U.S. President Barack Obama meets with Saudi Arabia's King Salman at Erga Palace in Riyadh, Jan. 27, 2015.
Sarah Chayes and Alex De Waal, Defense One: Start Preparing for the Collapse of the Saudi Kingdom
For half a century, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has been the linchpin of U.S. Mideast policy. A guaranteed supply of oil has bought a guaranteed supply of security. Ignoring autocratic practices and the export of Wahhabi extremism, Washington stubbornly dubs its ally “moderate.” So tight is the trust that U.S. special operators dip into Saudi petrodollars as a counterterrorism slush fund without a second thought. In a sea of chaos, goes the refrain, the kingdom is one state that’s stable.
But is it?
In fact, Saudi Arabia is no state at all. There are two ways to describe it: as a political enterprise with a clever but ultimately unsustainable business model, or so corrupt as to resemble in its functioning a vertically and horizontally integrated criminal organization. Either way, it can’t last. It’s past time U.S. decision-makers began planning for the collapse of the Saudi kingdom.
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WNU Editor: What was unthinkable only a few years ago is now thinkable. And what was once a linchpin of U.S. Mideast policy has now been downgraded to a position that was also unthinkable only a few years ago.
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