Breaking right now on CNN.

This combined with the tense situation in Yemen makes for a very interesting Arabian Peninsula...

Will Dear Leader deem it necessary to send an emissary?

New King is Abdulla's 79 year old Brother.

Wonder if the New Guy will keep pumping oil and depressing Crude Prices??

Saudi Arabia is in trouble, the Royal family is basically paying for peace with oil money, at some one the opposition is going to make a power play and if successful the Islamic terrorists will have access to massive amounts of wealth.

(01-22-2015 07:37 PM)THE NC Herd Fan Wrote:  Saudi Arabia is in trouble the Royal family is basically pay for peace with oil money, at some one the opposition is going to make a power play and if successful the Islamic terrorists will have access to massive amounts of wealth.

Yep. a bunch of spoiled cousins sitting on a lake of oil. One of these groups is going to look at that and say "why them?"

And I hate to say it, but more than once when faced with armed opposition these guys would rather flee than fight. If they can't buy their way out of a bad situation, they'll drop their guns and it's ass and elbows.

(01-22-2015 07:44 PM)JMUDunk Wrote:  

(01-22-2015 07:37 PM)THE NC Herd Fan Wrote:  Saudi Arabia is in trouble the Royal family is basically pay for peace with oil money, at some one the opposition is going to make a power play and if successful the Islamic terrorists will have access to massive amounts of wealth.

Yep. a bunch of spoiled cousins sitting on a lake of oil. One of these groups is going to look at that and say "why them?"

And I hate to say it, but more than once when faced with armed opposition these guys would rather flee than fight. If they can't buy their way out of a bad situation, they'll drop their guns and it's ass and elbows.

I bet the Saudis are better than the 1975 South Vietnamese when it comes to "Taking The Money" and running.

This is perhaps the worst news imaginable coming out of the region.

(01-22-2015 08:22 PM)HeartOfDixie Wrote:  This is perhaps the worst news imaginable coming out of the region.

It's definitely not good. The main issue Obama needs to worry about first and foremost is the new king's interest in maintaining a semi-strong relationship with the U.S. After that, then we should worry about how civil wars to the north and south could destabilize SA as well.

(01-22-2015 08:28 PM)CoastGuardHawk06 Wrote:  

(01-22-2015 08:22 PM)HeartOfDixie Wrote:  This is perhaps the worst news imaginable coming out of the region.

It's definitely not good. The main issue Obama needs to worry about first and foremost is the new king's interest in maintaining a semi-strong relationship with the U.S. After that, then we should worry about how civil wars to the north and south could destabilize SA as well.

If we were smart we would already be planning for the inevitable collapse of the Saudi monarch.

BTW, I blame Bush in large part for much of the problem we are going to see in the region. He thumbed his nose at serious efforts by the Iranians to improve relations. That is the greatest screw up in American foreign policy since the Vietnam war.

To be fair, Obama has compounded that when he refused to support protestors calling for a change in government.

Together, Bush and Obama have put the US in the worst position possible. Iran has outmaneuvered the US and we are on the verge of a serious paradigm shift.

I'm not sure how bad this is because I think it's been expected. I wouldn't have picked the timing, but it makes things interesting with Obama ' s request for troop authorization, along with his fostering of horrible relations with the new Congress.

If the new king is short lived, I would really worry.

The new king is 79 years old. There's no reason to believe he'll be around a while.

Just a guess...but...the Saudi royal family just lost its largest sharetaker of the oil profits. Lots of extra cash is getting ready to be divided around.... Not to mention what his immediate family is getting ready to share. I doubt much will change from his death.

The Royal family is about fresh out of folks with any religious credibility.

(01-22-2015 09:54 PM)HeartOfDixie Wrote:  The Royal family is about fresh out of folks with any religious credibility.

I was unaware there was much of any religious credibility in the Middle East as a whole.

(01-22-2015 08:33 PM)HeartOfDixie Wrote:  BTW, I blame Bush in large part for much of the problem we are going to see in the region. He thumbed his nose at serious efforts by the Iranians to improve relations. That is the greatest screw up in American foreign policy since the Vietnam war.

To be fair, Obama has compounded that when he refused to support protestors calling for a change in government.

Together, Bush and Obama have put the US in the worst position possible. Iran has outmaneuvered the US and we are on the verge of a serious paradigm shift.

I'm not sure that American intervention would have been wise. I think that it could have further destabilized Iraq, and I'm not sure that we would have won in Iran. Obviously the American military is better than anything that Iran will ever have. Don't get me wrong. I just don't think that we could have held the country in a state of tranquility without massive amounts of money and political will. Both of those were lacking at the time.

Also, I suppose it depends on what you mean by paradigm shift. I think that Iranian power vis-a-vis the US has climaxed and is waning. Iranian power in relation to Saudi Arabia might not be. However, there's little that the US can do to fix Saudi Arabia's many systemic problems. There are simply too many religiously-motivated terrorists who subscribe to extreme forms of Islam in that part of the world, and they have too much power. The Saudis have been paying those psychos too much for too long to keep them down forever. Eventually, they will make a move on the government, even if it is backed by the USA.

Wahhabism is truly evil. Saudi Arabia is evil. I hope they runout of oil and can't feed their camels.

What I can't fathom in this day and age..... a Royal family taking the lion's share of the pie. For what? A birth right. This stuff has been changing since the Magna Carte. That the US is in bed with a Royal family and propping them up militarily. I can see why the underlings would look at us with a stank eye. It's corrupt. These people don't deserve billions because they came out of a chosen uterus. The whole Saudi Royal Family idea seems like something out of the stone ages. It's a backwards society.

King Abdullah has been ill for a while and his brother, the new king, has been the defacto ruler. Now that the brother is the full-time king I don't think we'll see much change in relations with the Saudis.

(01-22-2015 08:30 PM)HeartOfDixie Wrote:  

(01-22-2015 08:28 PM)CoastGuardHawk06 Wrote:  

(01-22-2015 08:22 PM)HeartOfDixie Wrote:  This is perhaps the worst news imaginable coming out of the region.

It's definitely not good. The main issue Obama needs to worry about first and foremost is the new king's interest in maintaining a semi-strong relationship with the U.S. After that, then we should worry about how civil wars to the north and south could destabilize SA as well.

If we were smart we would already be planning for the inevitable collapse of the Saudi monarch.

No, we need to pray and support a peaceful transition. If we learned anything from Iraq, Egypt, Libya, and Syria, don't mess with stability even if it comes from a dictator.