Extremist cult of blackmailing scammers in charge of Mecca abruptly limits access to Hajj

[Statilius the Epicurean]

Yeah I just thought this was MBS continuing the trend of centralising stuff under his purview, not like an attack on western Muslims or anything. I don't even see how the latter would make any sense: even apart from its religious responsibility to facilitate hajj for Muslims, the Saudi government loves wealthy western visitors and is making a massive push for foreign tourism at the moment.

More generally, I don't think the people in the west who despise the Saudis quite understand that they rule over an extremely conservative and anti western populace. The sectarianism and extremism that exists in the kingdom is not fundamentally coming from the royal family: the Saudis have taken massive risks with their own legitimacy in the eyes of their subjects to cultivate the existing US alliance.

MBS is a murderer and an increasingly autocratic dictator, but the idea he's a Wahhabi fanatic or anti-American is just factually incorrect.