Our two options for “dealing with” Saudi Arabia are, as I see them

Our two options for “dealing with” Saudi Arabia are, as I see them:

1) Don’t. Leave the godforsaken place alone. Don’t prop up the government, don’t knock it down. If the

monarchy hangs on, maybe the moderates will slowly grow in strength and improve things. Maybe Saudi Arabia will

stay stuck right where it is. Or maybe the hardcore Islamists will take over. At any rate, disaffected Saudis

will have one less excuse to ram more planes into our buildings – and if they try, then maybe we could take

that monster military of ours out of countries that never screwed with us and use it for a legitimate purpose.

2) Work to topple, overtly or covertly, the status quo in the fanciful hope that the handful of native liberals

will fill the power vacuum before the horde of bin Ladenites do. Once this succeeds, establish oceanfront

resort in Riyadh.

*Yes, yes, there were other reasons, too, including commerce. Spare me the pedantic e-mails. It’s called humor.

An interesting piece in Haaretz by Efraim Halevy, former chief of the Mossad and National Security advisor to

Ariel Sharon, about the wonderful potential of American Empire in the Middle East:

“At present the United States is torn between the immediate need to ensure a safe flow of oil, while

maintaining close ties with the existing government in Riyadh, and the fear that every day that passes without

genuine reform in Saudi Arabia is not only bringing the fall of the House of Saud closer but is also

heightening the danger that the new rulers will take an extremist approach to the “infidel” states of the

West. Thousands of citizens from Western countries live in Saudi Arabia, in well-fortified compounds that

protect their families. These extreme measures of protection reflect the constantly widening gulf between the

local population and the foreign guests.