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Saudi King Abdullah has died


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Oh well, then I guess that I'm really lucky to live in a Canadian democraty. May he find his "God" and face the values he did put into pratice in his late life.

 

I prefer the existing Saudi regime to most alternatives that I can think of.

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This guy is the new king https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salman_of_Saudi_Arabia. Unfortunately he is nearly 80 and is in a state of bad health (stroke victim, nerve damage). There are rumors (unconfirmed but its likely true given what knowledgable people are saying) that he has Dementia and Alzheimers. Once this guy dies (that'll happen within ten years probably) then we might have an issue (the guy after him Prince Muqrin is considered illegitimate by at least some portions of the Royal family since his mother was Yemeni) in either case If I were a betting person I would think the Muqrin is really pulling the strings here and Salman is mostly a figurehead. Muqrin is former Saudi Mukhabarat and was promoted to Deputy Crown Prince by Abdullah. He likely has a lot of power within the government. Most of Abdullah's brothers are going to die off within the next ten to 15 years when Muqrin dies is when the real Saudi succession crisis will arrive. As far as oil goes who knows, I don't think Saudi's OPEC and foreign policy is going to change drastically until we get to a new generation of rulers.

 

Yeah, when the new generation (Abdul Aziz ibn Saud's grandsons) arrive, that could cause real chaos.  One of the grandsons could spend 2 billion to reach the throne and then instantly have over 500 billion at his disposal.

 

One kind of stunning factoid.  The "new" ruler of Saudi Arabia is the son of a guy (ibn Saud) born in 1876; let's see, Victoria is still "Empress of India" and will be for another 25 years, the Franco-Prussian war ended 5 years earlier and the USA was 100 years old and (you Northerners help me out with some Canadian relevant  history here.) Vancouver had just been colonized.

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