“Remember that’s all Bin Laden wanted was for us to quit defending the Soddies so he could cut their throats himself. We could have gotten out in 1993 and saved the World Trade Center.”
I guess it’s kinda “the devil you know” kind of things. Worked for years to keep relative peace and the oil flowing from the Gulf. Until Jimmy Carter decided that the Iranian people would be better off with the Mullahs running things. And then Obama’s big “Arab spring”. That’s working out well.
I think, and I could be wrong, that I’d rather have Bandar running things than Al Qaeda.
That’s part of my point. Bandar has no excuses for being part of the Soddy problem and should be able to run a gov’t that doesn’t abuse his people. But he doesn’t and I believe it comes from the blind spot his family seems to have-—The whole bunch is so focused on their own comfort, etc. that they are bound to be eaten alive when the folks get mad.
I have no idea who eventually takes over but there is a high level of westernization among the young folks all over the ME, they know there’s a better way, and will eventually re-arrange the gov’t s, lockup/kill the despots, and proceed into, maybe, the 20th century. I say the 20th because most of these folks don’t have a flush toilet yet.