Reply #9: Umm... don't know the odds...

[punpirate]

... but, there are something like 30,000 princes, and 20-odd million citizens. Even with the military and the palace guards, they'd be no match for a general revolt.

For the US, though, it's a lose-lose situation. If the US doesn't do anything, the oil's gone for a while, and the US loses the only real connections it has in SA, the princes.

If they try to mount a counter-attack on the general populace of SA, they short themselves troops in Iraq, build high levels of ill-will among the Muslim community world-wide for waging war in the Holy Land, and also lay themselves open for charges that they are defending the princes against the princes' subjects just for the sake of oil.

Another case for Richard Clarke's assertion that the obsession with Iraq has diverted attention from terrorism. If al-Qaeda had been more thoroughly disabled, there would be fewer disturbances in SA, Iraq wouldn't be a focus for fanatical Muslims that see the chance for another theocratic state in the Middle East, and the situation could be ameliorated over a longer period of time diplomatically. As it is now, the schedule of events will be dictated more by al-Qaeda than by common sense.