Yemen/ Saudi/ Bahrain update 12/22/2016..Bahrainis rally to support Ayat. Qassim
Bahrainis rally to support Ayat. Qassim
Ex-Bahraini MP: Al Khalifa Regime Plans to Arrest Sheikh Isa Qassim
http://en.farsnews.com/newstext.aspx?nn=13951001001378
Former Bahraini opposition MP, Jalal Fairooz, warned that the Bahraini authorities planned to arrest the country’s senior cleric, Sheikh Isa Qassim, on Wednesday but the attempt ended in failure. “The Bahraini regime wants to send a message to its allies, that it is able to control the tiny Gulf kingdom as it tried to test its control today by trying to arrest Sheikh Isa Qassim,” Fairooz said, Al Ahed reported. However, the regime “failed in fulfilling its aims” as it was confronted with a popular uprising, he added. The former MP went on to say that the Al Khalifa regime “plans to arrest Sheikh Qassim” but “it is closely monitoring the internal and regional situation, in the light of the Saudi alliance being blamed for the situation in Iraq, Syria and Yemen, so it aims to be more cautious in dealing with this internal incident.”
Fairooz explained that the regime is “plotting for something” which it will implement by the end of this month and the beginning of January as the final verdict on Sheikh Qassim’s “charade trials” will be upheld. “The regime is taking advantage of the holiday season when the West is absent and busy with Christmas to cook-up something for the coming stage,” the ex-MP indicated. Fairooz believed that the Al Khalifa regime “wants to crush the democratic popular mobilization of the Bahraini people and to detain and totally eliminate popular opposition leaders headed by Sheikh Isa Qassim,” in a bid to pave the way to stir thing up in the Gulf Kingdom in “the absence of any popular mobilization”.
The former MP concluded that “What happened Wednesday morning is the best example of what the Bahraini people can do,” adding that Bahrainis flooded Diraz from different cities and villages. “The residents of Diraz gathered in the cordoned area and confronted the regime forces forcing them to push back and retreat,” he concluded. Scores of people had been killed and hundreds of others injured or arrested in the Bahraini crackdown on the anti-regime activists.
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Saudi Royal Dynasty Likely to Fall Like Shah of Iran
http://en.farsnews.com/newstext.aspx?nn=13951002000986
Media reports said Riyadh’s decision to decrease oil production may alienate Saudi Arabia from its traditional Western allies and pose a serious threat to the House of Saud. Mainstream media outlets in the US and UK unleashed a barrage of criticism upon Saudi Arabia, blasting the country for signing an oil deal with Russia, Sputnik reported. The Guardian even predicted that the falling oil prices and a sharp drop in demand for oil from that region will spell doom for the Saudi government. The newspaper likened the possibility of the Saudi ruling dynasty’s demise to the fall of the pro-American Shah government in Iran which caught Western intelligence agencies by surprise.
However, Hassan Hanizadeh, former chief editor of the Mehr News Agency, told Sputnik Persian that the fate of Saudi Arabia could be much worse due to a number of factors. “It’s no secret that the US and the West consider the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia their ally and chief treasurer for various goals. Up until today the Saudi money helped only the US and its allies to advance their interests. However, now that the oil prices have dropped and the kingdom’s annual budget has decreased by $100 billion, their Arabian treasurer has become worthless to them. Everyone knows that the US does not have any constant allies in its foreign policy; that is, when the US realizes that a country becomes too weak to bankroll American projects, it simply drops them,” he explained.
Hanizadeh also remarked that the lack of democratic processes within the country also poses a significant threat to the Saudi government. “Saudi government structure is based on the clan society principles. The power belongs to the most influential members of several clans; this system is completely devoid of even a concept of constitution. The despotism that the ruling Saudi clan practices towards other citizens of the kingdom, for example, the five-million Shiite population, is also an important factor.
Shiites live in the eastern regions of Saudi Arabia, the biggest oil cluster of the kingdom. And yet their rights have been being violated since the very founding of the kingdom. The so called successors, 6000 Saudi princes, simply pocket about 60 percent of all oil revenues,” he said.
All in all, Hanizadeh concluded, the lack of any forms of democracy makes the Saudi government extremely frail, and any economic or political defeats, along with spending billions of dollars on launching airstrikes against civilians in Yemen, may cause the government to collapse at any moment.
“Many analysts believe that 2017 will mark the fall of Saudi Arabia’s ruling clan. And the fall of the al-Saud dynasty will be much worse than the end of the Shah in Iran in 1979, as it is likely that it will be accompanied by a bloody civil war across the kingdom. One should not discount the probability of feuds and discord between numerous power-hungry would-be successors, each of whom is backed by his whole tribe. In this scenario, the enmity between tribes will inevitably lead to a civil war,” Hanizadeh said.
Source: http://blogdogcicle.blogspot.com/2016/12/yemen-saudi-bahrain-update_22.html
