What if the USA had invaded Saudi Arabia?

Hendryk

Banned
CalBear said:
All invading the country would do is play directly into OBL hands. OBL is angling to get a Holy War started between the "Christian/Zionest West" and Islam. Occupying Mecca & Medina may be the only way to make this plan to work (even then I have my doubts).
A solution to the PR side-effects of a US occupation of Mecca and Medina might have been to outsource the job to a Muslim ally (Turkey, Egypt, Pakistan, Bangladesh, whatever) whether directly or through a UN framework (many UN "blue helmets" are Bangladeshi to begin with). The places have little strategic importance anyway; as long as US forces control Riyad, the oil fields and refineries, and the borders, the rest of the country need not see a single non-Muslim occupier.

Now I'm not saying a US occupation of Saudi Arabia would necessarily have achieved the intended result. But it definitely would have made a lot more sense than the invasion of Iraq, both in terms of a military response to 9/11, and for the purpose of fighting radical Islamism.
 

Chris

Banned
Ruschurch said:
Along the same lines of 9-11 leading to the invasion of Iraq (which I agree was PR spin only), could the US have actually "invaded" a middle or central asian nation claming to be eliminating terrorism, and actually obtained the sucess of setting up a secular, healthy democracy?

Well, seeing Saudi is neither, it doesn't matter.

Chris
 
IMHO if Bush want to invade Saudi Arabia he should stick to capturing only the oil-producing area and stay away from major population centre. The Saudis or al-Qaeda can keep the rest of the bloody sandbox.
 

Leo Caesius

Banned
raharris1973 said:
Occupied in the sense that, say, Japan and South Korea and Germany are occupied by the US, right? Not the sense that the West Bank or East Timor or Spanish Sahara.
Precisely. By "occupied" I mean that they've got military bases and thousands of troops there, not that they're running the place.

raharris1973 said:
Hmm, and there's no chance the native Saud aren't too spoiled to be as good guerrillas as Iraqis?
Definitely not the ruling family. They'd probably traipse off to their chateux in the south of France and bid Saudi Arabia good bye.

But the majority of the population does not enjoy the luxurious lifestyle of the House of Saud, and many of them are quite poor. I suspect that the growing numbers of disenfranchised Saudis (who are increasingly anti-Saud today) would supply the bulk of the insurgency.
 
Oh, that stuff is sooo getting confiscated for reparations

"Definitely not the ruling family. They'd probably traipse off to their chateux in the south of France and bid Saudi Arabia good bye."

If this all came about as a result of a link between Saudi policy (mid-level if not top-level) and Al-Qaeda, then there's alot of funds to be confiscated if any of them reside in places where victims of Wahhabi-funded violence can reach it.

It could suck to be a Saudi royal in the west if there were big confiscations. You'd need to work and you might get prosecuted if you tried to enforce traditional values on your kids.

Henryk has gotten into the idea of Saudi culpability for funding violent Wahhabism worldwide, but I guess it all doesn't add up to a link of governmental responsibility. It's nothing like Taliban Afghanistan, and even the Pakistani government would probably be blameworthy sooner than the Saud.

Hmm, shortly after 9-11, probably a little too stoked on Saudi connection insinuations, I had a "Worker's of the desert, unite" fantasy, where you just overthrow Wahhabism by enfranchising all the guest workers. Bam, instant diverse society!

On reflection though, I think it wouldn't work, even if you armed the guest workers. They would drop their weapons in fear. They're presence in the country just doesn't work if they're not being paid, and Saudis couldn't be expected to keep blithely paying their salaries if foreign workers asserted themselves politically, even in the context of a foreign occupation. Even wealthy people will get violent and sacrifice comforts if they're faced with a sudden loss of status. And the poorer citizens wouldn't mind sacrificing alot of their infrastructure to fight for their status either.
 
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