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The center of gravity of Arab tyranny is in Riyadh and that is where we need to concentrate our firepower. The Saudi regime is the most serious bulwark against Arab freedom and no Arab revolution is safe so long the Saudi regime is empowered.
If you're working on freedom in Bahrain or Yemen or Egypt or Sudan etc, you need to reserve a fair amount of your firepower to Riyadh. Our persecutors are reliant on support from Riyadh.
What about the UAE? The UAE is that little jockey hiding behind the large camel. Without the camel, it's weak and exposed. The camel is the Saudi regime.
What about the Iranian regime? The Iranian regime is moving in to fill a vacuum; the vacuum exists because the Saudi and UAE regimes would rather burn the region to the ground than allow a transition to freedom and democracy.
MBS is a godsend to activists such as myself, in a way. We couldn't have asked for a better enemy. Good enemies prove your narratives and bring out the best in you. MBS is the enemy we needed.
What does it mean when we say "take the battle to the Saudi regime"? It means that every Saudi voice for freedom immediately becomes your ally. It means their struggle is your struggle, their pain is your pain, their victory is your victory.
Focusing our activism on MBS since 2015/2016 was an attempt to take the battle into their turf. Our plan was to sink MBS's reputation and break his plans to bits. Because if he succeeds, Arab tyranny which has been shaken since 2011 will re-entrench.
MBS peaked in March 2018, before shooting himself in the foot with the women's rights activists arrests; then stabbing himself with a poisoned knife with the Khashoggi murder. The center of mass of Arab tyranny is wounded and poisoned.
Note that even while MBS's prestige took a nosedive, the UAE stuck by him. You know why? Not out of confidence but out of strategic rigor mortis. There is no plan B. Ponder that. The UAE has no plan B beyond MBS. Strategically, for us, that's a godsend too.
Dictators do not rule only by force. For a dictator to rule *only* by force is pretty dangerous for him - police states are fierce but fragile. Dictators rule by force + fraud. In 2011 we called their bluff. They tried to present new promises in 2014/2015. Now the time is up.
The Arab social contract before 2011 was "we will give you jobs and you shut up". The contract broke in 2011. In 2014 they tried to present another contract but this mistook a PR campaign for a contract. They now rule by naked force and repression, without a contract.
Arab tyranny is in trouble. It's fierce but fragile. Even elevated fear barriers such as those established in Egypt have been broken. If you think Arab tyranny is safe, you don't get it, and I won't waste time on convincing you.
It's stupid to think of the region as 24 individual, independent countries; you have to zoom out and look at the entire region. A region of nearly 500 billion people. Do you know what it means if a region of 500 billion people becomes democratic, prosperous, and free?
Our victory isn't within arm's reach, but it's not that far either. It's just on the horizon. Cynicism at this point is stupid. Between 2011 and 2013, you need to be a revolutionary. Between 2014 and 2018, you needed to be a cage fighter. After 2019, you need to be a builder.
Why a builder? Because the only reason these mother*****rs continue to rule us is for lack of alternatives (which they destroyed). We need to be architects and builders.
We may yet need to be cage-fighting until 2021, or even 2024 (if Trump gets reelected). But when this is over, perhaps we will thank God for Trump. If not for Trump, they wouldn't have been so hysterically egregious that in their hysteria, they shot themselves in the foot.
