It may be the least revolutionary country in the world, but this week Saudi Arabia won the full support of the world's greatest insurrectionists.
Sayed Sami Hassan has been in Cairo's Tahrir Square since January 25, 2011, and in that time has seen off an American-backed dictator, a military junta, and an elected Muslim Brotherhood president. He is the sort of street rebel whom, at home, Saudi Arabia's autocracy most fears.
But this week he gave the absolute monarchs from across the Red Sea his absolute backing. "The Saudis are our brothers," he said, from his tent in Tahrir's continuous encampment.
"They are Muslims, they believe in God. President Morsi, now he was an agent of America and Qatar, but the Saudis are helping us."
The shifts of allegiance in the Middle East in the last three years have been as startling as the convulsions of the Arab Spring itself. But the latest has caught diplomats, analysts and, to the extent they notice the relationships their masters quietly foster, Egypt's ordinary people by surprise. » | Richard Spencer, Cairo | Saturday, July 13, 2013
