Replies

There are people who fault the Saudi royals for 9/11. What they're failing to see is that it's not the Saudi elites who hate our guts - it's the hoi polloi. The Saudi man on the street is a lot like the Iranian man on street before the Iranian Revolution in 1979. He's annoyed at the royals for being too Westernized, and avoiding the duty of every true Muslim to smite the infidel until he submits to the one true faith.

If the Saudi royals fall, we will see a Sunni version of Iranian theocracy take over. The Iranian theocrats were always a fringe phenomenon because Shiite Islam is the religion of 10% of the world's Muslims, and much of its preaching is about as resonant with Sunni Muslims as Mormon preachings are to mainstream Christians. A Saudi version of Iran (and the country won't even be called Saudi Arabia any more, because Saud is the family name of the founding, and ruling, dynasty) would be staggering to contemplate.

The Saudi man on the street is a lot like the Iranian man on street before the Iranian Revolution in 1979. He's annoyed at the royals for being too Westernized, and avoiding the duty of every true Muslim to smite the infidel until he submits to the one true faith. If the Saudi royals fall, we will see a Sunni version of Iranian theocracy take over. The Iranian theocrats were always a fringe phenomenon because Shiite Islam is the religion of 10% of the world's Muslims, and much of its preaching is about as resonant with Sunni Muslims as Mormon preachings are to mainstream Christians. A Saudi version of Iran (and the country won't even be called Saudi Arabia any more, because Saud is the family name of the founding, and ruling, dynasty) would be staggering to contemplate.

You're right - and it would be staggering to contemplate...

If the Saudi royals fall, we will see a Sunni version of Iranian theocracy take over.

Such a theocracy is already partially in place, and has been for a long time (over 30 years). People have been led to believe that the country known colloquially as "Saudi Arabia" is run by a monolithic bloc known as "the House of Saud". Such is not, nor has been for decades, the case.

First, the "Royal family" is ridden with various factions, each with their own agendas, which they advance by intrigues which should be likened to any other period in history, such as Imperial Rome, or the like. I have been aware of this reality since 1980, when I was stationed there with the US Army, having been exposed to what the true situation was there, politically speaking soon after my my arrival in country. At that particular point in time, much conversation was held by Americans in country as to *WHO* would succeed the ailing King Khalid Prince Fahd, or Prince Abdullah, with the general consensus being that Fahd was preferable to Abdullah, who was considered more of a 'hardliner'. Prince Fahd succeeded his father, and I had hoped that Abdullah would never wear the crown, since his reputation was distinctly anti-American (at that time).

I'll admit, that when Abdullah became King after the death of Fahd, I was concerned that his attitude, as expressed in the past, could change the dynamics in that region of the world to our detriment. That did not actually come to pass, and I felt a small tinge of relief.

It was at that point that I recalled the *OTHER* major power bloc within the KSA, the Wahabbi clerics, and what *THEIR* agenda was. That particular group wants more than anything to have the title "Defender(s) of the Holy Places" bestowed not on the House of Saud's reigning monarch, but upon *THEM*. Why, you ask?

The answer is chillingly simple. Bestowal of *that* particular title catapults *them* into the position that the House of Saud currently holds, the recipient of all the money that The Hajj brings, which is an amount which rivals oil revenues, and unlike the latter, is not finite in nature.

Big stakes in this particular game, and, in my opinion, the proximate cause of the takeover of the Kaaba back in the day...

the infowarrior