Authored by Raul Ilargi Meijer via The Automatic Earth blog,
Trying to figure out what on earth is happening in the Middle East appears to have gotten a lot harder. Perhaps (because) it’s become more dangerous too. There are so many players, and connections between players, involved now that even making one of those schematic representations would never get it right. Too many unknown unknowns.
A little over a year ago, specialized satellite imaging company Orbital Insight which uses its proprietary imaging and algorithms to track above-ground oil storage, confirmed something we had alleged earlier in the year: that China was vastly under-representing the amount of oil it had stored in its Strategic Petroleum Reserve (with significant implications for prices).
By Chris at www.CapitalistExploits.at
...and it's only getting worse. Bin, by the way, means "son of" in Arabic.
This is why there are "Bins" here, there, and everywhere scattered across the Middle East. And some of them are having a rough week. In particular:
From the very beginning, there was something off about Sunday's unprecedented countercoup purge unleashed by Mohammad bin Salman on alleged political enemies, including some of Saudi Arabia's richest and most powerful royals and government officials: it was just too brazen to be a simple "power consolidation" move; in fact most commentators were shocked by the sheer audacity, with one question outstanding: why take such a huge gamble?
On Tuesday Iran slammed Saudi and US claims that it was supplying Yemen's Houthi rebels with advanced ballistic missiles that Saudi Arabia says targeted Riyadh international airport on Saturday - which would be a violation of a UN resolution which ensures conformity to the Iran nuclear deal.