[Redcloak]

A more likely successor to the Saudi oil industry are the kingdom's eastern provinces. The people there are not Wahabi Muslims. (They're largely Shi'ites if I remember correctly.) The eastern provinces might be easily peeled away from Riyadh's control. If we can cause an uprising there, we could land the Saudis' oil reserves into the hands of people who are far more tolerant of the West, as are the other small gulf states. Even if new regimes are not pro-Western, we still strip the House of Saud of its income source and are no worse off.

[polemikos]

A more likely successor to the Saudi oil industry are the kingdom's eastern provinces

You're right. It's late and I was thinking of the Hashemite claim to true Muhammadean ancestry and, as I recall, to Mecca as well.