My fear is that the people of Saudi Arabia will revolt against the corrupt kingdom and create an Islamic state. The pattern for this is the fall of the Shah of Iran
This has been the received wisdom for quite a while.
Iran was the pretence of a constititional monarchy with quite a number of players in opposition to the Shah and his secret police and army.
Saudi Arabia is an absolute monarchy run by 7000 members of the Saud family, their dependents, their secret police and army, and the opposition is mostly other members of the Saud family and their dependents who also belong to the secret police and army. All players, including the rabid wahabbist mullahs and some al Qaida, have a connection to the royal family.
What you are most likely to see is a protracted civil war if things there escalate.
A possibility, as I see it is that at some point, in a Saudi version of MAD, someone will torch the oil fields (or try to) and an alliance of Gulf States, Iraq, the US, and Shiites from the oil field area will take over the oil fields and the flow of money to the Wahabbists will stop.
Some faction will prevail eventually and have the satisfacton of controlling Mecca and Medina and a lot of sand.
If this happens, we can expect the oil production of Saudi Arabia to be cut way back, just like the Iranians did. The resulting shock could bring some really tough economic times for us.
Could be.
This is one of the results of the Iraq invasion that was repeatedly warned against
Could happen anyway, invasion or no invasion. |
