Quote Originally Posted by Bob's World View Post
A piece of unsolicited advice: If you want to stay in power, if you want to retain the wealth, dignity and respect that your family has held for so long, and not always be remembered as the guy who lost it all, this is the absolute wrong direction to go. In the past, yes, this was viable. Now? No more. You cannot control the flow of information to your populace so you cannot control your populace. Now you must actually lead. Now you must actually govern. Now you must actually treat your people with dignity, respect and justice. A few small changes in approach that cost you virtually nothing to implement will make you the greatest king in the history of Saudi Arabia. Laws like this? This could cost you your throne or worse.
All very well said, but the truth is that they don't care what you think, they don't care what I think, and they don't care what the US Government thinks. We saw that in Bahrain, and we'll see it again. The President, the DoS, and both houses of Congress could jump up and sing the above in 3 part harmony and it would change exactly nothing. At this point they have more leverage on us than we do on them. Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States have signed up for some $120 billion in arms purchases from the US, enough to keep the US defense industry afloat for another decade or two. Everything they are buying could be had from other sources as well... and if the US-Saudi relationship got fussy, how many seconds do you think it would be before the Chinese, Russians, French, British, Germans, and a bunch of others had offers on the table?

How many well-paid American manufacturing jobs are involved? Exact counts vary, but Congress ain't gonna mess with that with the economy where it sits now. We may indulge in a bit of talk here and there, but both sides know we won't rock that boat.

I actually think you overestimate the unrest in the Kingdom. It's dropped off quite a bit since the bad days in the 90s, when the oil glut and the US military presence nearly brought things to a head. Like the Chinese, I suspect that the Saudis are likely to hold it together until there's a real economic crunch, which in Saudi Arabia may not happen until the oil runs out.

People seek liberty, but they also seek security and prosperity. When I'm in the Gulf I read a real desire for change, but it's tempered by an overwhelming fear that change could bring chaos and disorder and eventual foreign control. A substantial part of the populaces of these countries has something to lose, and they're very much aware that they could lose it.

I can't count how many times I've been told, in that part of the world, that American efforts at democracy promotion are a conspiracy to weaken and divide them and exploit those divisions to gain control of the oil. We will (the refrain goes) support parties that support our interests, undercut those that don't, foster internal division and cultivate chaos, manipulate elections, and take over. That may not be true (though given history they can be pardoned for believing it), but as you say, it is perceived as truth.

The whole assumption of "enraged populace struggling against despotic regime" is a construct imposed by outsiders because it's consistent with their views. There's some truth to it, but it's by no means the whole picture... and if we build policy around the assumption that it is the whole picture - or the assumption that we have to mount our white horse and ride to the rescue of these aggrieved populaces - we're likely to step on our equipment in a major way.

They will do what they want, and they will reap whatever consequences come. The consequences may land on us as well, even though we have little or no influence on what happens... but that's fair enough, our actions and our mistakes often have major influence on people who have zero influence on our policies. Our fault for getting addicted to a commodity we haven't got...