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Spurned by allies, Saudi rethinks chequebook diplomacy
Continuing government cost cutting that started by reducing subsidies to the Saudi on the street and, after cutting vast swathes of the House of Saud from princely incomes, locked a slightly smaller group of them into a fancy hotel until they coughed up newly defined excess ill-gotten gains. [Rudaw] From Pakistain to Leb ...an Iranian colony situated on the eastern Mediterranean, conveniently adjacent to Israel. Formerly inhabited by hardy Phoenecian traders, its official language is now Arabic, with the usual unpleasant side effects. The Leb civil war, between 1975 and 1990, lasted a little over 145 years and produced 120,000 fatalities. The average length of a ceasefire was measured in seconds. The Lebs maintain a precarious sectarian balance among Shiites, Sunnis, and about a dozeen flavors of Christians. It is the home of Hezbollah, which periodically starts a war with the Zionist Entity, gets Beirut pounded to rubble, and then declares victory and has a parade. The Lebs have the curious habit of periodically murdering their heads of state or prime ministers..., Soddy Arabia ...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. When the oil runs out the rest of the world is going to kick sand in the Soddy national face... is scaling back its famed chequebook diplomacy, a longstanding policy of splashing petrodollars in exchange for influence, which observers say has yielded few tangible gains. Posted by: trailing wife 2020-09-03 |
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