Some Arab expert tell me this...

How much does the fall of Saddam benefit the Saudi royalty? Weren't they scared stiff of him? Doesn't this open Iraq to Wahhabi influence that Saddam kept out?

Combined with Bush's insistence on falsely connecting bin Laden with Saddam, and the redaction of any Saudi inferences from the 9/11 report--have we done this partially as a favor to Riyadh?

Big favor to the Saudi's.

Wahhabi 'influence' is flowing freely into Iraq. That seems to be what Pentagon spinners mean when they say 'foreign fighters.'

It's a bit of a Catch-22 for the Saudis. In the past, the Saudis have been mortally afraid of the threat Saddam posed to their security, hence their massive militarization campaign in the aftermath of Saddam's seizure of Kuwait.

At the same time, Saddam served as a wonderful foil for the Kingdom's internal strife in recent years. Whenever the heat got intolerable for the al-Saud, all they had to do was rattle the saber and remind their populace of the threat posed by Saddam and his secular Ba'athism.

Saddam also made a great foil for the foreign critics of the al-Saud, particularly America. Once the spotlight was rightly trained on Saudi Arabia and the influence that Wahhabism has had on burdgeoning Islamic fundamentalist groups world-wide, the al-Saud threw a temper tantrum and threatened everything from restricting oil production to reminding America that Saddam posed a great threat. Kind of "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" scenario.

Now that Saddam is gone, the balance of power (or perceived balance of power) changes in a couple of ways: First, the al-Saud no longer have Saddam to use as an excuse to leave them be and second, as Iraq's oil infrastructure is modernized and production ramps up, the addition of Iraqi production to the global markets will further depress the price of oil, thus causing further turmoil in Saudi Arabia where the welfare state of the past is already under vicious strain.

I had not considered that Iraq's reserves might be detrimental to them.

I'm not sure I'd count on this, actually, but it is a point.

As Iraq's production continues to ramp up over time, the impact will not be as drastic as it could because of the cartel factor of OPEC. Any new Iraqi government will undoubtedly be involved in OPEC but probably with an eye for looking out for the United States (if someone like Challabi governs) which means that the Saudis will not have as much influence over them. Of course the opposite might happen if Iraq ends up being an Islamic republic or Islamic democracy and they want to stick it to the United States.

Either way OPEC's cartel structure will limit the most radical possibilities.

Hermes Press has an excellent article discussing the Wahabi influence on the House of Saud and the House of Bush. Fascists understand terror makes for effective crowd control:

THE BUSH-SAUDI CONNECTION

By Michelle Mairesse

EXCERPT...

JIHAD

The Wahhabi Taliban in Afghanistan had the blessings of the Saudi royal family and of The Big Three--the bin Laden family, the al Ahmoudi family, and the Mahfouz family--the richest clans in that medieval kingdom. (A C.I.A. official testified to Congress that Khalid bin Mahfouz is bin Laden’s brother-in-law). The desert oligarchs profited from world-wide investments as well as sleazy banking schemes such as the infamous Bank of Credit and Commerce International.

Salem bin Laden, Osama’s brother, has conducted all his American affairs through James Bath, a Houston crony of the Bush family. Bath’s former business partner Bill White testified in court that Bath had been a liaison for the C.I.A. In 1979 Bath invested $50,000 in Arbusto, George W. Bush’s first business venture. Rumor had it that Bath was acting as Salem bin Laden’s representative. "In conflicting statements, Bush at first denied ever knowing Bath, then acknowledged his stake in Arbusto and that he was aware Bath represented Saudi interests." (4)

In addition to doing aviation business with Saudi sheiks, Bath was part owner of a Houston bank whose chief stockholder was Ghaith Pharaon, who represented the Bank of Commerce and Credit International (BCCI), a criminal global bank with branches in 73 countries. BCCI proceeded to defraud depositors of $10 billion during the ‘80s, while providing a money laundry conduit for the Medellin drug cartel, Asia’s major heroin cartel, Manuel Noriega, Saddam Hussein, the C.I.A., and Islamist terrorist organizations worldwide. (5)

Big Three wheeler-dealer Khalid bin Mahfouz, one of the largest stockholders in the criminal bank, was indicted when the massive BCCI banking scandal blew apart in the early 1990s. The Saudi royal family placed him under house arrest after discovering that Mahfouz had used the royal bank to channel millions of dollars through fake charities into bin Laden’s organizations, but Mahfouz was not so much punished as inconvenienced. (6)

Members of the Wahhabist Saudi oligarchy are driven by the sometimes conflicting emotions of power lust and religious fervor. Their support of radical Islamists follows from their ambition to dominate the Muslim world, but their fear that radical Islamists might overthrow the Saudi regime at home motivates them to fund and encourage holy warriors in countries other than their own.

CONTINUED...

http://www.hermes-press.com/BushSaud.htm

Our presence in Iraq means we control one quarter of the world's proven stores of oil. That makes Saudi Arabia a lot less important.

That's for sure. They realized that he wasn't a threat to anyone, which is why they opposed the war.

And Wahabbism is a Sunni movement> Iraq is a predominantly Shi'ite country.