Having dealt with Saudi nationals.....I would not be surprised.
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remember when Saddam had huge Columns of tanks and APCs lined up on the SA border after he took Kuwait before the “line in the sand” talk . he could have just walked right in without even throwing a rock
And should have from his point view and seizing the oil fields and more importantly the harbors and docks to prevent easy outside military influx into the region
By the time, he got to Kuwait City, we had Special Forces in SA. I know one of them.
And we should have let him.
I had so many tabletop plan posts here in September and October of 2001.
My major scenario had the idiot Bush flying to New Delhi right after his 9/16 speech to Congress requesting a Declaration of War on SA and Pakistan, and going from India to Baghdad, sending Saddam south to Riyadh (which wouid have taken him about ten minutes) and India right through Lahore to the tribal areas and Karachi to Quetta with US air support and SOF guidance while we raised the 80-division occupation force we needed.
Nothing is more certain than the demise of the House of Saud. Half the princes in Switzerland, the other half's heads on poles ringing Mecca.
This could have happened with our assistance, Iraq in control of the peninsula (and in a permanent alliance with the US), Pakistan abolished. and Afghanistan neutralized.
The very idea of an alliance with SA is repulsive. Not because the House of Saud is repulsive (although they are) but because they are weak.
If we are going to keep f***ing around over there, we need strong allies - which means brutal nominally-Islamic dictators, who do what they want with their women and worship their moon god however they want.
We have this fetish of making alliances with the weak instead of the strong, believing (falsely) that having a CIA station chief, a US ambassador, and unlimited gay pornography can turn the weak strong.
Nothing is more of a threat to our position in the world than this idealistic nonsense.