
It’s Time for the United States to Start Worrying About a Saudi Collapse (2015) - aburan28
http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/10/07/will-the-united-states-help-if-saudi-arabia-starts-to-fall-apart/?utm_content=buffer24554&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer
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acconrad
As someone with limited foreign policy knowledge, don't we _want_ a Saudi
collapse? Wahhabism was state-sponsored by the Saudis, the underlying
extremist religious movement behind Al-Qaeda and ISIS. So it seems to me that
the Saudi regime is something we would all really want to go away.

I also found it kind of ridiculous that the author mentioned the Obama
administration's decision to leave the area as a cause for destabilization.
What the hell does the world want us to do? If we police everything, we get
the reputation we've earned of being Big Brother/Big Bully. If we take a more
laissez faire approach, now the world thinks we aren't doing enough to help?
We're damned if we do, damned if we don't.

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oxide
AFAIK, Saudis are a key ally in the region which is why we turn blind eyes to
Riydah.

So, no, the US wants the current regime to stay and keep the status quo.

Losing the current regime could be bad news. Who's to say who and what fills
the vacuum? Better to keep the current regime propped up than roll the dice
and possibly lose.

There are no bones about the Saudis being every bit as undesirable a regime as
some others.

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mschuster91
I personally hope that the Saudi dictatorship gets thrown out sooner than
later. Saudi-Arabia is the funding source both financially and ideologically
for lots of terrorist groups, including Al-Quaeda and the so-called Islamic
State.

I don't have any fears about the oil prices - while it's true that Saudi oil
is by far the cheapest worldwide, Iran has a lot of growth potential, and the
Russians would also like to sell more oil, given their disastruous financial
situation.

The real risk after a Saudi collapse, though, is: who is going to take over
after a coup, and which regime is set to fall next? And I'm not sure I like
the options available...

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pliftkl
Your risk is right on. The problem with throwing out dictators (laudable) is
what they get replaced with (not necessarily an improvement). If Saudi Arabia
were to fall and be replaced by an ISIS style state, we'd be very limited in
our ability to respond militarily without enraging significant parts of the
Muslim world by conducting military operations on sacred ground.

That then begs the question of "do we even care if there's an ISIS style state
in Saudi Arabia?" The answer is probably yes, since an ISIS inspired state
would clearly have ambitions beyond the Arabian peninsula.

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fredgrott
Maybe I am confused.

At some point as the World chooses cheaper oil supplies and eventually runs to
a new enegry source that is not oil. That trend is not something anyone nation
can prevent, it will happen within the full next 100 years.

The worry is not that Saudi Arabia and Iran will collapse..that is going to
happen in the next 100 years. The concern is right now Saudi Arabia and Iran
officially are still at undeclared war with Israel.. does any regime give us a
worse set-up in the undeclared war with Israel?

But having both as failed stats woudl be something worse

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mschuster91
> But having both as failed stats woudl be something worse

Iran, in contrast to Saudi-Arabia, has industry: tourism, textiles, cement and
steel. Also, due to the long international sanctions, they're used to not
depend on their oil exports.

Saudi-Arabia has nothing to offer except Mecca - which would likely be battle
ground after a regime overthrow, because of the importance of Mecca. Yes, the
SA regime has truckloads of money, but I'd guess it's all locked in foreign
countries under control of members of the currently ruling family - so if the
regime were to fall, vast loads of Saudi-Arabian money would not be available
in the country any more.

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bmh_ca
SA has $117 bn in treasuries.

[https://www.ft.com/content/c1569904-1c14-11e6-b286-cddde55ca...](https://www.ft.com/content/c1569904-1c14-11e6-b286-cddde55ca122)

~~~
mschuster91
The question is: who helds authority over which part of the assets of the
Saudi state assets?

If it's members of the ruling family, good luck collecting the assets. Even if
it's a central bank, assets might not neccessarily be safe from theft during a
coup. We've seen this all too often already.

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ting_bu_dung
It seems the main threat from a Saudi collapse is a takeover from Iran-
Russian-Syria coalition. That's a tough one because both Saudi and Russia are
hostile to US. But it's doubtful Russia can launch a full-scaled invasion into
a soverign country.

