Angela Merkel isn't happy about this. Somebody, presumably from German intelligence, leaked a memo to the media concerning the Saudi leadership and how it's destabilizing the Middle East.
The memo was distributed to selected German journalists on Wednesday. In it, the foreign intelligence agency, known as the BND, offered an unusually frank assessment of recent Saudi policy.
"The cautious diplomatic stance of the older leading members of the royal family is being replaced by an impulsive policy of intervention," said the memo, which was titled "Saudi Arabia - Sunni regional power torn between foreign policy paradigm change and domestic policy consolidation" and was 1 1/2 pages long.
The memo said that King Salman and his son Prince Mohammed bin Salman were trying to build reputations as leaders of the Arab world.
In its memo, the BND said that Saudi rivalry with Iran for supremacy in the Middle East, as well as Saudi dependency on the United States, were the main drivers of Saudi foreign policy.
The Saudi-Iranian rivalry plays out throughout the region, the memo said, most recently and strikingly in the Saudi military intervention in Yemen. There, the memo said, "Saudi Arabia wants to prove that it is ready to take unprecedented military, financial and political risks in order not to fall into a disadvantageous position in the region".
The Saudi-Iranian rivalry plays out throughout the region, the memo said, most recently and strikingly in the Saudi military intervention in Yemen. There, the memo said, "Saudi Arabia wants to prove that it is ready to take unprecedented military, financial and political risks in order not to fall into a disadvantageous position in the region".
The intelligence agency's memo was flatly repudiated by the German Foreign Ministry in Berlin, which said the German Embassy in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, had issued a statement making clear that "the BND statement reported by media is not the position of the federal government".
Frank-Walter Steinmeier, the German foreign minister, "is in regular contact with his Saudi colleague Adel Al-Jubair, and has always stressed that the federal government counts on constructive cooperation with Saudi Arabia," the statement added.
"The BND certainly does not speak for German foreign policy, and definitely not through third parties" like the media, the government official said, adding that political advances in Syria and the Middle East in general could be achieved only with "constructive cooperation with Saudi Arabia."
Once again we're seeing how, in the West, the political caste closes ranks around the House of Saud and the instrumental role it plays in the turmoil that wracks the Middle East.
Hopefully, Saudi support of ISIL in Syria will give the House of Saud the old exploding cigar treatment . Some governments may get tired of Saudi proxies attacking their interests. German intelligence has certainly had enough.
ReplyDeleteMaybe Canada will stop arming this terrorist supporting regime.
Saudi Arabia is directly responsible for lowering the price of oil. They said they'd pump as much as was necessary to do it. Now the world sits on a glut.
ReplyDeleteSaudi Arabia is thus directly responsible for ruining Alberta's economy, and Canada certainly owes it no favours. None whatsoever.
Why we even talk to this regime, let alone laud them and sell them arms is beyond me. Must be some geopolitical reason that is not discernible to a any logic system. So it's money, and I'd like to know who is getting paid off, although it's not hard to guess.
Why is Merkel all panicked with the truth? Who's her boss forcing her to retract, apologize and lie? It won't be Vlad. No, Saudi Arabia has all the Western pols by the short and curlies somehow. Is it dirty pix of lover's trysts? What is it really? Only the Shadow knows.
This fits in there ; somehow.
ReplyDeleteGoodness gracias profit from selling arms trumps all, again...
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-03-08/german-split-opens-over-blocked-sale-of-tanks-to-saudi-arabia
Anon, 911 was financed and committed by Saudi suicide terrorists, and as many have speculated, it happened, with the complicit knowledge of certain western governments, such as Germany, where some of the hijackers made their preparations. Revealing the truth about this attack, with backing evidence which the Saudis surely would have, could mean the unraveling of it all, especially in the USA, where a former government might face the death penalty.
ReplyDelete