As Washington takes stock of the Saudi defeat in Yemen and rumors in Riyadh of a possible coup d’etat are rife, Victoria Coates has been nominated US Special Envoy for Energy. She is reported to have arrived in Riyadh where she will reside.

Ms. Coates is suspected of having penned the column published in 2018 by the New York Times, “I am part of the resistance within the Trump administration” [1] and of having written the book: A warning (Une alert) [2].

Reputed to be close to Donald Rumsfeld, the Pentagon and Israel, she served as advisor to Senator Ted Cruz during his election campaign. In her latter position as deputy to current National Security Advisor, Robert O’Brien, Coates was in charge, in particular, of the Iranian dossier.

The White House is reportedly considering taking direct control of Aramco (Saudi Arabian Oil Company) which was privatized in the order of 1.5% last December. Such a move would deprive the Saouds of their only source of income in exchange for being kept in power in one of the five states that would emerge from the dismantling of the country.