A very interesting analysis because its a conclusion that most westerners would not arrive at when they hear, "The Arab world is ready to explode."

We immediately think its because of eviiiiiil America and Bu$Hitler, but our response in the region has been very measured compared to the sheer death and destruction we could have easily rained down on both Sunni and Shia in a matter of a few weeks. Maybe sectarian Arabs are just plain sick of one another and this is as good an opportunity to have the "mother of all showdowns". Of course it doesn't reflect very well on "the religion of peace", but then the Saudis probably have more political considerations going into this than just mere religious or ideological ones.

So what about the report of several Saudi clerics sending millions in cash to Iraq for Sunni insurgents to buy weapons to use against the US forces, including Strela manPADs, guns, etc....

Saudi Arabia once again playing both sides of the coin? Feed the insurgents from private Saudi citizens (and wouldn't we all like to know who those citizens are?) while attempting to follow US wishes to pressure Iran instead? The reason for Cheney's visit and Prince Turki quits and goes home isn't clear to me. Why can't we get some of that brilliant analysis the MSM is supposed to be so good at?

Because they are too busy bashing Bush and they suck, that's why?

Subsunk

You left out another recent development, namely that the Bush administration has been floating trial balloons about backing one side in Iraq if there seems to be no hope of getting a functional coalition government going that would deal with the sectarian violence. And the side they are talking about backing ain't the side of the Saudi's.

Put that together with the Saudi comments about backing the Sunni's in Iraq if it looks like the Sunni's are going to be wiped out by the Shiites that outnumber them, and there's a much more obvious way of putting two and two together that doesn't involve Iran.

Nice work. Could I offer an alternative?

Discount the statement by the King. The King doesn't make statements. People do in his name. The King is a barely functional human being.

Turki is a major player in one of the several factions in the House of Saud. He is the best known of the folks who would like to bribe their way out of trouble with extremists. The Interior Minister is head of the faction actively bedding the extremists. At this point in time, those who favor the West are either vacationing in Cannes or warming up their jets on the runway.

The only fly in the ointment for all the players is that there is no certainty which way the Saudi National Guard will go. Their loyalty is tribal, not political, and by and large they have not been subject to the corruption that money has brought to the House of Saud. The sole fighting force in Saudi Arabia is the Guard. The active military is a joke.

It is HIGHLY likely that a regime change is planned for the immediate future. Whether or not it happens, who knows? The Saudis like to play at being a regional power but they are NOT up for the task of taking on Iran. All their energy is devoted to internal politics.

Remember, too, that Saudi oil is running out. Already the quality is less than optimal and it's only going to get worse. Once the oil is gone or useless, what does the House of Saud have?

I've been gently encouraging the Hashemites to consider returning to the Kingdom and to their proper role as Guardians of the Holy Places.

Interesting analysis, and as usual as a commenter I shall pick nits :-)

1) It's not clear to me that the Saudis have a 'capable military'. Parts of their military are, but a fair portion of it is the usual military one sees in a dictatorship -- it's there to hold the people down and prevent a challenge to the royal family. It has excellent equipment but relies on a substantial number of private contractors (westerners, mostly Americans and Brits) to maintain and service that equipment.

The Saudi military might well be able to mount a defense of their homeland from a neighbor (the single episode of the Iraqi incursion into a Saudi town in the Gulf War might suggest otherwise, but that was 15 years ago). But it isn't clear to me that the Saudi military could mount a sustained offensive operation against a neighbor that has its own military.

2) While much of Saudi Arabia is Sunni, a fair proportion of the eastern side around the Gulf is Shi'a. They've generally been treated as second-class citizens. In event of a confrontation with Iran, to whom would they give their alliegance?

Again, interesting analysis, good post, and certainly worth considerable thought.

· Saudi Arabia has a capable US trained Military –

After living there for many years and watching them train, I'd say they might make good Cub Scouts with effort, but generally Saudis are not capable for much. When you leave them in charge of something for very long, it blows up from lack of maintenance or from someone asleep at the switch.

Chuck: remember this is the new king who took over last year, not the recently deceased king who was effectively a vegetable for a decade.

The Saudi King is THE major player in Saudi politics these days, as he was head of the alrgest faction when he was Crown prince

Sure, the fundamental ARab world is about to explode--to the detriment of the Kingdom's family rule as well as Jordan's--becuase we removed Saddam as a buffer between them and Shia hegemony.

This is Come to Jesus (or Allah) time.

When I say "capable" I mean that in their "theatre", by comparison to any of their neighbors, they are certainly better than the competition.

I dont mean to say that I think their infantry are in the same league as the Ghurkas.

I do think that their Air Force is very good.

Very intriguing developments, far more so than anything else lately. So of course the MSM is clueless on this one. When Cheney (whom I love) went to Saudi Arabia the Left was screaming bloody murder. Never a thought for the nuances, under-the-radar machinations and strategeries. So typical.

It's very easy to think (from the incompetence of the MSM) that nothing is being done on the Iran front. But it's much more likely that all kinds of things are being done and far from any spotlight, which (given the NY Times' proclivity for treason and undermining our security and war-planning) is the smart thing.

The Saudi Army fight? Who are you kidding? Thye Iranians have a much larger population and even a conservative minority makes the Saudi's look like an army of piss ants. Don't even think about it. Muqtada's militia could probably rout the Saudis.

Interesting analysis, but flawed on several counts.

The Saudi military has some capabilities, but far from sufficient to take on Iran. Check the CSIS report on Saudi National Security by Anthony Cordesman. Elements of the Navy, Air Force, Army, and National Guard are competent, but there's no sustainability at all.

The GCC is considering inviting Yemen to join the party simply because Yemen has a surplus of military aged men, something the other Gulf states lack.

Nobody outside the White House and the Riyadh/Jeddah palaces knows just what Cheney and Abdullah talked about. Neither group is leaking. We can guess all we want, but need to remember that they are guesses. We can know that the talks were important, but whether they were about Iraq, Iran, Palestinians, all of the above, we don't know yet.

The SAG shot down the Nawaf Obeid op-ed in the WaPo very quickly and thoroughly. By canceling Obeid's contracts with them, they made it very clear that what he said was not Saudi policy, even if it makes some sense.

The Saudis are not interested in a hot war with Iran, no matter who's doing the fighting. Saudi oil facilities are five minutes away from Iran by air. Saudi oil production can be shut down almost faster than they can react. Closing the Gulf at Hormuz is certainly do-able by Iran whenever it chooses to do so. The Saudi gov't wants a stable, non-hostile relationship and will work to maintain it.

Saudi interests in Iraq extend beyond the Sunni triangle to vast portions of the country through which tribes have historically migrated. Most of these tribes are, of course, Sunni, but intermarriage has complicated the easy black/white, Sunni/Shi'a dichotomy. This is further complicated by the fact that not all Shi'a look to Iran for political or moral guidance. Then add in Arab/Persian antipathy. Sistani still speaks to large numbers of Arab Shi'a in an Arab, not Persian voice; he has adherents throughout the Gulf states, as Steve White may take note.

Subsunk is conflating two different stories. One is about a group of Salafist imams calling for support of Iraqi Sunnis. The other is a report of private Saudi financing going to Iraqi terrorists. While the ends are pretty similar, these are two very different stories with different dynamics and actors. The USG would very much like to know who the private financiers are, but they're hard to track. The money seems to be being transfered in cash, very untraceable. The Saudi gov't has pretty much shut down the formal monetary transfers through banks, hawalas, and even charitable groups.

1) All the Saudis need to do is change the dynamic from the current "Iran takes on the Great Satan" into a "Iran attacks and kills brother Muslims" and everything changes on the battlefield. Fighting crusaders and jews is all sorts of fun to the lowly jihadi recruit, but indiscriminently killing and maiming brother arabs and muslims is likely to get you a long face from the local emir.

2) I do not think the Saudis are an outstanding first class military, but I do put a great deal of stake in their ability to control civilian populations by other - more tribal - means, as they demostrate regularly in their country. This conflict will be one asymmetrical warfare torganization against another, not a green suited army against another green suited army.

3) I dont think Irans military is as strong as the Iranian Geography. If Iran was flat, I think we would have already made our move. They live on the 'rule of the bully', act bigger than you really are, no one will challenge you. I submit that their biggest miltary strength is the ability to extort against governments by the use of their hezbollah groups, which act like the "black hand" of the last century did in large american cities. The Iranian military is no more capable on the battlefield than that of Husseins once formidable army. On paper - strong, in practice, lots of uniforms and weapons left at the side of the road when the big event goes down.

4) Fundamentally, I dont think the Saudis can allow a vacuum to be allowed to form in Iraq, and think they loathe the idea of the hated Persians being that much closer to the Muslim holy lands. They may not like us, but they hate the Iranian Revolutionaries.

5) I've long been puzzled by the way the Saudis have stood by and said very very little about all the noise going on in their neighborhood, other than the polite ambassadorial 'poo-pooh' against war in general. I can assure you that if Mexico was imbroiled in the sort of warfare we see in Iraq, you couldnt get anyone to shut up about it here. I've also been puzzled by their reaction to Hezbollah in Lebanon, which was suprisingly non-jihadi in its approach.

6) The spread of the Iranian revolution is antithetical to the reign of the Saudi royal family. If Iraq falls to the Jihadis, that will put persia on their borders. And what of Kuwait and the gulf states? Then what of the children of ibn Saud? Put mecca in the hands of the Persians, and you have the makings of world wide jihad on a scale that will make today look like the 1920's by comparison.

7) Its time for the Saudis to take action.

" At this point in time, those who favor the West are either vacationing in Cannes or warming up their jets on the runway."

And all she wants to do is, dance, dance...

"I can assure you that if Mexico
was embroiled in the sort of warfare we see in Iraq, you couldn't get anyone to shut up about it here."

Yo Frank...

Oaxaca. Chiapas. Narcotraficantes. Bang bang shoot shoot. That's Mexico all the time. It's not a story that fires the MSM imagination. They've got less interest in covering it than Saudis do in working.

Other than that, hey, I like reading your stuff!

If Anbar province were in the same shape as Oaxaca, we wouldnt be talking about Iraq.

If things change, say the Iranian allies in Venezuela start to subvert Oaxaca in the same bloddy fashion that Iran has taken into Iraq, you might see a few folks up here north of the border get real gabby about Mexico.

Vari, the Arabs make ridiculously bad soldiers and warriors. Not even the US can alleviate that problem without major command and control decisions, and the ability (and using that ability) to execute anyone we find slacking off.

One guy was talking about the Saudis up above, and it was pretty funny to me because it is true. The Saudis can't even maintain their own oil infrastructure and building codes without the foreign workers.

The Middle East is like a free for all in an alley, and you are at the back end. So how do you fight multiple opponents coming at you? I think one at a time, suffices. So, choose. Syria? Iran? Saudi Arabia? Pick one and attack. Because if you just stand around, they will ALL cluster around you and beat your brains in. That's how I see it.

I dont think Col. Lawrence would agree with your assessment of Arab fighting ability, nor would the Turkish conventional armies that were defeated by the supposedly incapable Arabs.

The first key thing is, that if you want to fight Green suited army to Green suited army, youre right they arent that good. But this tribe to tribe, person to person. This is about relationships, not whos got the better howitzer.

The second thing is this, when we leave there will be a vacuum, so who do you want to fill that vacuum? The Iraqi Shiite client state is Iran, so the Sunni Client State can be either Saudi, or Syria. It will surely be one or the other, you can guess which one is more likely to return our phone calls.

We tend to think of Saudis as a "nation" with traditional borders, but its probably better to think of them more like a big mafia style family, for the lack of a better model in this discussion.

What we want is a Sunni Client state for the Sunni portion of Iraq that can maintain order in that area. To do that, you need contacts, contacts means family and family means tribe. We have great weapons, and great infantry, but we dont have a list of family contacts that go back centuries is a list of "favors" between each other that is what is really at the core of making the middle east do what it does.

To put it short - We havent made enough deposits in the Iraqi Sunni "favor bank" to be making big withdrawls. We need a co-signer, and thats is Saudi Arabia.

We were successful in Afghanistan because we left the tribes to administer their own areas. Those tribes that back the Taliban, we saw to it that their enemy tribes were able to destroy them. The word got around real quick that having taliban in your area was a sure way for the tribe living next door to be able to get enough weapons and manpower to remove you from your lands. Support for the Taliban has never recovered from that.

If we want to remove Iran from its influence in the middle east, we need to make it expensive for tribes and families to support Iran by backing those that dont with sufficient force to ensure that everyone gets the message that Having Iranian revolutionary support in your tribal area is as good as getting a bullet through the head.

This is not my strategy, its theirs, and we should use it, because frankly - it works.