Saudi - Thoughts about Change

Reflecting on my time in Arabia in the 1970s... In those days I knocked around with the Jalahmah clan who used to rule Bahrein until the Khalifas pushed them out. 

Well, a lot of water has gone under the bridge since then. A causeway has been built from Khobar to Manama, the majority Shi'ia have demonstrated against the ruling kleptocracy, the Saudi Army has intervened and the Saudi Shi'ia of Hasa, the oil bearing Eastern Province have expressed solidarity with their Bahreini brothers. 

Now their leader, Nimr al Nimr, has been executed (one of 47 by beheading in one day) ordered by the Saudi King! You can expect some strong reaction from Iran over this...

Things are slowly coming to a boil. The crushing of Daesh in the Syrian desert will return some hot-head Salafis to Saudi, the Shi'ia of Hasa, no doubt, are feeling the pressure, and the Houthi/Saudi war in Yemen has done little more than to inadvertently strengthen alQueda there. All we need now is a third intifada to protest the ethnic cleansing and stealing land the Israeli policy follows and we will have such a big mess, intervention or non-intervention will be just as bad. 

As a footnote, on the Tarut island beach at Sunnabis, a Palestinian friend once remarked to me "the oil farms at R'as Tanura are only a anti-tank rocket's flight away."

Just to the north of R'as Tanura, I once visited Rahima, a village so named for Abdul Rahman Al Jalahmah. He was regarded as a pirate by the British when they were subjecting the coast to Pax Brittanica. He blew himself and a British warship out of the water by setting off gunpowder in his dhow. A brave man and indicative of the sense of local pride and history of this area on which we now depend for oil.