Mum’s the Saudi word for war

The veil of mystery that hangs over Saudi Arabia’s biggest military operation since the Gulf War in Yemen does not come as a surprise. When it comes to security issues the kingdom has a particularly poor record of letting us know what is going on, while trusting in censorship and petrodollars to make sure that whatever collective recollection remains is kept hushed up. But such lack of transparency regarding how crises are handled by Saudi Arabia — the region’s most powerful country and its largest economy — belies how serious the situation is in the Arabian Peninsula and how events can get out of hand, often with long term ramifications. This has widespread security and economic concerns for the Gulf, given the peninsula’s geo-strategic importance as an energy provider. And the Gulf can ill afford more destabilization on the coattails of Dubai’s debt debacle. Curiously, the cusp of 2010 signals