Saudi Arabia

Earlier, when discussing why the Syrian "rebels" fighting Assad are in "turmoil", we said that as a result of the ongoing Qatar crisis the various Saudi and Qatari supply chains supporting the rebels, both in terms of weapons and funding, had dried up due to the diplomatic fallout involving Qatar and Saudi Arabia. "Together with Turkey and the United States, Qatar and Saudi Arabia have been major sponsors of the insurgency, arming an array of groups that have been fighting to topple Syria's Iran-backed president."

Authored by George Friedman and Jacob Shapiro via MauldinEconomics.com,

There’s no end in sight to slumping oil prices - good news for consumers but a dire development for major oil producers like Saudi Arabia and Russia. And now, rising US oil production and exports are contributing to the slump.

With the naval and economic blockade of Qatar extending into the second week, while Qatar's banks and money exchanges are fast running out of dollars, today the wealthy Gulf state defied and accused the Saudi-led alliance of engaging in an "illegal siege" designed to apply political pressure, while rebuffing the Saudi "offer" of food and aid.

Authored by Federico Pieraccini via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

In a climate of outright confrontation, even the Gulf monarchies have been overtaken by a series of unprecedented events. The differences between Qatar on one side, and Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain on the other, have escalated into a full-blown diplomatic crisis with outcomes difficult to foresee.

A bipartisan bid to block President Trump's recently negotiated $110 billion arms deal with Saudi Arabia failed in the Senate. The effort to stop the weapons sales, authored by Senators Rand Paul and Chris Murphy, fell short on a 47-53 vote, with four Republicans joining most Democrats in voting against it and five Democrats voting to preserve deals that will arm the Saudi Kingdom with some of the most sophisticated equipment available.