8/8/17 Muhammad Sahimi on Saudi Arabia’s crackdown on the local Shiite population

by | Aug 8, 2017 | Interviews | 1 comment

Professor of chemical engineering at USC Muhammad Sahimi returns to the show to discuss the latest Saudi crackdown on the local Shia population. Sahimi explains how Wahhabi clerics have ratcheted up tensions and violence against Saudi Shiites who face continual oppression from the Saudi government. Saudi hostility toward Shia in the region often receives attention, but now it’s time to pay more attention to how they treat their own people, Sahimi says, which includes mass torture and execution of dissidents. Sahimi explains that the reason we don’t hear about Saudi atrocities in the United States is because the Saudis are protected by the establishment in the United States and believes that the Saudis are exploiting its alliance with the U.S. and its fear of Iran to lobby the U.S. to fight Shias in the Middle East.

Muhammad Sahimi is the NIOC Chair in petroleum engineering at the University of Southern California and a contributor at Antiwar.com and the Huffington Post.

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