>The American ruling class seems to think it needs the Saudi monarchy to
>assure the plentiful flow of sacred hydrocarbons at reasonable prices.
Fair enough. But the American ruling class does seem to have two minor wings calling for an end to support for the Saudi monarch because a) it's betting on a losing horse b) it's an anachronism (same argument, expressed differently) and c) it's a hideous anti-American tyranny harbouring terrorists and only it stands between us and the glorious lynchpin, Egypt (Laurent Muriawec - "the whacky wing of the whacko party").
If it weren't for the fact that the immediate beneficiaries of a revolution in Arabia would be the political supporters of Osama bin Laden, my guess is that the US would have been cautiously encouraging reformers inclined to IMF thinking for some time. And there is a pronounced tendency in neoconservative thinking toward "getting these Saudi fucks off our backs", as one neophytic imperialist explained it to me. Doesn't wash with old right-wing nationalists like Rumsfeld, but one more Bush victory and a Laurie Mylroie conspiracy theory could change all that.
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