> What is your claimed method by which we are responsible for keeping the House of Saud in power?
Military support and political pressure on the dissidents...I would leave it at this, but I don't want you to think I am snubbing you. So here is some more (albeit incomplete) explanation.
Our support is nothing as subtle as economic trade. We take them down, we bring them up, we put troops there to prevent them from coming down, etc, etc. Given that most of these regimes have support of less than 20% of their population, how do you explain the lack of revolt amongst them? As many of our Jewish friend attest, it is not as if the population is avert to uprising. Egypt is a very good example, as is the Saudi. But perhaps the clearest example in recent years is Kuwait, where with direct military action we restored the corrupt regime that had been in place. How much more support do you expect?
Frontline had a middle east documentary once in which the CIA expert on the region said, "the problem with the middle east is oil. If there was no oil, we would not be there and all those regimes would become democracies overnight". He was exaggerating to make a point, but there is a lot of truth to what he said. There are plenty of books that explore the politics of oil and the US ties to the regimes there.
ST
PS examine how Saddam has remained in power in Iraq. In no less than 4 occasions, US has taken material support to keep him in power (or bring it to him). And now we are taking him down. It is as if the Iraqis do not matter at all; what we say goes. |
