RIYADH, Saudi Arabia, Jan. 21 - It is hard to say what the princes here fear more, a war in Iraq that leads to chaos or a war that brings democracy to the Arabian Peninsula.
Members of the Saudi royal family and close advisers to Crown Prince Abdullah, the day-to-day ruler, say chaos from the breakdown of the existing order in Iraq has become an overarching fear.
It has motivated the prince to try to persuade President Bush to go along with an 11th-hour strategy in which a decision to go to war would be followed by a pause for intensive diplomacy - even coup making - to remove President Saddam Hussein.
But at the same time, many Saudis have begun to realize that if Mr. Bush succeeds in removing the Iraqi leader, the potential emergence of a new Iraqi state - allied with the West and empowered by its oil wealth to create new markets, economic power and military strength - could set the winds of change sweeping through the region. The gust could displace kings, emirs and assorted potentates, replacing them with democratic parliaments and accountable governments.
The transformation of Iraq is about all that anyone in power is talking about in the Persian Gulf. But nowhere is the conversation so intense as in the Saudi royal family, which struggled for 40 years to unite the disparate tribes of the peninsula and create a sense of nationhood.
The nation exists in an arrested state of political development, though, under a monarchy anchored in a deeply conservative Islamic ideology that represses women's rights and excoriates foreign "infidels." It also suffers from extensive corruption that arises from its enormous oil wealth.
"I am sure that if Iraq becomes a new kind of democratic state, those people in Iraq will put great pressure on these regimes - they will have to change or be overthrown," said a stalwart of Saudi Arabia's business establishment, a friend of the crown prince for 40 years.
He has counseled his royal friend unsuccessfully to open the society and create a transparent, democratic state. He spoke on the condition that his name not be published.
"When Iraq changes it is going to be a turning point in the history of the Middle East," he said. "And if we do not change, it will diminish our status with the Americans."
Some members of the royal family scoff at the notion that they fear a positive transformation of Iraq.
"I would rather be threatened with democratic principles than with war," and its consequences for Iraq, a senior prince said as he slumped in a cushioned chair at home like a ballplayer at rest, his headdress pushed back off his brow.
After coming from a typical all-night debate in the crown prince's palace, this prince was particularly gloomy about American policy.
Far from an onslaught of democratic principles, what worried the prince most was the potential disintegration of Iraq, a country of deep religious, ethnic and tribal divisions woven into a violent history of internecine conflict.
"If you break the existing order in Iraq, how will you get the country back to what it was?" he asked. "If you destroy the military, if you destroy the police force, how will order be maintained and how much bloodshed will there be? Who is going to make the oil wells keep producing?"
Saudi Arabia's unifier in the last century, King Abdel Aziz al-Saud was still wielding his sword in tribal warfare when British gerrymandering at the end of World War I cobbled together the Ottoman provinces of Basra, Baghdad and Mosul to form an Iraqi state.
The Saudi monarchy has always believed that it takes an iron fist to hold together the three main religious and ethnic groups that comprise Iraq, a Shiite Muslim majority dominant in the south, a Sunni Muslim minority that has ruled from Baghdad and a Kurdish minority in the north known for rebellion and its aspirations for an independent Kurdish state.
"Iraq can only achieve democracy if there is a peaceful transfer of power," the senior prince said with foreboding about the outbreak of conflict. "It will never survive a breakdown in order. It can only survive if the civil institutions are preserved."
Factions will emerge in each of the three main regions, he predicted, and the factions will begin fighting one another for oil resources and territory. Turkey and Iran will be tempted to intervene and revive old claims to pieces of Iraq, he said.
But in Saudi fashion, while fretting about the worst case, Saudi Arabia is quietly pursuing other strategies toward Iraq, another senior prince said. For one, Saudi intelligence has been working for months with Saudi and Iraqi tribal leaders whose clans range across borders.
They are urging the tribes to take an active role in preventing chaos if military operations cut off Baghdad from the rest of the country.
Through the tribal network, Saudi messages have been passed to Iraqi military officers urging them to break with Mr. Hussein if a moment comes when Mr. Bush and the United Nations offer him a chance to leave the country to avert war.
"We found out how much he has been paying the tribal leaders, and we paid them more," said the prince whose responsibilities combine intelligence and diplomacy. "The tribal leaders have already sold Saddam, and he doesn't know it."
Yet the hardest thing to get from a member of the Saudi royal family is an answer to the question: what if things go well? What if Saddam Hussein is removed, the country holds together and democracy takes hold?
Iraq would stand second only to Saudi Arabia in oil resources, with 10 percent of the world's proven reserves. It might also stand athwart the Tigris and Euphrates valley like a new colossus, though many specialists on Iraq are skeptical that the country and any new government will be able to mediate a century of internal grievances and ethnic divisions once the iron fist is removed.
But it could happen, some admit. And if it does, what will be the effect?
Over the last two decades, the Saudi royal family has always talked a good game about reform but has seldom acted on its stated intentions.
Now that he is effectively ruling the country as King Fahd fades in ill health, Crown Prince Abdullah presides over a kingdom where no citizen can know the income derived from pumping eight million barrels a day of oil and no one knows how many billions the royal family skims for personal use - though judging by the scores of opulent palaces throughout the country, it is not chump change.
"If it were not for the royal family, this country would be a bunch of emirates fighting against each other," said an engineer who has built some of the architectural wonders of the kingdom. "But we have to do change here."
The crown prince knows that, the engineer said, but at age 79, some question whether he and the other remaining sons of King Abdel Aziz will ever be up to it. Others hope that Iraq - a democratic Iraq - might give the royals a shove.