[no-to-illegals]

Do not doubt a word, SunkenCiv. How long do you give the saudi regime? I would have guessed they had a lock for life and beyond five years ago; now thinking different. After 911 Mecca would have glowed for ten thousand years, if had my way. Cooler heads went another way and I had no say to begin with. Am sensing and seeing something different, never experienced, and a uniting for full fledged firestorms throughout the region because of the hindsight of 20/20 and stupid leadership mistakes. Prayers Up am wrong and am not causing something by having the brain to not think. Everything always goes wrong at once, and when it rains it pours. Following most anyone is an act of futility unless one should be fortunate enough to truly follow God. May it be.

[no-to-illegals]

looked again ... still no confirmation of initial point in thread. Tried to see if there was anything different from about two hours ago and found nothing extraordinary or out of the ordinary. Puzzling ... If Assad is alive there is something or someone (the bodyguard) whom may have taken a shot at Assad. News does look a bit on the blacked out side ... just by a little, but am speculating only.

[SunkenCiv]

There is no chance of a caliphate, because — just as in the Middle Ages — there is no Islamic solidarity.

The Saudis had been concerned about getting surrounded — Yemen was simmered down after 40 or 50 years of partition, civil war, etc, then blew up again during the “Arab Spring” — and got screwed in Iraq, and for that matter in Egypt, and are working harder and in concert with the GCC, seeding as many friendly/allied/puppet regimes as they can.

The main problem for the Saudis is, internal division, intrafamily rivalries, and of course devotion to various nut-job deviations of Islam — which is itself the fountainhead of nuttery.