost/david-hearst/saudi-arabia-threatens-to_b_4930518.html
Posted on: Mon, 10 Mar 2014 10:26:42 +0000
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