Gleaning from that information which is publicly available (well, that portion of it which is written in English, at least!) my take is that the U.S. Government seems to have unrealistic expectations of the House of Saud. They—and I use the pronoun with the recognition that it encompasses within its scope plenty of factions at cross-purposes—seem to be either unwilling or unable to aid our (ever “evolving”) counter-terrorism strategy.

As to whether the House of Saud is a good bet to provide stability, my reading of the publicly available stuff is that they are not. The social welfare carrot they have so lavishly funded does not appear to be sustainable and one would suspect that that is going to lead to eventual tensions emanating from the non-Royal Saudi citizenry. But just as serious a threat would seem to be internal to the House, as the members of the family are often portrayed as conniving, petty, back-stabbing simpletons. Not the first time such a charge has been leveled at a ruling family of aristocrats, of course. Nor does a political system even need to be non-democratic to evidence those qualities, as demonstrated by the last few weeks in DC.

A question and two follow-up questions to it for those with a good knowledge of such things—am I correct in assuming that stability in Riyadh is an absolute prerequisite for the continued operation of NSA Bahrain? Are there any plausible alternative locations for a comparable base? And is such a base an unquestionable necessity for U.S. military and political strategy as it now stands?