MESOP NEWS TODAYS GENERAL DEBATE : BACGROUND SAUDI ARABIA (THE CIPHER LETTER) / A Saudi Purge, or Re-Branding?
Is President Trump right to embrace the Saudi Crown Prince’s unprecedented arrest of 11 princes, dozens of former ministers and business officials, and four current ministers earlier this month?
Haisam and Wesam Hassanein think so: “The oil-rich monarchy finally has a guy who is willing and has the guts to take the massive responsibility of reforming and increasing the popular legitimacy of the House of Saud after decades of encouragement by successive U.S. presidents.”
- “MbS (Mohammad bin Salman) is doing what former Egyptian and Tunisian Presidents Hosni Mubarak and Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali respectively should have done to avert their downfall…the primary reason behind the anger…that brought down [their] regimes is the perception among the youth of the widespread, unchecked corruption among the ruling families and their cronies.”
Read the Hassaneins’ full argument. – Haisam Hassanein is a Glazer Fellow at the Washington Institute, and Wesam Hassanein is a master’s candidate at American University.