From Ghassan Kadi at The Saker:

MBS has been the architect of that awful and criminal war on Yemen.  Tens of thousands of innocent Yemeni civilians have been killed either by Saudi-led raids or by starvation and diseases inflicted upon Yemen as a result of the war. Hundreds of thousands of Yemeni men, women and children are living under abject conditions; with lack of provisions, medication and basic requirements for survival.

On the account of Yemen alone, MBS is a war criminal, an architect of genocide, and ought to face justice…

Traditionally in polygamic societies, older wives and their children naturally loath younger wives and their children. When power is involved, the older generation tries hard, very hard, to hold on to it to make sure it does not get passed on to the children of the younger wives.

But because King Abdul Aziz had a fifty year age gap between his eldest and youngest sons, as older sons became kings, younger half-brothers had to inherit the throne because for as long as some direct sons of founder Abdul Aziz were still alive, the throne was not meant to skip the generation to appoint grandsons as kings.

It is this scenario that inadvertently allowed MBS to rise to power; the death of his older uncles…

The elevation of Salman to the throne would have gone without much ramifications had he kept his nephew Mohamed Bin Nayef as his Crown Prince. Such a succession would have kept the tier of succession back into the box of the old princes. But Salman has a son who is different, and this son Mohamed, MBS, is seemingly like no other prince, and he had his father nominate him as the Crown Prince to the dismay of the generation of many grandchildren of the founding king who thought they were more worthy…

What we are witnessing in Saudi Arabia is nothing short of a coup d’etat.

No Saudi prince has ever been jailed in Saudi Arabia before; with the exception of Faisal Bin Musaed who killed his uncle the then King Faisal.

From Moon of Alabama:

Having been defeated in Iraq and Syria and at stalemate in Qatar and Yemen the Saudi ruler decided to try his luck in Lebanon…

The Saudi plans are well coordinated with the United States and have the full support of the Israeli government. The point man in the Trump administration for all Middle East issues is Trump’s son-in-law (and arch Zionist) Jared Kushner…

Friday night the Lebanese Prime Minister Saad al Hariri was ordered back to his home-country Saudi Arabia and pressed to read a resignation statement on a Saudi TV station. None of his advisors in Lebanon knew that this was coming. It is claimed that Hariri did not voluntarily resign and is now under house arrest…

On Saturday the Saudi ruler engaged in the night of the long knives and arrested all his potential internal competition…

The former(?) Palestinian President Abbas, long beyond his legal term, was also summoned to Riyadh. One wonders if he will ever return.

Yesterday the Saudi Minister Thamer al-Sabhan declared war on Lebanon…

There is little the Saudis can do militarily hurt Lebanon.

From the comments:

[Lebanon Pres.] Aoun was responsible for Shiites being able to flee to Christian villages [in 2006]. He is a real leader, he made the calculation that Christians can survive in the neighbourhood only in alliance with Shiites…

In this situation, violence looms large over the kingdom, with those capable of committing atrocities coming to occupy a vacuum created by bin Salman’s autocratic rule that silences even his own cousins, let alone humble commoners with no power whatsoever to challenge him…

An alQueda or ISIS attack on the hotel that now holds dozens of high-value targets would allow the prince to escape blame. Such an attack on Visiting Day would kill people also kill people who are closest to those being detained…

Taking on enemies at home and abroad at the same time goes against the core of Sun Tzu’s teachings and is a guarantee of failure.

From Pepe Escobar:

“This is more serious than it appears. The arrest of the two sons of previous King Abdullah, Princes Miteb and Turki, was a fatal mistake. This now endangers the King himself. It was only the regard for the King that protected MBS. There are many left in the army against MBS and they are enraged at the arrest of their commanders.”..

“There are three major royal family groups aligning against the present rulers: the family of former King Abdullah, the family of former King Fahd, and the family of former Crown Prince Nayef.”

Nayef – who replaced Bandar – is close to Washington and extremely popular in Langley due to his counter-terrorism activities. His arrest earlier this year angered the CIA and quite a few factions of the House of Saud – as it was interpreted as MBS forcing his hand in the power struggle.

According to the source, “he might have gotten away with the arrest of CIA favorite Mohammed bin Nayef if he smoothed it over but MBS has now crossed the Rubicon though he is no Caesar. The CIA regards him as totally worthless…”

“There will be regime change in the near future, and the only reason that it has not happened already is because the old King is liked among his family. It is possible that there may be a struggle emanating from the military as during the days of King Farouk, and we may have a ruler arise that is not friendly to the United States.”

From Reuters:

The United States delivered two A-29 Super Tucano light attack aircraft to Lebanon’s army on Tuesday, a sign of continued U.S. support despite Israeli accusations that the Lebanese military is controlled by Hezbollah…

Over the last decade, the U.S. government has invested over $1.5 billion in training and equipment, and has trained over 32,000 Lebanese troops.

From The New Arab:

US Special Forces are operating in Lebanon ahead of an imminent battle with Islamic State group militants holed up near the north-eastern border with Syria, the US department of defence has confirmed.

“I can confirm the presence of US Special Forces in Lebanon,” Pentagon spokesperson Eric Pahon told US-funded Arabic television network Al-Hurra earlier this week. “Our special forces are providing training and support to the Lebanese Armed Forces,” he added…

The Iranian-backed Lebanese paramilitary group Hizballah – which concluded last week an operation against non-IS militants south of the theatre of the upcoming battle without army involvement – has indicated it would join the operation from the Syrian side.