The King of Saudi Arabia

Now he likes us, amazingly, and is about to kick the bucket.

So, his heirs to his throne. How do they feel toward the US, in general?

Playing both sides against the middle.

depending on which sci-fi tv program you watch. :D

... has not been running the country for some time. The princes have, and, true, they have a lot of juice with the people like the Bushies.

That said, the princes have a lot more to worry about now than whether Bush gets re-elected. We probably hear about one-tenth of the uprisings occurring in the country--they're very careful about news management in SA.

They will do whatever they can do to maintain control. There are a few princes who are laboring for reform, but they're in the extreme minority.

They've been paying off the Wahabbi mullahs for years, supporting the madrassas for years, to keep the mullahs off their backs, and lately, it's come back to bite them.

The Ayatollah Khomeini took over Iran almost overnight because he had the support of enough people. There are over twenty million people in SA cut out of the real wealth in the country, or out of work, or underemployed--they're a force to be reckoned with if the right fundamentalist mullah can get them all whipped up.

No, I don't think it's a question of whether or not the Saudi monarchy "likes us" or not. It's now more a matter of what they plan to do for their survival, and what the Bush administration might do, in the name of "stability," to help the survival of the princes.

Cheers.