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Fall of the House of Saud
Feb. 28th, 2011 02:55 pmhttp://crookedtimber.org/2011/02/26/after-the-sauds/
Interesting article by John Quiggin on the upheavals in the Middle East and the effects it might play on Saudi Arabia. It also neatly sketches out the box that the House of Saud is currently in; a massive and expensive family to maintain, a diminishing voice in OPEC, and the inability to trump personal ambitions in order to transition into a more democratic state.
The interesting thing is that this is likely just the beginning. Sans US troops and arms, the likelihood of Iraq surviving as a single state for another decade is extremely unlikely and its fracture will bring serious expansionist philosophies into vogue in Turkey and Iran. North Africa is being reshaped as we speak, and Libya is another candidate for fracture into east and west states. There's no doubt a lot of money is getting funneled into the whole region by oil and energy companies looking for any solution to stabilize and return to business as usual, and religious and secular political interests will be duking it out to decide who gets to control the process.
I think Jordan will be the tipping point for how things will progress. If King Abdullah can finesse his way into limited reforms that pacify the region, it will serve as a fire break on the spreading unrest. If Jordan moves into chaos, with Egypt in turmoil, Israel will be severely boxed in with two border countries with significant Palestinian population in open revolt against American sympathetic regimes. That is where a very dangerous potential flashpoint will emerge.
Interesting article by John Quiggin on the upheavals in the Middle East and the effects it might play on Saudi Arabia. It also neatly sketches out the box that the House of Saud is currently in; a massive and expensive family to maintain, a diminishing voice in OPEC, and the inability to trump personal ambitions in order to transition into a more democratic state.
The interesting thing is that this is likely just the beginning. Sans US troops and arms, the likelihood of Iraq surviving as a single state for another decade is extremely unlikely and its fracture will bring serious expansionist philosophies into vogue in Turkey and Iran. North Africa is being reshaped as we speak, and Libya is another candidate for fracture into east and west states. There's no doubt a lot of money is getting funneled into the whole region by oil and energy companies looking for any solution to stabilize and return to business as usual, and religious and secular political interests will be duking it out to decide who gets to control the process.
I think Jordan will be the tipping point for how things will progress. If King Abdullah can finesse his way into limited reforms that pacify the region, it will serve as a fire break on the spreading unrest. If Jordan moves into chaos, with Egypt in turmoil, Israel will be severely boxed in with two border countries with significant Palestinian population in open revolt against American sympathetic regimes. That is where a very dangerous potential flashpoint will emerge.
