Never Be Rude To An Arab ** | World News |Axisoflogic.com

The Kingdom of Anger
Saudi Arabia's fury over Canada's perceived interference in its domestic affairs show no signs of abating.

A Friday morning tweet from Global Affairs Canada, calling for the release of Samar Badawi and other "peaceful human rights activists," has already resulted in the expulsion of Canada's ambassador, the recall of some 16,000 Saudi students studying at Canadian schools and the suspension of direct flights to Toronto.

But now there are warnings of more dire economic consequences to follow.

In an interview published today, Imad Al-Dukair, the president of the Saudi-Canadian Business Council, tells the London-based Asharq Al-Awsatnewspaper that the federal government's "irresponsible act" risks seeing Canadian companies frozen out of the Kingdom's Vision 2030 program, which will spend hundreds of billions on efforts to modernize and diversify the Saudi economy.

It's a theme that has been embraced by media within the country as well.

The Saudi Gazette tells readers that the Kingdom's decision to freeze all new commercial deals and investments has put Canada "on the verge of economic standstill." Which is surely an overreach given that the same article puts the annual value of Canadian exports to Saudi Arabia at 4.04 billion riyals, or $1.4 billion Cdn.

The English-language Arab News published an unsigned editorial urging Canada to consider its next moves carefully, as "a rift with the Kingdom is usually hard to fix" and carries "the real risk of upsetting the entire Muslim and Arab worlds." The paper suggests that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau send a delegation "on the next plane" to Riyadh to apologize for the "breach of diplomatic etiquette," lest relations with Canada follow the path of the Kingdom's ongoing feud with Qatar.

The list of Saudi allies who have fallen into line and denounced Canada's mild Twitter critique as unacceptable is growing by the hour. The governments of Bahrain, and the United Arab Emirates have released statements of support, as have the Muslim World League, Gulf Cooperation Council, and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

Canada is not the first Western nation to encounter such blowback for raising issues of human rights with the Saudis.

In 2015, the Kingdom temporarily recalled its ambassador to Sweden and put a hold on business visas after Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom criticized the flogging of blogger Raif Badawi — Samar's brother — and scrapped a US $39 million arms deal.

And this past March, it was reported that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, known by his initials MBS, had ordered a freeze on all government contracts to German firms after the country's foreign minister criticized Saudi "adventurism" in Yemen and Lebanon.

Of course the major worry for Canada will now be the fate of a $15 billion contract for almost 1,000 light armoured vehicles between the Saudi government and London, Ont.’s General Dynamics. The controversial deal, struck in 2014 and approved in 2016, called for the vehicles to be delivered starting in 2017, but it's not clear how many have already been sent as Ottawa refuses to release the "commercially confidential" information.

But Saudi grudges do have limits.

When the Crown Prince went on a world tour to promote his modernization drive in April, he travelled in the accustomed fashion of Saudi royalty, arriving for a meeting with France's Emmanuel Macron, in the back of a chauffeured, German-made, Mercedes-Benz.
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The Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia Mohammed Bin Salman arrives at Elysee Palace for a meeting with the French President Emmanuel Macron on April 10, 2018. (Aurelien Morissard/IP3/Getty Images)

** I know, I know - this is completely politically incorrect, unacceptable, and all that sort of stuff - but this piece from Monty Python is the first thing to enter my mind after hearing the story about Canada's lapse in manners. - prh, ed.

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