Saudi Arabia's mounting security challenges

Saudi Arabia's mounting security challenges

Monday, Dec. 28, 2015 | Bruce Riedel, Columnist | http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/contents/authors/bruce-riedel.html#ixzz3vizJtiiP

Saudi Arabia's battle in Yemen and conflicts with Iran, coupled with the fall in the price of oil, point to a trying 2016 for the kingdom

Saudi Arabia faces an increasingly complex web of security challenges at a time when its economy is depressed. With oil prices unlikely to rise in the next couple of years, King Salman bin Abdul-Aziz Al Saud will have to balance carefully his foreign policy priorities.

The kingdom announced its new budget Dec. 28 with a record $87 billion deficit. Revenues are projected at $137 billion and spending at $224 billion. Riyadh's immediate priority is the war in Yemen. The war costs an estimated $200 million a day, or $6 billion a month. The Saudi coalition and the Houthi rebels both violated the last United Nations-sponsored cease-fire. The Saudis did gain control of the capital of Jawf province along the Saudi border during the supposed truce. The talks in Biel, Switzerland, did not produce a breakthrough, but are to resume Jan. 14.
The Houthis show no sign of giving up. Their leadership remains hard-line and defiant. The war appears to be a bloody stalemate that has catastrophic humanitarian costs for Yemenis. The outside world pays little if any attention.http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/contents/authors/bruce-riedel.html#