politicians-from-saudi-arabia

"Let me be very specific about it, we (Saudi Arabia) do have a huge amount of uranium resources that we would like to exploit and we will be doing it in the most transparent way, we will be bringing in partners."

"We believe OPEC (Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries) have done a lot in bringing about stability. There is nothing more profound, more important for energy security than having to have a stable market."

"Whosoever accepts Islam, whether Christian, Jew or Zoroastrian, of those now subject to taxes and who joins himself to the body of the Muslims in their abode, forsaking the abode in which he was before, he shall have the same rights and duties as they have, and they are obliged to associate with him and to treat him as one of themselves."

"This is the Last Abode; we appoint it for those who desire not exorbitance in the earth, nor corruption. The issue ultimate is to the godfearing."

"O people, you were not created in vain, nor will you be left to yourselves. Rather, you will return to a place in which Allah will descend in order to judge among you and distinguish between you. Destitute and lost are those who forsake the all-encompassing Mercy of Allah, and they will be excluded from Paradise, the borders of which are as wide as the heavens and the Earth. Don't you know that protection, tomorrow, will be limited to those who feared Allah [today], and to those who sold something ephemeral for something permanent, something small for something great, and fear for protection? Don't you realize that you are the descendants of those who have perished, that those who remain will take place after you, and that this will continue until you are all returned to Allah? Every day you dispatch to Allah, at all times of the day, someone who has died, his term having come to an end. You bury him in a crack in the earth and then leave him without a pillow or a bed. He has parted from his loved ones, severed his connections with the living, and taken up residence in the earth, whereupon he comes face to face with the accounting. He is mortgaged to his deeds: He needs his accomplishments, but not the material things he left on earth. Therefore, fear Allah before death descends and its appointed times expire. I swear by Allah that I say those words to you knowing that I myself have committed more sins than any of you; I therefore ask Allah for forgiveness and I repent. Whenever we learn that one of you needs something, I try to satisfy his need to the extent that I am able. Whenever I can provide satisfaction to one of you out of you of my possessions, I seek to treat him as my equal and m relative, so that my life and his life are of equal value. I swear by Allah that had I wanted something else, namely, affluence, then it would have been easy for me to utter the word, aware as I am of the means for obtaining this. But Allah has issued in an eloquent Book (Quran) and a just example Sunnah by means of which He guides us to obedience and proscribes disobedience."

"Now that Umar's death has been announced to me, I say: May the mainstay of justice and religion be not far away. The people have left behind, in the tomb that they dug in Day Sim'an, the balance of the scales."

"Do not destroy a church, synagogue, or fire temple with respect to which an agreement has been concluded with you, and do not permit the construction of a new church or fire temple. Do not drag the lamb to its place of slaughter of sharpen the knife over the head of the animal. Do not combine two prayers without an excuse."

"We are simply reverting to what we followed – a moderate Islam open to the world and all religions. 70% of the Saudis are younger than 30, honestly we won’t waste 30 years of our life combating extremist thoughts, we will destroy them now and immediately."

"We have our values: it is important to us, the participation in decision making; it is important to us to have our freedom of expression; it is important to us to have human rights. We have our own factors, values and principles as the Saudi society and we try to make progress according to our own needs."

"We know that we are a main goal for the Iranian regime. We will not wait until the battle becomes in Saudi Arabia but we will work to have the battle in Iran rather than in Saudi Arabia"

"Adopting unrealistic policies to reduce emissions by excluding main sources of energy will lead in coming years to unprecedented inflation and an increase in energy prices, and rising unemployment and a worsening of serious social and security problems."

"As we tried to make sense of Donald Trump's positions or when one of us tried to argue against them, we first had to ask: Why is the president so attracted to autocrats? After a contentious meeting about the president's engagement with a foreign dictator, a top national security aide offered me his take. "The president sees in these guys what he wishes he had: total power, no term limits, enforced popularity, and the ability to silence critics for good." He was spot on. It was the simplest explanation. For instance, Donald Trump sympathized with Saudi crown prince bin Salman's violent internal purge in 2017, saying the country's leaders "know exactly what they are doing" and adding that "some of those they are harshly treating have been 'milking' their country for years!" This included long-time US interlocutors who were allegedly held against their will, beaten, imprisoned, or put under house arrest."

"The paradox wouldn’t last. Iran and Saudi Arabia both feared ISIS, but they hated each other more. Secretly, many Arabs cheered ISIS on, hoping it would bring Tehran to its knees and put an end to Iranian dreams of hegemony in the region. And as Iran took the lead in fighting ISIS on the ground, it looked like Shias were out to kill any Sunnis, the latest brutal, sectarian mutation of the Saudi-Iran rivalry. Which came first: Iran’s imperial sectarianism or the Sunni sense of exceptionalism? By now the dynamic was hard to unpack, but it was about to intensify with the rise of King Salman and his favorite son, prince Mohammad bin Salman. While Obama dismissed Iran’s “destabilizing activity” as a “low-tech, low-cost activity,” Saudi Arabia watched with alarm as Iran poured thousands of men and an estimated $35 billion into Syria to prop up Assad. Suleimani was turning into the king of Iraq. As the US-Iran nuclear negotiations inched closer to a deal in the spring of 2015, the Saudis grew unnerved by the prospect of cash flowing into Iran’s coffers after the lifting of sanctions. They seethed as US secretary of state John Kerry and the Iranian foreign minister Javad Zarif exchanged pleasantries and smiled for the cameras during the negotiations."

"In neighboring Yemen, the Houthi rebel group had seized the capital Sana’a in September 2014 and brought down the internationally recognized government. The Saudis accused the Iranians and Hezbollah of supporting and arming the Houthi rebel group whose fighters belonged to a Shia subsect known as Zaidi. When Sana’a fell, Prince Salman was defense minister and his son Mohammad was his aide. The young prince was incensed by what he perceived as the weakness of King Abdallah in dealing with the Houthis and Iran. Some Iranian politicians declared smugly that Iran now controlled four Arab capitals: San’aa, Baghdad, Damascus, and Beirut. Worse, Iran’s sphere of influence had extended to Saudi Arabia’s southern border. Soon, the Houthi rebels would start lobbing rockets into the kingdom. On January 23, 2015, King Abdallah died and Salman became king. He appointed his son as defense minister. The duo and the coterie around them wanted to push back against Iran and step into the vacuum that America was creating. The Saudis wanted to beat their chests, restore Sunni pride, and bolster their leadership of the Muslim world. And so, for the first time in its recent history, on March 25, 2015, the kingdom went to war."

"The Saudi military operation, launched with barely a warning to the Obama administration, was called Decisive Storm. Within hours, bombastic Saudi analysts went on television claiming the campaign would be so successful it would be studied in history books. Airplanes from Saudi allies joined in, at least initially. The Sunni world watched the Saudi air strikes against the Houthi rebels and felt their pride restored. And Prince Mohammad bin Salman, two months into his job as defense minister, was certain this would make him king of the Middle East chessboard, a mastermind who could rival Suleimani. The days of King Abdallah’s consensus politics were over, his penchant for compromise not part of Bin Salman’s repertoire. The military campaign would be anything but decisive. The Saudis had never fought a war in such a way; they had never deployed troops. They couldn’t do precision strikes with their fancy fighter jets. They were now facing a guerrilla force in rugged, hilly terrain. The conflict would drag on for years; tens of thousands of civilians would die by 2019, in air raids by the Saudi-led coalition and ground fighting, but the worst impact would be the starvation and diseases. Ten million people were on the brink of famine because of the blockade the Saudis and the United Nations had imposed, and the country was battling a dangerous outbreak of cholera. Almost ninety thousand children died. It was the largest humanitarian crisis in the world, almost on par with Syria."

"I believe MbS is a nationalist who loves his country and wants it to be the strongest but his problem is that he wants to rule alone."

"He is a very active statesman, we have really warm relations. This is a person who knows what he wants and can achieve his goals. At the same time I consider him to be a reliable partner with whom one can negotiate and be sure that agreements with him will be implemented."

"MBS is attempting to undertake LBJ-like social reforms and Thatcher-like economic reforms."

"You’re from Britain, and I am a fan of Churchill. And Churchill said that opportunities come during crises. And I recall Churchill’s statement whenever I see the obstacles or the crises in the region. So this is how I view the challenges or the crises in the region."

"And the court did not, at all, make any distinction between whether or not a person is Shi’ite or Sunni. They are reviewing a crime, and a procedure, and a trial, and a sentence, and carrying out the sentence.""

"First of all I’m not the architect of the Yemen operation. We are a country of institutions. The decision to proceed with the operation in Yemen, this is a decision to do with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Defence, with the intelligence, the council of ministers, and the council of security and political affairs, and then all recommendations are submitted to His Majesty, and the decision to go forward is with His Majesty."

"My dream as a young man in Saudi Arabia, and the dreams of men in Saudi Arabia are so many, and I try to compete with them and their dreams, and they compete with mine, to create a better Saudi Arabia."

"We need to address climate change, we need to limit the temperature rise globally to the maximum extent but we cannot do it at the expense of keeping people in poverty and stopping their economic development."

"If you think of economies like India and China and other energy intensive economies, I think the US has a lot more flexibility to meet Paris with less sacrifices, the US already enjoys a competitive advantage in terms of its energy costs and I think, given what is happening in technology and renewables, especially in the US capabilities in that regard, I think the US will find that provided everybody lives by Paris, the US would retain if not improve its global competitive position."

"It is common that once presidents start governing then a lot more substance comes out."

"The US is sort of the flag-bearer for capitalism and free markets, the US continues to be a very important part of a global industry that is interconnected, that is dealing with a fungible commodity which is crude oil. So having equalisation through free trade is very healthy for oil."

"At his heart President-elect Trump will see the benefits and I think the oil industry will also be advising him accordingly that blocking trade in any product is not healthy."

"The first day or so we all pointed to our countries. The third or fourth day we were pointing to our continents. By the fifth day, we were aware of only one Earth."

"We have signed international conventions, such as on women's rights, and we should respect them."

"The House of Saud had barely survived this double challenge to its legitimacy. To maintain their grip on power, they knew it was time to deliver on the deal they had struck with the clerics during the Juhayman crisis. When the minister of interior Prince Nayef was asked during a press conference in January 1980 whether the kingdom would now clamp down on men who appeared zealous because they sported a beard, for example, he scoffed. “If we did this most Saudis would be in prison by now,” he said. Even before the attack in Mecca, Prince Nayef had been amenable to the blind sheikh’s implorations on trivial matters. Bin Baz had complained about “violations of Islamic morality” in Riyadh, like foreign women eating in public, Christians wearing visible crosses, Western music being played in stores, and the apparently corrupting game of foosball, idolatrous because of the little statuettes. Directives were promptly sent to address Bin Baz’s complaints—but only in Riyadh and the province of Najd."

"There were "evil people", who "wanted to make the kingdom a place for chaos and marches that are void of noble goals"."

"The Saudis are brought [to Iraq] in order to carry out bombings. Either they strap on explosives belts and blow up in public places, or else they drive a car, crash into some place, and blow it up."