Mohammed bin Salman
America Resumes Attacks on Saudi Leader Mohammed bin Salman
A video clip recently shown on CBS’s «60 Minutes», which allegedly shows Omar al-Bayoumi, described as a «Saudi spy», filming the Capitol building, has reignited the theory of Riyadh’s involvement in the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
In the canonical narrative of this unprecedented attack on America, there is a heroic episode. It is said that passengers on Flight 93, also hijacked by terrorists, stormed the cockpit and prevented the hijackers from directing the airliner into the U.S. Capitol building. The plane hit the ground somewhere in the fields in Pennsylvania.
Former CIA Deputy Director Michael Morell stated that the footage shown on CBS was a «chilling video». Retired FBI agent Richard Lambert explained the probable reason for showing the video clip: «This is another very large piece of evidence pointing to the Saudi government’s involvement in the 9/11 attacks».
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) issued an official statement, claiming it was just a tourist tape. It’s doubtful this statement will be considered credible in a case with a predetermined guilty verdict.
However, various anomalies raise questions. Retired FBI agent Ken Williams, who was part of the 9/11 investigation team, asks a reasonable question: If this «evidence» was found during a raid on Omar al-Bayoumi’s residence in Britain and handed over to the Americans back in 2001, why did it take over 20 years to make it public?
The timing, if you put the news in a geopolitical context, is actually not at all coincidental. The Obama-Clinton-Biden administration pulled this trump card out of its sleeve now because of the cumulative effect of the accumulated frustrations associated with a series of epic failures on the diplomatic front. Failures have occurred both in flirting with and confronting the neo-globalization imperialists with the petrodollar sheikhs.
The situation is both similar to and the exact opposite of what happened in 1985, when Saudi Arabia, at the instigation of the United States, quintupled its daily oil production. This led to a price drop from $30 to $10 per barrel. Given the Soviet Union’s dependency on hard currency revenues from oil exports, this Saudi move created economic stress.
Today, the U.S. is insisting that Saudi Arabia again increases crude oil production to lower crude oil prices. This would reduce retail gasoline prices for Americans, helping Joe Biden’s reelection. But here’s the trouble: this time the Saudis refused to increase their production of black gold because they depend on high enough oil prices to supplement a budget burdened with many social obligations to their loyal subjects.
Another factor straining Washington-Riyadh relations is Saudi Arabia’s unwillingness to compromise its principles and maintain equidistance from both Israel and Palestine.
In June, during an annual reception for honored guests making the pilgrimage to Mecca, Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS), the de facto ruler of the kingdom, called Tel Aviv’s actions «continued heinous crimes against our brothers in Gaza».
MBS urged the international community to recognize the Palestinian state within the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital to achieve comprehensive, just, and lasting peace. Washington could not but perceive this statement as a refusal to immediately, fully and finally normalize relations between the KSA and Israel. The fact is that in October 2023, the Americans with unprecedented zeal persuaded the Saudis to follow the example of Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates and establish diplomatic and economic relations with Israel within the framework of the «Abraham Accords» concluded in 2020 during the Trump presidency.
In his article, David Ignatius, a journalist of Armenian descent and columnist for The Washington Post, who has covered Middle East events and the CIA for over 25 years, argued that the de facto rapprochement agreement between Saudi Arabia and Israel «should be concluded within the next two months» and ratified by the U.S. Congress by June.
The urgency seemed driven by Joe Biden’s shaky and stumbling reelection campaign, which desperately needed foreign policy successes here and now. If this agreement aimed to mitigate unprecedented global condemnation of Israel for the killing of 40,000 Palestinians in Gaza, most of whom were women and children, the overarching goal was grander. Washington intended to use documented rapprochement between Riyadh and Tel Aviv to undermine the March 2023 agreement to restore diplomatic relations between Saudi Arabia and Iran.
The reconciliation between these two implacable foes, informal leaders of the Sunni and Shia branches of Islam, was achieved through China’s mediation, causing barely concealed hysteria in Washington.
«U.S. wants to drive a wedge between China and Saudi Arabia», explains Vali Nasr, professor of international relations and Middle Eastern studies at Johns Hopkins University. According to him, «China’s growing involvement in the Persian Gulf concerned Washington, and when the Chinese managed to resolve the intractable issue between Saudi Arabia and Iran, it signaled to Washington that China’s role in the region was more than commercial».
Countering China’s penetration into a region that previously recognized U.S. supremacy without reservation is becoming a priority for both Republicans and Democrats. Four years ago, during the election campaign, Joe Biden’s political technologists, apparently to attract the sympathy and money of the Jewish lobby, recommended that he threaten Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) with punishment for the elimination of opposition journalist Jamal Khashoggi, whose violent death was allegedly «ordered» by the Saudi prince himself. Biden also labeled MBS as a «pariah».
In the East, both Far and Middle, there’s a saying that revenge is a dish best served cold. An asymmetrical response to the four-year-old insult was Saudi Arabia’s June 9 decision to withdraw from the 1973 strategic and barter agreement with the United States.
Back then, following the first global crisis caused by the Middle Eastern countries’ oil embargo, cutting off supplies to the West in retaliation for supporting Israel, Washington managed to persuade Riyadh to set export oil prices exclusively in U.S. dollars and invest excess revenues in U.S. Treasury bonds in exchange for security guarantees and arms sales. This agreement laid an additional foundation for the U.S. dollar hegemony, enabling the U.S. to use its currency as a tool of blackmail and pressure on dissident states and rogue countries.
Director of foreign news at Turkish newspaper Sabah, Berjan Tutar, believes that Riyadh’s decision, reflecting MBS’s deliberate policy of distancing from the U.S. as the once omnipotent prosecutor of the Middle East, is fateful and sets a new development vector for the region. believes that in this way «the crown prince took revenge on Biden for calling him a pariah», and adds: «Riyadh’s decision signifies a complete failure for the U.S. There is no doubt that the collapse of the petrodollar will also mark the end of the United States as a global superpower, as this step will cause major disruptions in the world financial order».
Among the many motives for the U.S. administration’s renewed attacks on MBS, a notable one is the unpublicized indignation over the results of Vladimir Putin’s visit to the oil and petrodollar-rich kingdom in December 2023. A special place in the agreements reached on cooperation in 10 areas is occupied by the energy sector. The two countries agreed to strengthen their partnership in oil and gas, including procurement, supplies, and standardization of equipment, research and development services, including in renewable energy, and the peaceful use of nuclear energy.
In summary, a critical mass of Riyadh’s foreign policy maneuvers, reflecting the will of the crown prince, has accumulated, undermining Washington’s previously unshakeable authority to remotely control the Middle East region. Now, the empire strikes back, rejecting the previously stated version that the terrorists who destroyed the New York twin towers had no external backing.
One can assume that if in September 2001 Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud had not been only 16 years old, Washington’s strategists would have tried today to portray him as the arch-villain who masterminded and executed this attack.