According To Iran News, Dozens of members of the ruling Saudi royal family, as many as 150, have been infected with coronavirus in recent weeks, a news report said.

Saudi Prince Faisal bin Bandar bin Abdulaziz Al Saud – the governor of the capital Riyadh who is in his 70s – is in intensive care after contracting the virus, according to The New York Times, which cited hospital communications, doctors in the country and sources familiar with the family.

King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) have retreated into isolation to avoid the outbreak.

Doctors at an elite hospital that treats royals are preparing 500 more beds for an expected influx of patients.

“Directives are to be ready for VIPs from around the country,” the operators of the elite facility, the King Faisal Specialist Hospital, wrote in a “high alert” sent out electronically on Tuesday to senior doctors and later obtained by the Times.

“We don’t know how many cases we will get but high alert,” said the message, which instructed “all chronic patients to be moved out ASAP” and only “top urgent cases” will be accepted, according to the newspaper.

The alert added any infected staff members will now be treated at a less elite hospital to save room for royals.

There are thousands of Saudi princes. Many travel regularly to Europe and some are believed to have contracted the virus abroad and brought it back to Saudi Arabia, the report said, according to Al Jazeera.

The kingdom of about 33 million people has reported 2,932 cases and 41 deaths.

The country, home to Islam’s holiest sites Mecca and Medina, banned the year-round Umrah pilgrimage and sealed off the areas in early March.

Travel in and out of the country, as well as between provinces, has since been largely restricted, and four governorates and five major cities have been placed under 24-hour lockdown.

Authorities have yet to announce whether they will proceed with this year’s Hajj, scheduled for the end of July.  Last year, about 2.5 million people travelled to Saudi Arabia to take part in the Hajj, which all Muslims must perform at least once in their lives if able.

Worse to come

So far, mostly members of lower branches of the royal family have been infected, a source familiar with the situation told the Times. The vast majority of cases in the country have been in migrant labour camps and slums around Mecca and Medina.

But as the outbreak in the country spreads, Salman, the 84-year-old king, secluded himself on an island palace near Jeddah, while the crown prince has moved to a remote site on the Red Sea coast.

A Saudi health minister on Tuesday warned the outbreak in the country may only be beginning.

“Within the next few weeks, studies predict the number of infections will range from a minimum of 10,000 to a maximum of 200,000,” Tawfiq al-Rabiah said, according to the official Saudi Press Agency.

The Saudi royal family is estimated to have about 15,000 members.

In early March, several royals and officials were arrested in what some observers said may have been a crackdown related to a plot to remove MBS.

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A year has passed since Jamal Khashoggi, the Saudi journalist, was murdered at the Saudi Arabian Consulate in Istanbul, Turkey. Recently Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has said he takes “full responsibility” for the murder of Khashoggi – but denies allegations that he ordered the killing.

IRAN NEWS POLITICAL DESK

Bin Salman’s confessions were published while media outlets on last Sunday reported the murder of Major General Abdul Aziz al-Faghm, the long-time personal bodyguard of Saudi Arabia’s King Salman. These two reports led to different assumptions in the social media and media outlets which all cast doubts on murder of al-Faghm.

Arabi 21 news website in a report pointed to the police statement which said al-Faghm had a verbal exchange with Mamdouh bin Meshaal Al Ali, a man described as his friend, who then retrieved a firearm from outside and opened fire. The news website claimed despite what is said in Riyadh, Mamdouh has not been an ordinary citizen. It claimed Mamdouh was former member of Saudi Shoura Council and probably one of Saudi intelligence service officers.

It seems Bin Salman decided to at first to remove the link between him and Khashoggi hit team and then he has accepted the responsibility of Khashoggi’s murder in order to pave the way for trial of the hit team. So by this move, Bin Salman will be put an end to the Khashoggi’s murder case without being pointed as main culprit.

American newspaper New York Times also reported that last Saturday and concurrent with the murder of Al-Faghm, Riyadh had asked intelligence services of some regional states for providing it with information about some Saudi nationals. The report claimed that Bin Salman personally had called for collecting information. Netizens say that the killer of al-Faghm is the son of Dr. Mashaal Al Ali, former member of Saudi Shoura Council, and from Shammar tribe and his ancestors have been once rulers of Saudi Arabia. Furthermore, Saad al-Faqih told Khaleej Online that the operation which led to the murder of General al-Faghm was at the behest of Prince Bin Salman; especially at the time of murder, al-Faghm was present in the Royal Palace and Bin Salman along the said murderer Mamdouh bin Meshaal Al Ali were also in the palace.

The mysterious murder of King Salman’s personal bodyguard once again revived the Khashoggi’s murder case in the world because at first, it was announced that one of the friends of Al-Faghm had murdered him but it is now reported that the murder is linked to Bin Salman.

English newspaper the Times is famous for reporting exclusive news and reports from Saudi Arabia. On last Sunday, the daily in a report said there were some assumptions that link al-Faghm’s murder to Khashoggi’s murder case.

Riyadh has claimed that al-Faghm has been killed by one of his friends after a dispute in his own house. Riyadh also claims that murderer has been killed during confrontation with security forces. The Times by reviewing the official announcements of the Saudis wrote, “Al-Faghm, 47, had been widely seen as the king’s most trusted personal protection officer. His death immediately led to speculation of palace intrigue, with claims that he had recently been dismissed from the king’s service and may have had information pertinent to the murder of Mr Khashoggi.”

Exactly one year ago, Khashoggi for had gone to Saudi Arabia’s Consulate in Istanbul to obtain papers he needed to marry his Turkish fiancée but a hit team murdered and dismembered him and destroyed his corpse.

All news and reports indicate that the nightmare of Khashoggi’s still haunts Bin Salman and has not let him breathe a sigh of relief, and international journalists’ community should work together for an international campaign to take Bin Salman to the International Court of Justice and to put him on trial as a anti-human rights criminal.

 By: Hamid Reza Naghashian

The post Khashoggi’s Murder Case Under Spotlight appeared first on Iran News Daily.

IRAN NEWS POLITICAL DESK

Some questions have been raised for equity investors: What valuation will the company and the banks seek? More than three years ago, Prince Mohammed spoke of a $2 trillion valuation. Is that realistic? Will they try for that?

What will the dividend be for publicly traded shares of Aramco? High dividend rates will increase the value of the shares, but low dividend rates would likely scare away investors when they see that the government collects tens of billions of dollars in dividend from the company each quarter.

Saudis intended to list 50 percent of shares of Aramco Company in New York Stock markets. If the company with the valuation of $4 trillion was presented in the New York stock market, in fact, it could earn Saudis over $2 trillion for financing the war against Yemen by taking money from investors in the stock markets in New York like NASDAQ or Dow Jones by listing the company. A glance at the needs for continuation of war against Yemen reveals this truth. During the early days of attacks on Yemen and fight with Houthis and for strengthening Saudi bases, Saudi Arabia’s budget deficit was predicted at $100b because at that time Saudi Arabia’s economy and investment was completely under impacts of the war against Yemen. According to reports, each Patriot missile costs Saudi Arabia $3m and for shooting down of every ballistic missile, the country needs to fire at least 3 Patriot missiles. In another words, shooting down of seven ballistic missiles fired by Yemeni forces (provided that they could have succeeded in shooting them down) cost the Saudis $21m.

Since March 2017 till March 2017, hundreds of short-range and around 100 ballistic missiles have been fired by Yemenis towards Saudi Arabia but their destruction have ruined millions of dollars from Saudi treasury.

Agreements and contracts for buying S-400 and THAAD anti-missile systems can be assessed in this framework and these amounts of money are except from those millions of dollars that Saudi Arabia has spent for the maintenance and protecting Patriot missiles in different parts of its country.

So regarding what was to happen in New York stock markets, which sane man can believe that Donald Trump could allow the flight of such a huge capital from the U.S. financial reserves?

The common sense says that Patriots should face tens of drones and but they do not function. The common sense says that THAAD missiles or any anti-missile system even with billions of dollars of investment should allow Aramco Company to leave and delist from the New York stock market.

And there is no sane man in the world can believe that half of Saudi Arabia’s exports capital would be destroyed and in return Donald Trump plays with words as if he is prepping up dialogues for kids’ games.

So we should accept that satellites were seeing drones and fired missiles from Yemen flying over Aramco, but they did not react , although our religious belief says even if they were to react, they would have failed.

 By: Hamid Reza Naghashian

The post Trump Happy With Destruction of Aramco appeared first on Iran News Daily.

The death sparked a global uproar, tarnishing the crown prince’s image and imperiling ambitious plans to diversify the economy of the world’s top oil exporter and open up cloistered Saudi society. He has not since visited the United States or Europe.

“It happened under my watch. I get all the responsibility because it happened under my watch,” he told PBS’ Martin Smith, according to a preview of a documentary, “The Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia,” set to air on Oct. 1, ahead of the one-year anniversary of Khashoggi’s death.

After initial denials, the official Saudi narrative blamed the murder on rogue operatives. The public prosecutor said the then-deputy intelligence chief ordered the repatriation of Khashoggi, a royal insider who became an outspoken critic, but the lead negotiator ordered him killed after discussions for his return failed.

Saud al-Qahtani, a former top royal adviser whom Reuters reported gave orders over Skype to the killers, briefed the hit team on Khashoggi’s activities before the operation, the prosecutor said.

Asked how the killing could happen without him knowing about it, Smith quotes Prince Mohammed as saying: “We have 20 million people. We have 3 million government employees.”

Smith asked whether the killers could have taken private government jets, to which the crown prince responded, “I have officials, ministers to follow things, and they’re responsible. They have the authority to do that.” Smith describes the December exchange, which apparently took place off-camera, in the preview of the documentary.

Eleven Saudi suspects have been put on trial in secretive proceedings but only a few hearings have been held. A UN report has called for Prince Mohammed and other senior Saudi officials to be investigated.

Khashoggi was last seen at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on Oct. 2, where he was to receive papers ahead of his wedding. His body was dismembered and removed from the building, and his remains have not been found.

The post Khashoggi’s Murder ‘Happened under My Watch,’ Says Saudi Crown Prince appeared first on Iran News Daily.

This column states: The choice of the city of Mecca for holding three summits was the most that Saudi Arabia could do, hoping that Riyadh would need to receive help to protect the holy places and gain the most support.

In the same vein, Saudi Arabia imagines that by accusing the Yemeni army and popular committees of the attack on the city of Mecca, it has targeted the Iranian marker, and therefore, in front of the eyes of the delegations participating in the Mecca summit, they also exhibited drone strikes. Which claimed to be Iranian and deserted in Saudi Arabia.

The post The costly Saudi defeat in Mecca appeared first on Iran News Daily.

Bin Salman –, supported by Al Saud’s wealth and undisputed U.S. support for the Yemeni war, repression of domestic opposition, hostage taking of the Lebanese Prime Minister, widespread mass repression of Shia Al-Qatif — thought he could do whatever he wished, but now he is in a situation from which he may not be able to escape.

The honeymoon period for bin Salman ended with the United States in October after the assassination of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. Meanwhile, although Riyadh tried hard to eliminate bin Salman from the Khashoggi murder case, evidence points to his undeniable role in the assassination.

U.S. Senators have been relying on the hard evidence so far gathered to deal with bin Salman effectively. Lindsey Graham, a Republican senator from South Carolina in an interview with “Fox “ claimed: “If it weren’t for the United States, they’d be speaking Farsi in about a week in Saudi Arabia. We need them a lot less than they need us. I think by hooking up with him (MBS) we hurt our ability to govern the region.”

Republican Senator Bob Corker, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has planned to introduce a resolution condemning Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman for the killing of Khashoggi.

“While this doesn’t affect policy … it’s a pretty strong statement for the United States to be making, assuming we can get a vote on it,” Corker said, noting that condemning Mohammed was a bold move by Republicans.

Last week Republican Senator Lindsay Graham also introduced a resolution from a number of Republican and Democratic senators calling for bin Salman to be “co-defendant” in the murder of Khashoggi.

“In response to this resolution, the Washington Post reported that the United States Senate would officially condemn Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman before the end of 2018. With this condemnation, the crown prince of Saudi Arabia will be required to stop other hostile policies in the Persian Gulf.”

Trump has reason to fear he may be impeached 

Some in the U.S. Congress are not only looking to slam bin Salman, but also President Trump, and Trump himself has expressed concern about his own possible impeachment.

A Congressional source said Trump sees impeachment as a “real possibility.” But Trump isn’t certain it will happen, the source added. A separate source close to the White House told CNN that aides inside the West Wing believe “the only issue that may stick” in the impeachment process is the campaign finance violations tied to former Trump attorney Michael Cohen’s payouts to Trump’s alleged mistresses.

Impeachment talk has ratcheted up in recent days following a blockbuster filing from prosecutors in the Southern District of New York. In that filing, prosecutors directly alleged for the first time that Cohen was being directed by Trump when he broke the law during the 2016 presidential campaign.

Democrats are suggesting Trump committed an impeachable offense and could even be sent to prison when his term in the White House is over. The incoming chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Rep. Jerry Nadler, said Sunday that the allegations if proven, would constitute “impeachable offenses.” Democratic Sen. Chris Coons said Monday Trump could be indicted after he leaves office.

Cohen first made the allegation in court in September that he was directed by Trump to make the payments to the two women, Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal. Prosecutors endorsed the allegation in a sentencing document for Cohen on Friday, in which they said Cohen should receive a “substantial sentence” for the crimes he committed, which included campaign finance violations for the payments to the two women, tax fraud and lying to Congress.

Lawyers say that the prosecution of Trump during his presidency is difficult and the only way to dismiss him is to interrogate him first.

Procedurally regarding possible impeachment, charges must be brought by the U.S Congress which then could result in a trial of the President. The law holds that the President, Vice President, and U.S. state officials can be impeached for treason, bribery, and a variety of other possible crimes.

The process of impeachment must start from the House of Representatives and needs to be voted on by the majority of the representatives (half plus one). If this occurs, the trial will be held in the Senate.

At this point, two-thirds of the Senate’s votes are needed to dismiss the President. Though the threat of impeachment has been raised on numerous occasions, only two American Presidents have been impeached.

Bill Clinton, the forty-second president of the United States, was impeached for lying to a jury and related malfeasance, but he was not thrown out of office.

The only other president who was impeached in the history of the United States was Andrew Johnson, who served as the 17th President of the United States. He managed to avoid a trial in the U.S. Senate, like Clinton.

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Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is reportedly shocked over the backlash to his government’s killing of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi. In a recent phone call with U.S. President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and advisor Jared Kushner, according to the Wall Street Journal, his confusion over official Washington’s furor “turned into rage,” as he spoke of feeling “betrayed by the West” and threatened to “look elsewhere” for foreign partners.

Saudi Arabia’s indignation at the United States would not be the first time an autocratic U.S. ally in the Middle East has assumed it could act with virtual impunity due to its alignment with Washington in countering Iran. Indeed, the Saudi prince’s meteoric rise to power bears striking similarities to that of a past U.S. ally-turned-nemesis whose brutality was initially overlooked by his Washington patrons: former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.

Years before Saddam became Washington’s chief foe, he enjoyed significant support from the United States and other Western countries. This ended after he decided to invade Kuwait in 1990. However, the lead-up to that conflict and Washington’s earlier patronage of Saddam provide instructive lessons for U.S. regional policy today and the major risks of not responding forcefully to the assassination of Khashoggi.

Mohammed bin Salman’s gradual and brutal consolidation of power, marked by the detention and torture of his domestic rivals, evokes the “nation-changing assault on dissent within Iraq’s ruling party in 1979 by a young President Saddam Hussein,” Toby Dodge, a consulting senior fellow for the Middle East at London’s International Institute for Strategic Studies, told Bloomberg last year. “The concentration of power in one youthful, ambitious and unpredictable pair of hands is worrying now as it was then.” Washington’s steadfast support of Saddam during the 1980s not only enabled his rampage against his own people and neighboring countries, but also eventually threatened U.S. security interests.

The U.S. relationship with Saddam Hussein began in 1963, when, according to the former National Security Council official Roger Morris, the CIA under President John F. Kennedy “carried out in collaboration with Saddam Hussein” a coup to overthrow the government of Gen. Abdel Karim Kassem, who had five years earlier toppled Iraq’s pro-American monarchy.

However, U.S. ties with Saddam truly began to solidify in February 1982, when the Reagan administration removed Iraq from the State Department’s terrorism list, paving the way for providing military assistance to Iraq. This occurred roughly 17 months after Saddam’s invasion of Iran, while Iraqi forces were occupying the oil-rich southwestern Iranian province of Khuzestan that Iraq sought to annex. In December 1983, President Ronald Reagan dispatched Donald Rumsfeld as a presidential envoy to meet Saddam and set the stage for normalizing U.S.-Iraqi relations. U.S. support for Saddam during the war would grow to include, according to the Washington Post, “large-scale intelligence sharing, supply of cluster bombs through a Chilean front company, and facilitating Iraq’s acquisition of chemical and biological precursors.”

Saddam’s devastating use of chemical weapons during the Iran-Iraq War, both against Iranian military and civilian targets and on his own people, did not deter U.S. support. Rumsfeld’s meeting with Saddam took place despite Washington possessing firm evidence of Iraqi chemical weapons use beginning in 1983. Prior to Rumsfeld’s trip, on Nov. 1, 1983, senior State Department official Jonathan Howe had told Secretary of State George Shultz of intelligence reports showing that Iraq was resorting to “almost daily use of CW [chemical weapons]” against the Iranians.

Toward the end of the war, “U.S. intelligence was flowing freely to Hussein’s military,” according to a 2013 article in Foreign Policy, despite U.S. officials being “fully aware that Hussein’s military would attack with chemical weapons.”
According to declassified CIA documents, two-thirds of all Iraqi chemical weapons deployed during the war were used in the last 18 months of the conflict, when U.S.-Iraqi cooperation peaked. This included the March 1988 genocidal chemical weapons attack on the Iraqi Kurdish town of Halabja, which led to the deaths of as many as 5,000 civilians. Ironically, this attack would later be used by the George W. Bush administration in 2003 as part of its pretext for invading Iraq to eliminate the country’s by then nonexistent weapons of mass destruction.

A few months after the Halabja attack, in September 1988, Assistant Secretary of State Richard Murphy wrote in a memo on the chemical weapons question that “the U.S.-Iraqi relationship is … important to our long-term political and economic objectives.” Today, the Trump administration is echoing this language when discussing the U.S.-Saudi relationship, despite Saudi Arabia’s killing of Khashoggi and its devastating assault on Yemen, with U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo recently proclaiming that Saudi Arabia is “an important strategic alliance of the United States” and that “the Saudis have been great partners in working alongside us.”

It was no surprise, then, that on the eve of Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait, Saddam felt he had unconditional backing from the United States. This impression was reinforced by Saddam’s meeting with then-U.S. Ambassador to Iraq April Glaspie on July 25, 1990, a week before his invasion of Kuwait. During their fateful encounter, according to a diplomatic cable summarizing the meeting, Glaspie stressed “President [George H.W.] Bush’s desire for friendship” and that “the president had instructed her to broaden and deepen our relations with Iraq.” When Saddam raised the issue of Kuwait, which he had been relentlessly threatening, Glaspie stated that the United States took “no position on these Arab affairs.”

To this day, academic experts such as the Harvard University professor and FP columnist Stephen M. Walt contend that “the United States did unwittingly give a green light to Saddam” to invade Kuwait—much as he invaded Iran—without a strong response from the United States. Walt adds that, contrary to some perceptions, Glaspie was “following the instructions she had been given” and that “she was doing what the Bush administration wanted at this crucial meeting.” U.S. diplomatic cables from Glaspie’s era also reveal, according to Germany’s Der Spiegel, that “Glaspie and her predecessor painted the regime in an extremely favorable light from the very outset, overlooked Saddam’s widely-known crimes, and were so influenced by mutual enmity for Iran as to be negligently uncritical.”
The United States was wrong to back Saddam simply because he opposed Iran, a mistake that has haunted it for decades. Not only were more than 500,000 U.S. troops required to dislodge Saddam from Kuwait, resulting in 382 U.S. military casualties, but it also placed the U.S. government on a warpath that resulted in the 2003 toppling of Saddam.

Today, the Trump administration’s reflexive support of Mohammed bin Salman is heading in the same direction as Washington’s ill-fated support of Saddam Hussein. Washington’s backing of Riyadh today even has the same justification: countering Iran. Trump has endorsed the crown prince’s purge of his domestic rivals and has given him carte blanche in his botched endeavors to rout the Houthis in Yemen while massacring civilians, turn Qatar into a vassal state, unseat the Lebanese prime minister, and punish Canada over a human rights complaint. The apparent order to assassinate Khashoggi is only the latest of Mohammed bin Salman’s reckless and impulsive decisions to which the United States has failed to react forcefully.

In the wake of Khashoggi’s killing, Trump administration officials have shamelessly warned that punishing the kingdom could jeopardize the escalating pressure campaign against Iran. A desire to bleed Iran shouldn’t once again overshadow a growing threat to the region: an unchecked, ambitious Saudi crown prince who has already presided over the decimation of Yemen and the butchering of a prominent journalist in his quest to consolidate absolute power.

Mohammed bin Salman, if allowed to ascend to the throne without facing any consequences from Washington for his outrageous behavior, will likely terrorize the region for decades, just as Saddam did. If Khashoggi’s brazen slaughter, carried out in utter disregard for international norms or the political cost for its allies, is a sign of a new Saudi playbook, the world may be facing an even greater threat than Saddam posed. Not only has the crown prince made clear his willingness to use force against neighboring countries, but his country also still enjoys vast oil wealth — giving him the ability to disrupt the global economy (although not to the extent of the 1973 Arab oil embargo) and threaten the profits of Western defense firms, given that the kingdom is the world’s third-largest military spender after the United States and China.

The Trump administration must act now to make it clear to the Saudi royal family that there will be severe consequences for such transgressions and end the unqualified support provided to Saudi Arabia. At a minimum, this should include an end to U.S. participation in the Yemen war, a halt to arms sales, and Magnitsky Act sanctions against all Saudi officials connected to Khashoggi’s killing.

The post Mohammed bin Salman is the next Saddam Hussein appeared first on Iran News Daily.

An award-winning journalist has depicted Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MbS) as the Middle East man of the year due to his policy failures in the region, saying the kingdom is today a loser on the path of isolation. 

Patrick Cockburn wrote in an article for British online newspaper The Independent on Saturday that bin Salman has “embarked on ventures abroad that achieve the exact opposite of what he intended.”

The young prince was appointed the first in line to the Saudi throne by his father, King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, in June. Since then, he has engaged in a string of radical economic and social projects in a bid to portray himself as “reformist.” But those projects have been widely seen to be more about consolidating his personal power and less about bringing about real change to Saudi Arabia.

Prince Mohammed has been involved in an aggressive push to purge royals and businessmen critical of his policies under the banner of an “anti-corruption campaign.”

MbS “is the undoubted Middle East man of the year, but his great impact stems more from his failures than his successes,” the article read.

“He is accused of being Machiavellian in clearing his way to the throne by the elimination of opponents inside and outside the royal family. But, when it comes to Saudi Arabia’s position in the world, his miscalculations remind one less of the cunning maneuvers of Machiavelli and more of the pratfalls of Inspector Clouseau,” it added.

It noted that bin Salman’s support for the militancy in Syria and the protracted war on Yemen has had adverse effects, leading to the victory of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and bringing at least seven million Yemenis close to starvation.

Meanwhile, the Saudi crown prince’s “aggressive opposition” to Iran has increased the Islamic Republic’s influence and the kingdom’s feud with Qatar has driven the Persian Gulf country further into the “Iranian embrace,” it added.

As for Lebanon, the kingdom’s “ill-considered” pressure on Prime Minister Saad Hariri to resign was apparently meant to weaken the Hezbollah resistance movement and Iran in Lebanon, but has in practice empowered both of them, the article read.

“What all these Saudi actions have in common is that they are based on a naïve presumption that ‘a best-case scenario’ will inevitably be achieved. There is no ‘Plan B’ and not much of a ‘Plan A’: Saudi Arabia is simply plugging into conflicts and confrontations it has no idea how to bring to an end,” according to the the article.

“It is Saudi Arabia – and not its rivals – that is becoming isolated. The political balance of power in the region changed to its disadvantage over the last two years.”

The article further said MbS and his advisers may imagine US President Donald Trump and his son-in-law Jared Kushner are firmly by their side, but “Saudi Arabia is learning that support from the White House these days brings fewer advantages than in the past.”

“The attention span of Donald Trump is notoriously short, and his preoccupation is with domestic US politics,” it said.

It also touched on the new Saudi rulers’ adventurist policies and the fact that “Saudi relations with other countries used to be cautious, conservative and aimed at preserving the status quo.”

“But today its behavior is zany, unpredictable and often counterproductive,” it said, adding “other states in the Middle East are coming to recognize that there are winners and losers, and have no wish to be on the losing side.”

Independent’s article ‘important’ 

Iranian Ambassador to the UK Hamid Baeidinejad hailed the article as “important”.

“Independent” in an important article has recognized MbS of Saudi Arabia as the man of 2017 year but not because of his successes but due to his failed policies in Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Qatar, Lebanon and Iran, which has weakened global and regional Saudi position. pic.twitter.com/c6FW3q1vgh

— Hamid Baeidinejad (@baeidinejad) December 16, 2017

Bin Salman’s lavish purchase

Separately on Saturday, an investigation by The New York Times named Salman as the owner of the Chateau Louis XIV, a mansion outside of Paris named after the 17th century French king that is widely touted as the world’s most expensive house.

The property was sold for more than $300 million back in 2015.

In recent months, the Saudi crown prince was identified as the buyer of the record-breaking da Vinci painting, which sold for $450 million, and a yacht for $500 million.

The lavish purchases come at a time that bin Salman claims to be taking on graft.

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