Quote:
Originally posted by Bad_Rich_Chic
But the coersion of SA was a bit more subtle than that. Invading Iraq permitted us to pull our bases out of SA, allowing the ruling class to realize "oh, shit, we sort of depend on US military support & presence to back us up in the face of popular opposition to our rather unpopular regime" and then bend over backwards to help us enough just to keep us from publicly telling them "fuck off, you're on your own and good luck to you," but not so much as to inflame popular rebellion because they are a US puppet. Compared to either of those, both of which would probably result in a fairly quick dispatching of the house of al Saud, a model democracy in Iraq is a distant threat to their regime survival.
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Saudi Arabia today is a militant islamic state internally but has come to terms with the idea that it cannot be imperialistic in its aims. So, in terms of how it treats it's citizens, I'm going to be hardpressed to find substantive differences of degree between Iran and Saudi Arabia.
American support only gets them so far, and if we are tied up in Iraq, they'll know we have limited resources to back them. At what point do we expect to see Saudi Arabia begin distancing themselves from us and moving closer to the terrorists?
Don't be surprised if a preoccupation with Iraq becomes a double edged sword in other countries. Especially if it looks like we're unable to disengage.
