How the US Could "Lose" Saudi Arabia

A CounterPunch Special Report
Widening Fissures

By Col. DAN SMITH

""There are people out there calling for democracy. Now isn't that the silliest thing you ever heard."

Saudi Arabia's King Faisal, 1922
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Sensing an opportunity to affect the future balance of power in the Gulf as the coalition military forces leave Iraq, the Iranians secretly approachSaudi Arabia with a proposal to stabilize political-economic conditions in the Persian Gulf--Caspian Sea oil fields. The core of the proposal calls for Riyadh and Tehran to pressure Baghdad diplomatically (with the sectarian militias always in the background) to reject any form of a residual U.S. military presence in Iraq. In return, both Iran and Saudi Arabia would assist the re-development of Iraq's oil sector, enabling the three countries to form a powerful sub-OPEC triumvirate......"