News Analysis: Attacks in Saudi Arabia Aim to Rattle a Dynasty
“I think they are after the royal family,” said Wyche Fowler Jr., a former senator who was ambassador to Saudi Arabia from October 1997 to February 2001. “There is a determined fight to rattle the government if not bring it down.”
A prominent Saudi who advises the royal household agreed. “This is an effort to destabilize the regime,” he said. “It’s against the monarchy and it is against the government.”
With domestic rumblings to reduce US dependence on oil imports — read: Saudi Arabia — and increased opposition, even violence, against the regime, what will it take to force a hard look at this relationship? Regime change at home seems like a prerequisite, since the incumbent never met a resource extraction industry he didn’t like. But what then?
It could be argued that the US has common cause with Osama bin Laden and Al Queda, in wanting the House of Saud to use its considerable wealth for good, rather than evil, but for different definitions of good and evil.