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How can the Demwits retain the working-class Bubba's if they denounce "Ole" Bill? (See 1 below.)
There area lot of twists to all of these sexual harassment claims.
First, being found guilty by the media seems to be replacing being tried in a court of law. This can radically change our culture and what we stand for as a nation respectful of law and trial by one's peers. Not healthy in my opinion.
Second, it gives aggrieved women the upper hand when they may not be telling the truth. They too can be manipulated and paid to make false allocations particularly knowing they will not be brought into court to prove anything. I am not saying this is what is happening but it sets a dangerous precedent.
Third, the fact that Congress has a slush fund supported by tax payer money for covering up allegations, in order to keep them from being exposed, is at least a sin, in and of itself, if not illegal. Furthermore, hushing up matters through payoffs insures such behaviour will continue and gives no encouragement and support to those abused.
Fourth, some behaviour is wrong regardless of the era in which it occurred. However, I would say that is not so for all behaviour. For instance, if a woman finds herself in a compromising position and does not resist or if her own behaviour sends signals that she is approachable, I see that differently and the fact that it is allowed to hang over someone is wrong and can lead to unhealthy circumstances.
Finally, when these accusations reach the likes of Charlie Rose, the Icon of Virtue, John Conyers, the longest serving member of Congress and the most sanctimonious and unctuous member as well, and then we have allegations against the comedic buffoon Senator from Minnesota, one has every right to ask whether our state of education is adequately preparing citizens to sustain our Republic.
It is as if thieves believe they can wholesale rob banks because bank protection is basically non-existent.
Meanwhile, Putin has us caught up in investigations while he presses the advantages given him by Obama's Middle East bungling and fecklessness, Iran continues missile testing and financing Hezbollah with Obama's cash pallets, N Korea threatens the world, our borders remain porous and Congress dysfunctional.
Happy Thanksgiving . Perhaps we citizens are the true turkeys. (See 1a below.)
https://www.buzzfeed.com/
And: Then there is Ms Lois Lerner. (See 1b below)
http://www.gopusa.com/?p=
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Trump lives in the real world. (See 2 below.)
And A conversation regarding Saudi Arabian reforms. (See 2a below.)
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Dick
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1)
The timing for the conference in Little Rock, Ark., couldn’t have been worse. But apparently the participants didn’t notice.
Commemorating the 25 years since the 1992 presidential election may have seemed like a great idea when the geniuses at the Clinton Foundation began planning a big party for their boss. But the celebration held last weekend coincided with the epidemic of famous men accused of sexual harassment or assault, which reminded us of Bill Clinton’s equally horrible behavior.
But even before the #metoo movement began rewriting the history of the Clinton administration, Democrats were already done with them. Though the party is primarily focused these days on the “resistance,” Hillary’s willingness to blame everyone but herself for her loss as well as her whining about the result’s legitimacy is a gift to President Trump and an embarrassment to Democrats.
Yet just when it seems that the Clintons have been transformed from the ultimate power couple on an inevitable path back to the White House into political pariahs, Democrats would be wrong to ignore how the 1992 and 1996 elections were won.
The Clintons may be toast but what the Democrats need now to prevail against Trump is exactly the kind of centrist appeal that propelled those wins and enabled the 42nd president’s ability to govern effectively without being in thrall to his party’s left wing.
The Clintons’ fall from grace was long overdue, and not without irony. The new consensus about the way prominent men got away with harassing and assaulting women has caused many liberals to express regret for the scorched-earth campaign they waged against Bill’s accusers.
The notion that saving his presidency was more important than the claims of the women he victimized was an article of faith for Democrats as well as those claiming to be feminists. But Hillary’s trashing of his accusers now seems no different from what Roy Moore’s defenders say.
Even before liberal pundits at The New York Times and opportunists like Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand began retroactively calling for Bill Clinton’s resignation, Democrats were done with the former first family.
Neither the Clintons nor their faux charity that operated as a thinly veiled political slush fund have anything more to offer after an incompetent campaign handed the presidency to Donald Trump. As longtime Democratic operative Donna Brazile indicated by writing a book throwing Hillary under the bus, no one need ever fear their wrath again.
Candidates who once looked to them for help will shun them like the plague. They will linger on the fringes of political life, an inescapable part of our political history but also an embarrassment to Democrats that may make the way the party once distanced itself from Jimmy Carter look like a warm embrace.
But at the moment when even many of their former loyalists have stopped listening to the Clintons, Bill actually has a lot to say that his party ought to be hearing.
Bill Clinton’s charm may have helped seduce a nation but his election victories were the product of an ideological flexibility that struck most Americans as sensible even if it also drove conservative opponents and hardcore liberals crazy. He understood voters wanted a strong economy and stability, not recycled Great Society liberalism.
He could appeal to white working-class voters as well as African-Americans and Hispanics, a skill Democrats have lost as their party has become almost exclusively a coalition of urban white liberals and minorities. Trump won because he reflected those working-class attitudes and concerns. Clinton knew that talking down to blue-collar Americans and ignoring or criticizing their worries on culture and social issues is a nonstarter, but such attitudes are second nature for today’s Democrats.
Democrats are convinced they’re headed to victory because of Trump’s unpopularity. But they’re going to need a politician with the sort of historic appeal of a Barack Obama in order to win without relearning the lessons Bill Clinton taught them in the ’90s.
Since no such magical candidate is available, unless they begin acting, as Clinton did, as a party of the center rather than of the hard left, they could be setting themselves up for another astonishing defeat in 2020.
Jonathan S. Tobin is opinion editor of JNS.org and a contributing writer for National Review.
1a)
And the documents also reveal the secret mechanism by which Congress has kept an unknown number of sexual harassment allegations secret: a grinding, closely held process that left the alleged victim feeling, she told BuzzFeed News, that she had no option other than to stay quiet and accept a settlement offered to her.
“I was basically blackballed. There was nowhere I could go,” she said in a phone interview. BuzzFeed News is withholding the woman’s name at her request because she said she fears retribution.
The draft agreement viewed by BuzzFeed News was unsigned, but congressional employment records match the timing and amounts outlined in the document. The woman left the office and never went public with her story.
1a)
She Said A Powerful Congressman Harassed Her. Here’s Why You Didn’t Hear Her Story.
“When you make private settlements, it doesn’t warn the next woman or the next person going into that situation.”
Michigan Rep. John Conyers, a Democrat and the longest-serving member of the House of Representatives, settled a wrongful dismissal complaint in 2015 with a former employee who alleged she was fired because she would not “succumb to [his] sexual advances.”
Documents from the complaint obtained by BuzzFeed News include four signed affidavits, three of which are notarized, from former staff members who allege that Conyers, the ranking Democrat on the powerful House Judiciary Committee, repeatedly made sexual advances to female staff that included requests for sex acts, contacting and transporting other women with whom they believed Conyers was having affairs, caressing their hands sexually, and rubbing their legs and backs in public. Four people involved with the case verified the documents are authentic.
Conyers confirmed he made the settlement in a statement Tuesday afternoon, hours after this story was published, but said that he "vehemently denied" the claims of sexual harassment at the time and continues to do so.
And the documents also reveal the secret mechanism by which Congress has kept an unknown number of sexual harassment allegations secret: a grinding, closely held process that left the alleged victim feeling, she told BuzzFeed News, that she had no option other than to stay quiet and accept a settlement offered to her.
“I was basically blackballed. There was nowhere I could go,” she said in a phone interview. BuzzFeed News is withholding the woman’s name at her request because she said she fears retribution.
Last week the Washington Post reported that Congress’s Office of Compliance paid out $17 million for 264 settlements with federal employees over 20 years for various violations, including sexual harassment. The Conyers documents, however, give a glimpse into the inner workings of the office, which has for decades concealed episodes of sexual abuse by powerful political figures.
The woman who settled with Conyers launched the complaint with the Office of Compliance in 2014, alleging she was fired for refusing his sexual advances, and ended up facing a daunting process that ended with a confidentiality agreement in exchange for a settlement of more than $27,000. Her settlement, however, came from Conyers’ office budget rather than the designated fund for settlements.
Congress has no human resources department. Instead, congressional employees have 180 days to report a sexual harassment incident to the Office of Compliance, which then leads to a lengthy process that involves counseling and mediation, and requires the signing of a confidentiality agreement before a complaint can go forward.
After this an employee can choose to take the matter to federal district court, but another avenue is available: an administrative hearing, after which a negotiation and settlement may follow.
Some members of Congress have raised major concerns with the current system over the years, but the calls for an overhaul have grown louder in the post-Weinstein era. Members have argued that 90 days is too long to make a person continue working in the same environment with their harasser; that interns and fellows should be eligible to pursue complaints through this process; and that it is unfair for a victim to have to pay for legal representation while the office of the harasser is represented for free by the House's counsel.
In this case, one of Conyers’ former employees was offered a settlement, in exchange for her silence, that would be paid out of Conyers’ taxpayer-funded office budget. His office would “rehire” the woman as a “temporary employee” despite her being directed not to come into the office or do any actual work, according to the document. The complainant would receive a total payment of $27,111.75 over the three months, after which point she would be removed from the payroll, according to the document.
The draft agreement viewed by BuzzFeed News was unsigned, but congressional employment records match the timing and amounts outlined in the document. The woman left the office and never went public with her story.
The process was “disgusting,” said Matthew Peterson, who worked as a law clerk representing the complainant, and who listed as a signatory to some of the documents.
“It is a designed cover-up,” said Peterson, who declined to discuss details of the case but agreed to characterize it in general terms. “You feel like they were betrayed by their government just for coming forward. It’s like being abused twice.”
Other lawyers named as representing the accuser could not be reached for comment. The Office of Compliance did not confirm or deny that it had dealt with the case.
“Pursuant to the Congressional Accountability Act, the OOC cannot comment on whether matters have or have not been filed with the office,” Laura Cech, publications and outreach manager of the Office of Compliance, told BuzzFeed News in an email when asked to comment on this case.
Two staffers alleged in their signed affidavits that Conyers used congressional resources to fly in women they believed he was having affairs with. Another said she was tasked with driving women to and from Conyers’ apartment and hotel rooms.
Rep. Conyers did not admit fault as part of the settlement. His office did not respond to multiple requests for comment on Monday, but released a public statement on the matter Tuesday afternoon.
The documents were first provided to BuzzFeed News by Mike Cernovich, the men's rights figure turned pro-Trump media activist who propagated a number of false conspiracy theories including the “Pizzagate” conspiracy. Cernovich said he gave the documents to BuzzFeed News for vetting and further reporting, and because he said if he published them himself, Democrats and congressional leaders would “try to discredit the story by attacking the messenger.” He provided them without conditions. BuzzFeed News independently confirmed the authenticity of the documents with four people directly involved with the case, including the accuser.
In her complaint, the former employee said Conyers repeatedly asked her for sexual favors and often asked her to join him in a hotel room. On one occasion, she alleges that Conyers asked her to work out of his room for the evening, but when she arrived the congressman started talking about his sexual desires. She alleged he then told her she needed to “touch it,” in reference to his penis, or find him a woman who would meet his sexual demands.
She alleged Conyers made her work nights, evenings, and holidays to keep him company.
In another incident, the former employee alleged the congressman insisted she stay in his room while they traveled together for a fundraising event. When she told him that she would not stay with him, she alleged he told her to “just cuddle up with me and caress me before you go.”
“Rep. Conyers strongly postulated that the performing of personal service or favors would be looked upon favorably and lead to salary increases or promotions,” the former employee said in the documents.
Three other staff members provided affidavits submitted to the Office Of Compliance that outlined a pattern of behavior from Conyers that included touching the woman in a sexual manner and growing angry when she brought her husband around.
One affidavit from a former female employee states that she was tasked with flying in women for the congressman. “One of my duties while working for Rep. Conyers was to keep a list of women that I assumed he was having affairs with and call them at his request and, if necessary, have them flown in using Congressional resources,” said her affidavit. (A second staffer alleged in an interview that Conyers used taxpayer resources to fly women to him.)
The employee said in her affidavit that Conyers also made sexual advances toward her: “I was driving the Congressman in my personal car and was resting my hand on the stick shift. Rep. Conyers reached over and began to caress my hand in a sexual manner.”
The woman said she told Conyers she was married and not interested in pursuing a sexual relationship, according to the affidavit. She said she was told many times by constituents that it was well-known that Conyers had sexual relationships with his staff, and said she and other female staffers felt this undermined their credibility.
“I am personally aware of several women who have experienced the same or similar sexual advances made towards them by Rep[.] John Conyers,” she said in her affidavit.
A male employee wrote that he witnessed Rep. Conyers rub the legs and other body parts of the complainant “in what appeared to be a sexual manner” and saw the congressman rub and touch other women “in an inappropriate manner.” The employee said he confronted Conyers about this behavior.
“Rep. Conyers said he needed to be ‘more careful’ because bad publicity would not be helpful as he runs for re-election. He ended the conversation with me by saying he would ‘work on’ his behavior,” the male staffer said in his affidavit.
The male employee said that in 2011 Conyers complained a female staffer was “too old” and said he wanted to let her go. The employee said he set up a meeting in December 2011 to discuss “mistreatment of staff and his misuse of federal resources.” The affidavit says that Conyers “agreed that he would work on making improvements as long as I worked directly with him and stopped writing memos and emails about concerns.”
Another female employee also attested that she witnessed Conyer’s advances, and said she was asked to transport women to him. “I was asked on multiple occasions to pick up women and bring them to Mr. Conyers['] apartment, hotel rooms, etc.”
BuzzFeed News reached out to several former Conyers staffers, all of whom did not want to speak on the record. One former staffer, who did not want to be named, said she was frustrated by the secretive complaint process.
“I don’t think any allegations should be buried...and that’s for anyone, not just for this particular office, because it doesn’t really allow other people to see who these individuals are,” said the former staffer. “When you make private settlements, it doesn’t warn the next woman or the next person going into that situation.”
Another staffer said Conyers’ reputation made people fearful to speak out against him. Aside from being the longest-serving House member and the ranking member of a powerful committee, Conyers is a civil rights icon. He was lauded by Martin Luther King Jr. and is a founding member of the Congressional Black Caucus.
“Your story won’t do shit to him,” said the staffer. “He’s untouchable.”
In a statement to BuzzFeed News, House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi said she was not aware of the settlement.
“The current process includes the signing of non-disclosure agreements by the parties involved. Congresswoman Jackie Speier has introduced legislation that will provide much-needed transparency on these agreements and make other critical reforms,” Pelosi said in the statement. “I strongly support her efforts.”
1b) Lois Lerner Doesn’t Trust You
It’s hard to see what that case would be. By contrast, what a crippling precedent it would be if government officials from powerful agencies such as the IRS were permitted to keep their abuses secret on grounds they fear that the people whom they are supposed to serve might be upset if they found out.
1b) Lois Lerner Doesn’t Trust You
“You can’t handle the truth,” the former IRS official tells the American people
By William McGurn
In his courtroom apologia in the film “A Few Good Men,” Jack Nicholson’s Col. Nathan Jessup made the words famous. Now, in her bid to keep her testimony in a recently settled tea-party lawsuit against the IRS secret, Lois Lerner has picked up the Jessup argument: “You can’t handle the truth!”
They used different words but the meaning is the same. Here’s how lawyers for Ms. Lerner and her former IRS deputy, Holly Paz, put it in a filing aimed at persuading a judge to keep their testimony from becoming public: “Public dissemination of their deposition testimony would expose them and their families to harassment and a credible risk of violence and physical harm.” They’re not just thinking of themselves, they add. Young children, family members, might be hurt too.
That’s quite an argument. So enraged would the American public become upon learning what Ms. Lerner and Ms. Paz said that they and those around them would be in physical peril. Which probably makes most people wonder what the heck must the two have said that would get everyone so agitated?
The Washington Times, which broke the story, notes this is not the first time Ms. Lerner has sought to keep the public in the dark about her actions. In 2014, when asked to testify before Congress about the IRS targeting, she declared her innocence—and then invoked her Fifth Amendment right to keep quiet.
Even this latest request to federal Judge Michael Barrett is a follow-up to one she made back in May. At the time, Judge Barrett said he saw good reason to limit access to the attorneys during discovery. But he also said that the parties could eventually ask that it be made public—the Cincinnati Enquirer has also asked for the seal to be lifted—and the burden would be on Ms. Lerner and Ms. Paz to prove why it shouldn’t.
There can be good reasons to keep a deposition sealed, from ensuring the privacy of the innocent to protecting the life of a mafia informant. But Ms. Lerner is no innocent. Indeed, given all the falsehoods that have been spread in an effort to whitewash what the IRS had done, the case for transparency becomes even more compelling here.
On the flip side, the evidence for fear seems overblown. Ms. Lerner and Ms. Paz cite Mark Meckler, a tea party leader whom they say stoked feelings against them by calling IRS workers “thugs” and saying “we’re going to have a lot of fun abusing these government employees.”
Mr. Meckler told the Times he’s not impressed. “Four years of harassing innocent American citizens for their political beliefs, and she’s scared of a guy in a cowboy hat talking to a bunch of little, old ladies at a tea party event?” And if her fears are legitimate, aren’t there other ways of protecting her?
In 2015, the Obama Justice Department declined to prosecute, explaining in a letter to Congress it “found no evidence that any IRS official acted based on political, discriminatory, corrupt or other inappropriate motives that would support a criminal prosecution.” But when Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced settlements of two lawsuits last month, he confirmed the IRS during the Obama years had targeted organizations for political beliefs and not bad behavior.
In some senses, this battle is because Congress did not do its job. It started down the right path when it held hearings, but once Ms. Lerner invoked the Fifth, then-Speaker John Boehner blinked. Instead of using Congress’s own powers—including its right, after she was found in contempt, to jail her until she talked—he settled for passing the buck to the Obama Justice Department with a recommendation for a prosecution everyone knew would never come.
Congress is still paying for that dereliction of duty. The various House and Senate investigations have been frustrated by lack of cooperation from relevant parties, including federal agencies such as the FBI. Surely Republicans investigating everything from Hillary Clinton’s emails to Russia’s mischief in the 2016 elections would today enjoy far more cooperation from the relevant parties had they exercised their full authority in the Lerner case. If we ever hope to restore the accountability the Constitution built into the system and avoid the corrupting habit of turning to special prosecutors, Congress is going to have to get serious about its authority as a coequal branch of government.
Meanwhile, in this case the plaintiffs, the government and a newspaper all say they are for disclosure. Is a judge really going to buy Ms. Lerner’s argument that the American people can’t handle the truth?
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2)
North Korea, Terror Sponsor
Trump corrects a Bush mistake and calls the North what it is.
The Editorial Board
President Trump has pledged to avoid the mistakes of his predecessors and stop North Korea from amassing a nuclear arsenal, and on Monday he took another symbolic step by restoring Pyongyang to the State Department’s list of state sponsors of terrorism. The designation has as much moral as practical impact but is still welcome as diplomatic truth in advertising.
“In addition to threatening the world by nuclear devastation, North Korea has repeatedly supported acts of international terrorism, including assassinations on foreign soil,” Mr. Trump said Monday. He could have been referring to the murder of Kim Jong Un’s half-brother with VX nerve agent at an airport in Malaysia in February, but there is no shortage of terror episodes.
Ronald Reagan put North Korea on the list in 1988 after Pyongyang’s agents assassinated four members of South Korea’s cabinet in Burma and bombed KAL Flight 858, killing 115 passengers. U.S. intelligence agencies believe the North was behind the 2014 cyberattack on Sony Pictures after a Sony comedy mocked dictator Kim Jong Un. The North is also believed to have helped Syria build a nuclear-weapons plant that Israel bombed in 2007. And don’t forget the kidnappings of Japanese civilians and assassinations of dissidents abroad.
In an embarrassing moment of his Presidency, George W. Bush removed Pyongyang from the terror list in 2008 as part of then Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s forlorn bid to woo the North into nuclear disarmament. Pyongyang pocketed the concession and promised to end its nuclear program even as it continued work in secret. The North has conducted six nuclear tests, fired ballistic missiles over Japan, and will before long be able to reach the continental U.S. with a nuclear-armed missile.
The re-listing highlights the North’s criminal behavior and will further isolate the regime. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said Monday he hopes the re-listing will “disrupt and dissuade some third parties from undertaking certain activities with North Korea.”
All of this is part of the larger U.S. effort to cut off the financial and other lifelines that have made a mockery of United Nations sanctions and allowed the Kim crime family to buy off the military and survive in power despite the North’s impoverishment. Mr. Trump said the Treasury will issue a new set of sanctions on Tuesday that may further squeeze countries or companies that do business with the North.
The conventional wisdom is that the North will never give up its nuclear program, but the only way to test that claim is by squeezing the regime as hard as possible on every front.
2a) On Recent Saudi Reforms: A Conversation
All signs point to Mohammad bin Salman, the effective ruler of Saudi Arabia, being very serious about basic changes. So, I see this as a real reform.
2a) On Recent Saudi Reforms: A Conversation
Original article published on International Policy Digest
Is the recent Saudi permission for women to drive cars and enter a stadium to watch men in sports competitions merely a political maneuver or a real reform?
All signs point to Mohammad bin Salman, the effective ruler of Saudi Arabia, being very serious about basic changes. So, I see this as a real reform.
Let's discuss the reason for these reforms at this moment: Do the rulers feel at risk?
Yes, the leadership realizes the current path will lead to poverty and weakness. Avoiding that fate requires making fundamental changes in nearly every aspect of life.
Or was the Saudi decline in income what led the government to increase women's participation in the economy?
Yes, the need to bring women more into the economy is the larger implication of the permission to drive. But it's less the immediate decline in income that scares the leaders than the long term. For example: Should electric cars prevail, one estimate expects the price of oil to decline to US$10 per barrel.
Or was it the Yemen crisis and Saudi Arabia's failure to achieve its goals there?
That may have had a small role in the decision but the urgent need to change the fundamentals of Saudi life strikes me as key.
Women will be driving but many other restrictions remain in place – such as permission from a mahram (unmarriageable kin) to marry or leave country. Will the government take further steps to abolish patriarchal laws?
Yes, that is inevitable. Saudi defiance of universal modern norms, norms that prevail in all neighboring countries, has been impressive but it cannot last. Too many Saudi women and men have experienced the outside world to maintain the mahram system.
What do you think of the theory that these changes are part of a US-sponsored project to unite Saudi Arabia with other Arab countries against Iran?
That misses the point: These changes are by Saudis to save their country, not by Americans. It's time to move on beyond such conspiracy theories that assume Middle Easterners are but the play things of Westerners.
Does Saudi Arabia present a different form of Islamism than those in Iran and Turkey?
Yes, the government of these three countries each follows a distinctive Islamist tradition. The Saudi one is Hanbali and traces its origins to Ibn Taymiya and Ibn Abd al-Wahhab. The Iranian one to Ayatollahs Borujerdi and Khomeini; and the Turkish one to Said Nursi and ErdoÄŸan.
Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman says Saudi Arabia will return to moderate Islam. But Wahhabi Islam and Salafism generally are rooted in Saudi Arabia. So, isn't MbS saying something internally contradictory? Could Saudi Arabia even in theory serve as a model of moderate Islam?
Mohammad bin Salman is referring to the changes that took place about 40 years ago, especially in the aftermath of the Iranian Revolution and Mecca mosque seizure of November 1979. In the fifty years before that, the monarchy sponsored an Islamism that by today's standards was more moderate. While MbS is using that as a reference; in fact, I expect he wants to abandon Islamism altogether. I can imagine Saudi Arabia becoming a center of moderate Islam; stranger things have occurred.
Mohammad bin Salman apparently wants to attract more foreign investment and foreign visitors to compensate for the country's decline in oil revenues. But Saudi Arabia is a conservative and traditional society, not a second Dubai, so is this achievable?
Coincidentally, I am replying to your question while in Dubai: I assure you that it too is a conservative and traditional society. But its leadership has created a dynamic, open structure in which foreigners primarily can engage in a hyper-capitalistic venture. If Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum could do this in Dubai, MbS can do it in Saudi Arabia.
Will long–term austerity policies and cuts to subsidies increase dissatisfaction in Saudi Arabia and so, increase the likelihood of revolution?
You are pointing to the major difficulty facing MbS, namely the need to wean Saudi nationals off easy money. Whether he succeeds depends in good part on his political skills. I am skeptical that he has them.
Does Mohammad bin Salman have the necessary power to achieve his plans? How adept is he as a politician? Is he a traditional ruler or a modern dictator?
He has the power but we don't yet know how skilled he is; ask me in five years. He's a mix of traditional and modern, a traditional ruler with modern goals.
Both the Mohammad Reza Shah era in Iran and Saudi Arabia today have experienced rapid social and economic modernization as well as the opening of social space without commensurate political openness. Do you agree with the theory that KSA is therefore headed for revolution?
No, because another possibility exists, that of Singapore, post-Mao China, and the “Asian model,” where the regime achieved extraordinary economic growth within a repressive polity. Perhaps the tensions will one day cause an implosion, but this unlikely mix has worked for decades with few signs of collapse. Accordingly, I do not see that the KSA is doomed to revolution; indeed, this model is working very well next door in Dubai.
Recent weeks have seen the arrest of journalists and political activists in Saudi Arabia, despite the government calling for an open social environment; is this not a contradiction?
Yes, it is. But as one sees in China, Singapore and Dubai, this model works better than anyone expected a half century ago.
More that 20 clerics have been arrested for protesting government decisions. Can the Saudi government persuade clerics to accept reforms about women and youth, or will it have to repress them?
As with journalists and human rights activists, the government will likely have to use crude force to quiet religious leaders.
How much influence does the clergy have over Saudi society? Can it or will it inspire an uprising against Saudi family?
The ulema are powerful but less so than the government. They can inspire an uprising, just as happened in Mecca in 1979, but they cannot prevail.
Mohammad bin Salman plans to end Saudi Arabia's dependence on oil by 2030. Is this feasible or a dream?
That's a too short timetable. Saudi Arabia will still depend on hydrocarbon revenues in thirteen years. But the country can take significant steps to lessen that dependence.
Can MbS create a national Saudi identity where now exists a tribal identity?
A national Saudi identity already exists, apart from tribal identities. The modern state came into being in 1930; as so many other states have demonstrated, that's sufficient time to indoctrinate generations of youth in the existence of a national identity.
Are you optimistic about Saudi Arabia's future and reforms in the country?
The country's future is open, for the first time since the 1920s. I simply do not know enough to predict its course with confidence.
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