What Price Saudi Oil?

The richer-than-Croesus House of Saud clings to power, writes Front Pager Rick Trzupek, by playing a double game and consistently shafting America and the West:

...There is a caustic, poisonous anti-American, anti-Western, anti-Israel atmosphere pervading Saudi Arabia and it could not exist without the tacit approval, if not the active encouragement, of the House of Saud.

This is the other half of the royal family’s strategy of holding onto power; wealth and privilege. Millions of ordinary Saudis are poor and don’t understand why that should be so in a nation so rich and so beloved by Allah. Many among the Saudi middle class resent the wealth and privilege that the ruling class enjoys. Absent a convenient scapegoat, this rage and resentment would be turned against the House of Saud and its fragile authority. And so, within the borders of our so-called ally, the myth that American imperialism and Israeli Zionism are to blame for all of the woes that ordinary Saudis suffer is both tolerated and encouraged. The House of Saud showers money onto radical Muslim clerics, perpetuating a centuries old partnership between the royal family and the fundamentalist followers of Muhammad Ibn Abd-al-Wahhab. The Wahhabis, in turn, use those riches to fund the terrorist organizations that want to destroy Western civilization.

The Sauds don’t appear to be troubled by the contradiction of relying on the protection of the world’s one remaining superpower, while simultaneously – if indirectly – undermining America’s ability to provide that singular service. The royal family has been happily playing both ends to the benefit of their personal middle for decades and they show no signs of stopping. As the WikiLeaks release confirms, the House of Saud knows that they hold the ultimate trump card in the form of black gold, and no one in America is willing to call.

No, it's easier and cheaper (at least in the short term) to allow yourself to be Saudomized.