The politics in Saudi Arabia is starting to get frightening. There's an on-line article from the magazine "Foreign Affairs" that describes some of the political intrigue, much of which is quite medieval. Supposably there are two Saudi princes who are maneuvering for control of the kingdom. Crown Prince Abdullah is pro-western and advocates reduction of the power of Saudi Arabia's formidible religious authorithy. Unfortunately his half-brother, Prince Nayef desires to rule Saudi Arabia instead and is well positioned to do this. Prince Nayef runs Saudi Arabia's notorious "religious police" and is using religious demagoguery to advance his political prospects. Allegedly, Prince Nayef is in bed with al Qaeda and promoting the belief that the United States is conspiring with Shiites to take over Saudi Arabia and destroy islam. Supposably the recent al Qaeda terrorist action in Saudi Arabia against westerners was an "inside job" with Prince Nayef standing in the background.

This could be the front end of a civil war in Saudi Arabia. A Saudi civil war would cause a world crisis for the following reasons:

1) Saudi Arabia controls a significant fraction of the world's energy supply.
2) Saudi Arabia controls the two most holy cities of islam, i.e. Mekka and Medina

If Prince Nayef succeeds in gaining power in Saudi Arabia, he could transform the kingdom into something as evil as Afghanistan under the Taliban. He would be in a position to divert the enormous wealth of Saudi Arabia towards advancing the interests of al Qaeda. However, unlike Afghanistan, the western powers would have very limited military options due to the cities of Mekka and Media. Prince Nayef could use those cities as hostages or even deliberately damage the holy shrines in Mekka to trigger a world wide Islamic response.

This is a very dangerous situation. A civil war in Saudi Arabia could trigger a sudden rise in petroleum costs that could result in a collapse of the world economy. All of this sounds like something out of Frank Herbert's novel "Dune". However the Saudi story is more complex and Prince Nayef is no Paul Atreides. This is spooky stuff.

Gary