Yes, just like Compaq and HP management, the Saudi and Egyptian decision-makers know they have a business model that isn't working, and yet they are incapable of changing it. So they do half-way measures, crisis management, and hope for the best. The ruling elites we are allied with, they know that they rule populations that are desperate, marginalized, not loyal citizens.
If we overthrow Saddam, the new Iraqi government will be:
1. chaos, a warlord patchwork (Somali model), or
2. a bloody theocracy that hates us just as much as Hussein does (Iranian model).
The Saudi monarchy has about the least legitimacy of any government. It, too, faces the same choices. |
