Caliphate Rising?

[East Coast Hustle]

Early this morning (eastern time in the USA) a new front was opened in Jihad-land. Two cars packed with explosives and driven by suicide bombers unsuccessfully attacked the Abqaiq facility in eastern Saudi Arabia in an attempt to cause a major disruption in the folw of oil to western markets. This facility processes nearly two-thirds of the kingdom's oil before it is exported. Nevermind the obvious economic implications (the price of crude jumped $2 a barrel on the NY exchange this morning following news of the attack), what I want to focus on is the short and long-term implications of the political instability this will sow in Saudi Arabia. There is a good reason that the Kingdom is one of the major exporters of fucked-up Islamic fundies. The royal family is HUGE, and effects a heavy toll on the nation's coffers. It is also very hierarchical, which leads to many resentments and petty jealousies between the older, more powerful princes and the younger, more numerous, and less-regarded princes. The younger princes, while being effectively shut out of the corridors of power, are still rich beyond belief by the standards of most of the world. Most of the average citizens (if you can call them that - there's no word for "citizen" in Arabic) are poor, politically marginalized, and forced to depend on a failing and corrput welfare state for their hand-to-mouth existence. The younger princes have realized that the discontent of the populace can be harnessed and put towards their ends by dangling the carrot of A Righteous Islamic State, and convincing the peasants that their God will see justice done on their behalf, but oh, could you just help him out a bit by blowing yourself up in such a manner as to cause disruption and embarrassment to the powers that be and their Zionist western allies?
    This has been going on for a long time without ever geting much attention from the western press. Perhaps our own powers that be don't want anyone to know what kind of allies they are making for us in the name of realeconomik. Today's attack, however, represents a sea-change in the strategy of those who decide these things in the name of Allah. Today the Opportunist-Islamists have cut to the heart of the matter and found the true achilles heel of their enemies, both at home and abroad. ANd though today's attack was unsuccessful, you can bet your bottom dollar that they will keep trying and that they WILL succeed sooner or later. If the House of Saud falls and the Islamists gain "legitimate" power in Saudi Arabia, the repercussions for oil-dependent western nations will be more dire than anything Iran or asome pack of Nigerian rebels could hope to accomplish in a hundred years of trying.
   Political junkies and war nerds, sound off. What scenarios do you envision playing out as a result of this? What happens in the USA and Europe, and what will our response be? Am I just being a DOOM-monger for thinking that we will be confronted with a Riyadh-Tehran-Islamabad axis that will almost certainly ally itself militarily and economically with a rising power in Beijing? Are we totally fucked? Or, more to the point, are we totally fucked a whole lot sooner than we thought we would be?

[Iranon]

I'd like to say I think you're exaggerating, but I don't.

You're right; eventually they will succeed and the old regime, which was at least non-hostile, will be replaced. If we're lucky, that's all they really want and they'll stop there. If we're not, they'll do what you said and ally themselves with Iran and Iraq in preparation for WWIII. Peaceful negotiations, I predict, won't go well. If China joins them, we're just screwed. (And I don't see them passing up an opportunity to finish us off and become the most powerful nation on Earth.) Of course, it really doesn't matter who wins, because whoever starts losing will probably be so freaking scared of being forced to live under a social system imposed by their enemies that they'll probably start dropping nukes, and the world will be reduced to a barren wasteland.

And the worst part is that the war doesn't have to happen, because neither side is any more "right" than the other. Western nations are either imperialists or ex-imperialists, but Arab nations don't have a great record of playing nice either. We just can't get our heads around the idea that it's okay for there to be people who don't live like us.

And as luck would have it, I'm just the right age to get drafted unless the war is shorter than I think it will be: I'll be eighteen in less than a year and a half. I think I need to find a cave to hide in.

[Shibboleet The Annihilator]

Hmm... Pan-Islamic civil war?