The Al Qaeda terrorists who attacked western civilian workers in Saudi Arabia are nothing more than a timely reminder that the overthrow of Ba’athist Iraq was not the end of the matter which blasted into the public consciousness on September 11th 2001. Saddam Hussein and Islamic terrorism were related subjects but were never the same. I was starting to detect a “Game over, now it’s Miller Time” attitude in some newspapers and blogs after the triumph in Iraq, but I think this shows that if there is ever a time for complacency, it sure as hell is not now.
It will be interesting to see what happens if this atrocity leads to a mass movement of Westerners out of the accurséd Kingdom. If the risks posed by terrorism means the Saudis become unable to induce western technicians and specialists from working there at any price, I suspect the impact on the Arabian economy will be quite dramatic. No doubt within a couple years infrastructure and certain essential functions will decay beyond the point where the regime’s spin doctors cannot hide the truth that Saudi Arabia is not an internally viable nation-state in any modern sense.
And if the Saudi Wahhabist regime’s ability to use petrodollar funded patronage to buy off the disparate elements of its indolent society grinds to a halt, what happens then?
Would a monstrous and tyrannical fundamentalist regime take over? And would that regime be a breeding ground for Islamic terrorism? Well considering that the current regime already is a monstrous and tyrannical fundamentalist regime, and it is from Saudi Arabia that most of the September 11
The House of Saud is built on sand, so let it go down the toilet of history and let’s see what comes in its place. After all, if we like the look of what comes next even less than the current tyranny, it is not like the 3rd Infantry Division has to travel all the way from the United States to do something about it… and that self-evident fact alone should concentrate the minds of those who would be the new rulers in Riyadh.
The US will not be in the region forever but at the moment the peoples of the Middle East are very aware that they are living in the shadow being cast by that 900 foot tall gorilla currently standing astride Iraq… for a short while at least, that might not be such a bad thing just so long as the gorilla knows when it is time to go home.
If the oil-production is badly impacted the world economy feel it acutely. Oh, and the current regime already is plenty monstrous and tyrannically fundamentalist already.
I read somewhere yesterday that Iraq could easily produce enough oil to become the #1 producer in the world. Since Iraq is effectively producing zero right now, it would be easy to replace the stream of Texas Tea from SA with Iraqi oil.
Andy, you beat me to it! What is more, a Saudi collapse would lead to an Iraqi oil bonanza! That sounds good to me!
Dreams are so fun to have.
Most experts predict 5-10 years to significantly boost Iraq oil exports past previous peak levels. Many of the fields now in production are old. Development of new fields will take time & money.
Perhaps in a decade they can expand to replace Saudi production, but during that time global oil demand will also rise.
Also, those big numbers for Iraq reserves are of unknown accuracy, possibily invented by Sadham to boost his prestige.
BTW, let’s show a little imagination! The guys who replace the Saudi princes might be much worse.
It is fairly hard to imagine replacement regimes in Saudi Arabia that could be any more ghastly than the one there at the moment. For that reason I don’t fear the political consequences much. In much of the Arab world, almost anything would be an improvement.
However, the economic consequences are something to worry about. The worst case scenario is that Saudi oil completely ceases to be available. Robert Baer’s piece in the May Atlantic suggested that alternative sources couldn’t make up the difference, and that this could lead to an oil price of $70+ per barrel and a global crisis. I do not know the statistics well enough to say if this is true (although I do not believe it would be in the long run – what would happen is that lots of oilfields now considered uneconomic would become economic again, and the price would then come down somewhat) but in the short term we could get a very serious recession.
Of course, the Saudis have no credible economy of any kind without the oil, so if they stop selling it they are reduced to absolute dirt poverty. So one thinks almost any regime in power would resume selling it before long. And if they didn’t, one would expect to see American tanks in the streets of Riyadh before too long. Once again though, the short term consequences could be quite serious.
Of course, the lesson of September 11 is that the status quo is not sustainable. The House of Saud and the Wahhabists remaining in power and spreading their poison means more attacks on our cities. And that just isn’t something we can accept.
And hopefully in 50 years time we have some completely different source of energy that means we don’t need to rely on this part of the world at all.
Graham: Iraq focus helped Al-Qaeda
…Graham, who voted against the Senate resolution authorizing the Iraq war, said he believes it diverted military and intelligence resources away from the war against terrorism.
Al-Qaeda was “on the ropes” about a year ago but the shift of resources to Iraq has allowed it to regenerate, he said.
>Al-Qaeda was “on the ropes” about a year ago but the shift of resources to Iraq has allowed it to regenerate, he said.
And the evidence for this would be, what, exactly?
There have been no attacks on US soil since the “shift” to Iraq. I doubt there has been any “shift” at all, except that reflected by Graham’s inability to think about more than one thing at a time. I would love to see the proof that we cut resources elsewhere in the war on terror in order to go to war in Iraq.
In fact, the only attack of any scale that al Qaeda has been able to mount was in their own backyard, Saudi Arabia. To me, this indicates that al Q is badly weakened – they have been relatively careful in the past not to blow up things in Saudi Arabia, but this makes it look as though their home country is the ONLY place they can mount a serious attack. If that is the case, I would say that we are hearing al Q’s death rattle, not their resurgence.
T. Hartin, wasn’t the govt claiming during the invasion of Afghanistan that this was putting Al Qaeda on the ropes?
Scott – I agree with the statement that al Q was on the ropes, and as far as I can tell they are still on the ropes.
I was asking for proof that the war on Iraq had allowed al Q to regenerate. I think this is a load of crap, myself, given the setbacks that we have contitnued to deal al Q in recent months.
I regard the bombing in Saudi Arabia as a sign of al Q’s weakness, not strength.
Larry-
“the guys who replace the princes might be much worse”
In a perverse sort of way, I hope so. Think of it as a reversal of the Afghanistan dispersal phenemon, or the Arab “volunteers” who went to Iraq. Assume that a Bin Laden type takes control in Saudi. In the short term, you’re right, the consequences will be hard to stomach. Still such a regime that harbors terrorists (in a more blatant fashion) removes the political difficulties in attacking Saudi. Furthermore, over time many of the islamofascists in the world will be drawn there, making them easy targets for the US/British armies. In a way this would be playing to our strength. All this could facilitate what I see as the inevitable reckoning with Saudi Arabia.
One other word of caution for you imperialists out there: Let’s say terrorists damage one or two key spots in Saudi pipelines or pumping (as a May Atlantic Monthly article pointed out) if we dreamed of trying to overthrow the House of Saud or some other similarly stupid impirialist wet dream. How well is our oil-thirsty economy (including those SUVs) going to run without all that oil?
Indeed you have situated yourself in this predicament, and looks like that you never learn from history. When you back up the (Shah) of Iran while he was restraint his own people and who had the worst torture instrument in the world (Savak) during his rule. Therefore, the hate reached it is peak among the Iranians toward USA and still, now you are repeating the same scenario with the Saudi dynasty; you are backing up the a wicked regime that rob the country and carry out a daily tortured with the people whom speak out about the corruption. If you want your interst it is with the people but not with the tyrants we ask you please…please don’t protect the evil
Who is this ‘you’ that you are talking about, sami?