{"id":9334,"date":"2015-06-23T05:30:56","date_gmt":"2015-06-23T10:30:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=9334"},"modified":"2015-06-23T05:30:56","modified_gmt":"2015-06-23T10:30:56","slug":"putin-and-the-saudi-caravan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=9334","title":{"rendered":"Putin and the Saudi Caravan"},"content":{"rendered":"

Putin and the Saudi Caravan<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n

No one \u2013 as usual – saw it coming.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

So guess who walks into\u00a0a room in\u00a0St. Petersburg this past\u00a0Thursday; Saudi Arabia\u2019s Deputy Crown Prince \u2013 and Defense Minister \u2013 Muhammad bin Salman, favorite son of\u00a0King Salman; Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir (former ambassador to\u00a0the US and very close to\u00a0key players in\u00a0the Beltway); and all-powerful Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi. They were all there for\u00a0a face-to-face with\u00a0President Vladimir Putin, on\u00a0the sidelines of\u00a0the St. Petersburg Economic Forum.<\/div>\n
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\"2015<\/div>\n
\u00a9 SPUTNIK\/ ILIYA PITALEV<\/a><\/div>\n
SPIEF Shows West Wants to Return to Business as Usual in Russia<\/a><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

In principle, there could not be a more spectacular game-changer-in-waiting. A royal Saudi caravan offering tribute, in\u00a0the form of\u00a0incense, gold and myrrh (or higher oil prices)? No one knows, yet, how this will play out\u00a0in the New Great Game in\u00a0Eurasia, of\u00a0which a major spin-off is Cold War 2.0 between\u00a0the US and Russia.Putin and King Salman \u2013 very discreetly\u00a0\u2014 had been in\u00a0touch over\u00a0the phone for\u00a0weeks. The King\u2019s son invited Putin to\u00a0Riyadh. Accepted. Putin invited the King to\u00a0Moscow. Accepted. No question, the suspense is already killing everybody. But is this real life? Or smoke and mirrors?<\/p>\n

Who’s allied with\u00a0whom?<\/strong><\/p>\n

First of\u00a0all, the crucial energy front. Putin is now discussing what was, so far, an oil price war but\u00a0may become \u2013 and the operative concept is \u201cmaybe\u201d \u2013 a \u201cpetroleum alliance\u201d (in Naimi\u2019s words), directly with\u00a0the source: the House of\u00a0Saud.<\/p>\n

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Read more:\u00a0http:\/\/sputniknews.com\/columnists\/20150622\/1023689645.html#ixzz3dscF0SuY<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Putin and the Saudi Caravan No one \u2013 as usual – saw it coming. So guess who walks into\u00a0a room in\u00a0St. Petersburg this past\u00a0Thursday; Saudi Arabia\u2019s Deputy Crown Prince \u2013 and Defense Minister \u2013 Muhammad bin Salman, favorite son of\u00a0King Salman; Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir (former ambassador to\u00a0the US and very close to\u00a0key players in\u00a0the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[6622,2046,6618,6621,6620,694,701,6619,857],"class_list":["post-9334","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-geopolitics","tag-adel-al-jubeir","tag-ali-al-naimi","tag-house-of-saud","tag-king-salman","tag-muhammad-bin-salman","tag-russia","tag-saudi-arabia","tag-st-petersburg","tag-vladimir-putin"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9334","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9334"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9334\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9335,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9334\/revisions\/9335"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9334"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9334"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9334"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}