RUTHFULLY YOURS

Last week’s mass executions in Saudi Arabia suggest panic at the highest level of the monarchy. The action is without precedent, even by the grim standards of Saudi repression. In 1980 Riyadh killed 63 jihadists who had attacked the Grand Mosque of Mecca, but that was fresh after the event. Most of the 47 prisoners shot and beheaded on Jan. 2 had sat in Saudi jails for a decade. The decision to kill the prominent Shia cleric Nimr al-Nimr, the most prominent spokesman for restive Saudi Shia Muslims in Eastern Province, betrays fear of subversion with Iranian sponsorship.

Why kill them all now? It is very hard to evaluate the scale of internal threats to the Saudi monarchy, but the broader context for its concern is clear: Saudi Arabia finds itself isolated, abandoned by its longstanding American ally, at odds with China, and pressured by Russia’s sudden preeminence in the region. The Saudi-backed Army of Conquest in Syria seems to be crumbling under Russian attack. The Saudi intervention in Yemen against Iran-backed Houthi rebels has gone poorly. And its Turkish ally-of-convenience is consumed by a low-level civil war. Nothing has gone right for Riyadh.

Worst of all, the collapse of Saudi oil revenues threatens to exhaust the kingdom’s $700 billion in financial reserves within five years, according to an October estimate by the International Monetary Fund (as I discussed here). The House of Saud relies on subsidies to buy the loyalty of the vast majority of its subjects, and its reduced spending power is the biggest threat to its rule. Last week Riyadh cut subsidies for water, electricity and gasoline. The timing of the executions may be more than coincidence: the royal family’s capacity to buy popular support is eroding just as its regional security policy has fallen apart.

WALLSTROM IS ALL THE RAGE NOW WITH EURO FEMINISTS BECAUSE SHE CRITICIZED SAUDI ARABIA….BUT SHE IS A VICIOUS ROTTWEILER WHEN IT COMES TO ISRAEL…RSK

Swedish Foreign Minister Margot Wallström linked Palestinian grievances with Israel to the Islamist terror attacks that killed 129 people in Paris.

“Obviously, we have reason to be worried, not just in Sweden but across the world—because there are so many that are being radicalized. Here, once again, we are brought back to situations like the one in the Middle East, where not least, the Palestinians see that there is not a future. We must either accept a desperate situation or resort to violence,” Wallström said in a television interview.

In response to Wallström’s comments, Israel summoned Sweden’s ambassador to the Jewish state for an urgent meeting with Israeli Foreign Ministry Director-General Dore Gold, calling the Swedish minister’s remarks “brazen,” “shocking,” and “hostile.”

Pithy comment from a Belgian reader “Again this lack of common sense. Why on earth can’t you link terrorism and migration? Isnt it obvious that the more you import the Middle East and Africa having unrestricted flows the more terrorism and less freedom you will have? All terrorists in Europe in 2015 were Muslim immigrants or the children of Muslim immigrants. Showing that the problem is within Islam itself. Europe sticking its head in the sand on the Islamic migration issue is the last thing Europe needs. ”
Troubles crowded in on Europe in 2015. In 2016, they could shake the foundations of European economic and political integration.

The conflict in Syria has blown back devastatingly into Europe, spurring terror attacks and a refugee crisis over which policy makers appear to have little influence.

Border controls, viewed as a thing of the past across much of the continent, have been raised at many national frontiers, and leading politicians have acknowledged that the Schengen passport-free travel zone, one of the great successes of European integration, is under threat.

To the east, the Ukraine conflict remains unresolved and Russia’s foreign-policy posture more aggressive than at any time since the end of the Cold War.

Meanwhile, the recovery of the eurozone economy has been faltering and economic vulnerabilities remain in some countries in the form of high debts and weak banks, even with official interest rates close to zero.

Added to that, the U.K. could deliver a blow to the European Union in a referendum, likely to be held in 2016, over whether the country should become the first ever to leave the 28-nation bloc.