[Fedora]

Interesting analysis which gets me thinking about several things. One thing that would be worthwhile would be to identify the origins and development of the Saudi lobby in the State Department and other branches of government--this of course has a long history going back to Jack Philby, which I suspect can be traced forward fairly easily to John Kerry via BCCI. This also gets me thinking about several other things, of which I'll toss out one as a question for you: how do you see the Saudi attempt to acquire nuclear weapons factoring into the scenario you describe?

[swilhelm73]

The reason for wanting nuclear weapons is obvious - it provides the country with them an awesome deterrent against even the most powerful conventional armies - as in the US.

The Islamists want a nuclear weapon so that they can more easily use Saudi Arabia as a base. The comparitive examples of Iraq and Afghanistan versus Pakistan and North Korea are as obvious to Islamists as they are to us.

I'd say the moderates in Saudi Arabia have little interest in acquiring nuclear weapons - but much interest in using the threat of developing them as a bargaining chip.

With Saudi Arabia's vast wealth, it certainly could develop nuclear weapons relatively quickly. One could expect help from not only the likes of North Korea but quite possible the PRC or even France.

It is possible if a bumbling Democrat comes into office and treats the Saudis with the state departments signature fawning deference that we could see such a program come to fruition, but I rather doubt it at this point as I can't see any Democrat winning the presidency.

Back to the original point though, it is fascinating that there is no interest in possible connections of various American officials, of both parties, to the Saudi government by the Left or the media.

Leftists have spent much of the last two years arguing Saudi Arabia is a greater threat then Iraq, and have shown even less interest in who the Saudis may be bribing then who was on Iraq's payroll.