Phoenix, I have found that the Guardian has the best hard reporting on this war so I agree with you there. Just don’t read their editorials. As I have posted from the beginning the proper place to end of this war on terrorism is Saudi Arabia the source of most of the problems (Wahabbi Islam). The unspoken country in Bush’s “Axis of Evil” sentence was Saudi Arabia. There are two factions in the royal family, the Wahabbi observant and the “modernizers” who would liberalize the kingdom. That is tension would be exacerbated by the destruction of Al Qaeda is not a surprise to me. The goal of OBL was always to topple the house of Saud. So their double dealing is starting to catch up with them. I do have to say that if Prince Abdullah is considered pro western then there are some real Neanderthals in the royal house. The DEBKA posting on the House of Saud is very interesting reading. Regarding your points about this putting a monkey wrench in America’s plan for Iraq I would disagree. The Sauds have basically put themselves out of the game anyway and have tried to impede everything we are doing. Other than starting to shoot at our planes and ships I don’t see how much more they can hinder our plans. Then they would become full fledged members of the Axis of Evil. Maybe there is a reason why the minor Gulf States are lining up in our corner. If anything to have disorder in Saudi Arabia makes it more imperative that the Iraqi oil fields around Kirkuk come under Western control. I find it difficult to believe that a more fundamentalist regime would come into place into Saudi Arabia. First, I don’t believe that most people want a more strict regime especially the western educated technocrats. Second, they see what is going on in Iran and how that Mullah state treats their people. Three, the oil fields are in the Shia majority area of Saudi Arabia. The Sunnis may band together to keep the money flowing. Al Qaeda’s base of support is from the southern area of Saudi Arabia around Yemen which doesn’t have the oil. Fourth, as I posted earlier on the Iraqi board, King Abdullah of the House of Hashemite might come back to take his rightful place as guardian of the Holy cities from the usurpers. Things can play out in many different ways other than just bad things for the U.S. Regarding the U.S. taking over the oil fields that may happen if things do spiral out of control which I don’t think is likely unless the Palestinian/Israeli conflict ends up with mass expulsions or deaths. Well is it the White Man’s Burden all over again? In my opinion, yes. It does make the Russian relationship more important. I am reading a short little book called “The Reckless Mind – Intellectuals in Politics”. In the section concerning a leftist philosopher called Kojeve who helped shaped France’s foreign policy and by extension the EU one of his concerns is that Europe would end up submerged between the power of the U.S. and Russia. He may be prescient. So one of the fallout of the destruction of the Saudi kingdom could be the further diminishing of Europe’s worldwide influence. The order on how things happen is important too. If Iran is in the midst of a power struggle they aren’t going to be concentrating on spreading mischief across the border. If Lebanon has been neutralized then the Saudi’s can’t deflect attention to that conflict. Saddam sending forces to help out one side of the other I think would be very unlikely. He is thinking of saving his own hide and isn’t about to part with a bullet or tank that he may need to stay in power. The key is Egypt. Only they combined with the Saudi armaments have the manpower to really put a monkey wrench in any invasion of Iraq. If Egypt comes into play then the whole Middle East is aflame and the U.S. as well as the rest of the world will be making up policy as they go along. So how is your paper doing? Is International Law just international politics under a different name? Posting that paper on this board would certainly get some discussion going.

Jeff, I tend to agree that most people in SA probably don't want a more fundamentalist regime. However, that doesn't preclude the possibility of one coming to power. People don't always get what they want, especially not in the short run. "Islamo-fascists," as Fukuyama calls them, often tend to have a lot of money and weaponry at their disposal and thus possess much greater power and influence than would be expected from the portion of the population they represent. They could easily discount the fallacies extant in the Iranian regime, using the same logic that veritas does on the India-Pakistan board: Iran is a "false" Islamic regime, whereas they are going to construct a "true" vision. I also consider the possibility of King Abdullah returning to claim sovereignty over his "lost kingdom" as merely an exercise of thought for speculative political scientists, and not a realistic possibility. (I notice that King Abdullah is heading for the US at the moment for some more of his moderate message-spreading. I wonder if this is one of the things that comes up behind closed doors. Not likely.) Could you explain how exactly you get from the current regime in Saudi Arabia falling to a lessening of European relative power? I'm not following that; it certainly doesn't seem an inevitable consequence. It could result, but it would depend on Europe's response, which means that it's anything but a foregone conclusion. I agree that Iran may well be too engulfed in her own internal crisis to spread a great deal of mischief abroad. However, I do worry about who will end up in control of her WMD arsenals and nuclear reactors. Those are high-value targets and high-value prizes, and should not be overlooked just because Iran's capability to act in a unified way is temporarily diminished. I don't give much credit to the possibility of Egypt allying with SA to cause the US direct mischief in any action on Iraq. Egypt and SA have been fighting a cultural war for "leadership" of the Arab world for a while now, and setting that aside would take a lot. Furthermore, Egypt is largely dependent on American funds to maintain its military, and would probably not want to endanger that when it has managed to avoid the American radar entirely. In addition, there is the danger of the Aswan Dam being destroyed by an American or Israeli strike if they suddenly surprise us with open hostilities. I don't think I could post my paper here in its entirety. It's about 24 pages. --Phoenix Rising

"Could you explain how exactly you get from the current regime in Saudi Arabia falling to a lessening of European relative power? I'm not following that; it certainly doesn't seem an inevitable consequence. It could result, but it would depend on Europe's response, which means that it's anything but a foregone conclusion." Kojeve felt that if the U.S. and Russia agreed or collaborated on an issue that Europe's power would diminish. They could not really change it if they wanted to. An example is the abrogation of the ABM treaty. Russia went along albeit reluctantly and it undercut Europe's whole arguement that the world would be on another arms race. Same is true for some old paradigmed constrained senators. This is an old statement. One of DeToqueville's later pronouncements was that Europe would be overshadowed by the U.S. and Russia in the coming century. To the Saudi example and I am going to admit that it is a stretch. Look at the Middle East today. If the Middle East exploded in chaos but Russia and Nigeria was able to step into the breech and be the swing producer then all the relationships that the Europeans have built up with the Middle East will go poof (or bang). They have got a lot more invested in the existing Arab power structure than we do not withstanding the Saudis. Last time I looked Saddam owed the French and Russians a lot more money than he did us. Same with Iran. Look how solicitous the EU particularly Javier Solarno are about the Palestinians. Guess where their aid money is going to? If their friends in high places all the sudden showed up at their doorstep with all their luggage asking for a permanent place to stay then their relationship has gone down with it. How then will they influence or tell the U.S. what to do in the Middle East? Can they tell us they talked with their good buddies and we should understand their feelings? That if we don't do what they say then the place will blow up? Oh by the way can you take all these refugees that are showing up at our shores. This is how the EU can lose influence if the Sauds and the ancillary kingdoms go down in revolt. How would you envision Europe's influence increasing under this scenario or another scenario you can postulate?

Three princes have died in the last few days. The reported causes...may or may not be believed. I don't know about an imminent collapse. I think there's some reason to believe the risk of imminent infighting in the royal family, between factions. I expect, as a completely normal part of contingency planning over the last couple of generations, that the Pentagon has considered the possibility that we might have to move into Arabia, just as we might have to move into the Gulf. I would assume these plans have been updated in recent years. If nothing else, the recent partial realignment of Arabia ought have triggered that. I don't think Europe has the power to act in Arabia. If they care and are worried, they're talking to us. Or, the planners are telling their leaders they have to talk to us. Possibilities are many. Briefly, I have doubts how seriously we'd consider occupying almost anything apart from the major Gulf oilfields which we might, conceivably, do if something happened which looked like it would shut down exports. Yes, I think there are people in Washington who are begining to flex their minds sufficiently to reclassify Arabia as an enemy, depending on how their leadership struggle shakes out. But, that doesn't necessarily equate to the short road to invasion. If anything has characterized Saudia activity over the years, it's caution. They have always felt themselves to be weak and vulnerable to attack, and seem to try not to overly anger powerful people who could attack. They do what they feel they can get away with. IOW, there's probably room for pressure well short of attack to curb some of their more exuberant activities. They fund their aggressive mosques throughout the world, for instance, because locals allow them to. That could be stopped if we chose to in America. It could be stopped all over Europe, too, if they decided they wouldn't tolerate it any more. A country which makes it illegal for nonMoslems to become citizens, or to worship in Arabia is not in a position to complain if other countries restrict their freedom to teach hatred in their own countries. Similarly, Saudi wealth is placed in foreign countries. This makes them vulernable through the international banking system, as well as to various national attacks on their ownership of assets outide Arabia.

Jeff, The best answer I can give you is that I envisage Europe's power neither increasing nor diminishing if old regimes in the Middle East fall and new ones rise; I cannot imagine that the Europeans would feel too many qualms about letting go of the old regimes once they were out of power, and I also cannot imagine it would take them too long to forge cozy business ties with whoever took power in the oil princedoms following any revolution. De Tocqueville might have been prescient with his statement about Russo-American cooperation eventually becoming a dominant theme in international politics (especially if aligned with an India that gets its act together domestically and sustains it), but I think it's far too early to say that yet. Putin has done a good job in Russia, I believe (barring his support for construction of light water reactors in Iran), but Russia is not a match for the EU yet. The one advantage they have in this scenario, as you pointed out, is that they don't need to depend on the Middle East or anywhere else for their oil production. --Phoenix Rising

All of this trouble in the house of Saud just seems like a sceen from the movie "The Godfather" where all the Don's are in a secret meeting paying each other lip service in public while plotting each others death and downfall. While this may be real life you can draw comparisons quite well. That's just my personel obsevation.

I just came out of Arabia where I was training Saudi S.F. Troops and I`ll have to disagree with some of the Guardians report. Despite world wide rumors the house of saud still has a very powerful grip on the nation and alot of support. The saudi national guard who are responsible for the protection of Saud are a powerful force and rival pretty much the rest of the military there, who I sometimes think are kept in the state they are just for that reason. I was just outside a large city there, Taif, and I never saw any demonstrations. Demonstrations against the king and his club are very illegal and squashed very quickly in most cases, and not always nicely. The biggest angle I could see on this is an estimate I saw by u.s. intel saying as many as 10,000 estimated members of Al Queda are reported to be on active duty military status there. When the trade center towers came down the saudi air force base I was at had a very large cheering rally, led by no other than the saudi base commander. I dont know much about the vetting process of the saudi national guard, but I would hope it to be a good one if they expect to keep the kingdom. If Al Queda has penetrated the National Guard deeply the house of saud is of course in trouble.