Arabians are a wonderful people, it's the Saudi royal family that is the problem. They are going to become more of a problem as the world is forced to transition away from oil. There are few things more dangerous than dictators that find themselves losing power and support.

Agreed - whe I worked at Lockheed, there were a few Arabs who literally quit after 9/11 as they refused to work at a company that was selling weapons to the DOD to kill other arabs.

I stand by my statement: The Royal Saudi Family (the CIA, and the Clinton Bush Cabal) can collectively go fuck their evil selves. Fuck them.

MSB in particular.

Especially ones that are wildly monied/connected, and ones that Western apparatuses are used to allowing to skirt justice regularly.

Saudi royal family is the problem? Without the royal family, Saudi will be controlled by radical Islamists. The royal family is the major force to keep the country away from the religious fanatics.

> Without the royal family, Saudi will be controlled by radical Islamists

But that's true only because the royal family has (1) fostered the strength of radical Islam directly by allying with radical Islamists to justify their power, and (2) made such a hash of things that any opposition (which, as a direct consequence of their promotion of radical Islam, comes largely from slightly divergent radical Islamists) seems preferable to a large portion of the population.

As a result, SA is at least two revolutions away from having a decent government, and the royal family benefits from the fear the West has of the likely course of the first of those.

What happens after the two revolutions?

One revolution by radical Islamists a la Iran, one revolution (not necessarily final) of a more "normal" alignment, and any number of revolutions of anything in between.

That's a very good question; there's a reason I said “at least” and not “exactly”.

You fundamentally misunderstand SA. The wahhabists and the house of Saud have a symbiotic relationship. The royals turn a blind eye to the excesses of the radicals, provided it's targeted externally, and in return the radicals legitimize the rule of Saud as a theocracy. This is why the royals suppress violent actions within their borders, but not the structure that ultimately causes those occasional acts of domestic terror, while doing nothing to hinder how those same networks do terror internationally, including 9/11.

What you said does not contradict what I said. Do you think the royals is the problem? Would it be better to get rid of the royals and let the wahhabists rule the country?

If the royals are gone the wahhabists would not take rule. That's not how it works. They are a key to power in SA but incapable of holding it themselves, which is why they legitimize Saud symbiotically. I loath the both of them but it's important to understand the actual structure going on.

So who will take control of the country?

Besides the house of Saud there are multiple other clans that historically have held power there, and continue to be powerful and influential today. The other key to power in SA is control of the oil money.

Sadly it's more than just that. OPEC and the Petrodollar is the main reason why the relationship is so unseverable.

Can you elaborate? Saudi Arabia is just one member of OPEC. If they are upset with a US sanction as a consequence of this, and refuse to sell oil to the US, wouldn’t that just mean other OPEC nations (or Canada!) would sell oil to the US and Saudi would fill the gap left by these countries supplying non-US countries?

I think the “stabilizing force in the region” argument elsewhere n these comments is more on the mark but have a limited understanding of everything at play.

I am concerned that Saudi has gotten away with this now and will be emboldened to do whatever they want now.

It's not so much that the US needs Saudi Arabian oil as it is that the United States needs oil to be sold using US Dollars. Saudi Arabia exclusively accepts US Dollars, so every nation wishing to buy oil needs to exchange their own currency for our dollar bills in order to do so. This gives the US a tremendous advantage in the world stage and is such a large part of why the US Dollar is worth so much overseas.

If Saudi Arabia wanted to, they could start accepting Chinese Yuan, Russian Rubles, or even Japanese Yen and that would deal a serious blow to the US Monetary system. There would be nothing particularly special about the US Dollar and that would severely impact the US Economy. Actually decoupling from the US Dollar like this is highly unlikely, but it is a risk nonetheless. I suspect no US President wants to be the one in power when Saudi Arabia chooses to do so.

When hunting monsters, beware that you don’t become a monster, etc.

My dad after quitting the Oakland PD said (after they killed a bunch of Black Power):

"When you spend your whole life looking for bad, thats all you can see"