I agree 100% on Tunisia
However on Saudi-US relations, I have huge reservations about what you say. Allow me to explain briefly.
Saudi Arabia and Iran are both equally two of the world’s worst regimes in terms of human rights and personal freedoms. However there is a key difference: Some Saudi nationals remain an important source of funding for terrorist networks despite Riyadh’s efforts to crack down on illicit financing, whereas the Iranian government openly sponsers international terrorism. With the Hajj attracting millions of Muslims every year to Mecca, Saudi Arabia becomes the centre of the globe’s terrorist fundraising networks almost by reason of its central position in the Islamic World - however the Saudi government has consistently passed laws to crack down on this. And trust me its incredibely difficult given the amount of people from all over the world who will come to Saudi Arabia on Hajj and try and conduct an illegal sale of arms or funding to overseas terrorists (usually under the pretence of “charitable aid” so as to escape government notce). Iran doesn’t. Instead, the Iranian goverment sponsors terrorism all over the world aimed at the destruction of Israel and the West.
Russia seems to have sided with Iran and the US has always had a working, long-standing security relationship with the Saudis, given its need to maintain stability in the region. Its possession of the world’s largest reserves of oil, and its strategic location as a buffer to Iran, make it indispensible to US interests, as unidealistic as that is. You see as bad as the Saudis are, the ones beneath them - the popular Wahhabist preachers who cannot be coerced like the royals in power with money and Western commodities - would not just lend money to militant Islamic schools and institutions, they would actively try and attack the United States, Europe and more immediately its other allies in the region (Dubai, Qatar - the Arab Emirates), where thousands of Westerners live. America is thus caught truly by the jugular in Saudi Arabia, which is worsened now because Iran and Saudi Arabia are sworn enemies jockying to become the regional superpower, and the US cannot allow Iran to have the upper-foot hold in the region. Lebannon was a beautiful country with an almost 50-50% Catholic Maronite and Islamic population which lived in peace prior to Iran’s attempt through Hezbollah to set up another Islamic Revolution in the country. Beirut was known as the “Paris of the Middle East”. A family friend back in the 50s who knows my grandfather and was a collector of world famous antiques, had a holiday home in Lebannon and used to travel there often. Its nightclubs and cafes were known all across the globe. Now Lebannon is one of the most decimated countries on earth. That is the reality of what the middle-east would become if Iran’s revolutionary was given a free hand to play out its designs in the region and spread its Revolution to other nations, which was the whole goal initially of the regime that Ayatollah Khomeini set up after the fall of the Shah in 1979.
Trust me, we need to maintain the status quo as we should have done in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya etc. What would come after is far worse, as has been proved too many times now.
Its a kind of cold war-esque power-struggle between Russia and the US, Iran and Saudi Arabia. The problem is that Iran is the by far the immediate danger, given its nuclear programme, proxy Hezbollah in Syria, its connections with and revolutionary guard bases in Latin America etc.
Iran and Saudi Arabia are themselves engaged in a cold-war esque struggle for hegemony in the Middle East which is being cruelly fought out between these two horrid governments in poor, war-stricken Syria. I am no fan of either but I recognize, while you don’t seem too, the efforts of the Saudi government wgich relies upon and needs the West to crack down on terror, whereas Iran openly sponsers it. Jewish orphanages have been blown up in Buenos Aires by Iranian-funded terrorists, and all across the globe. It is thought they had a hand in funding 9/11 even.
However any succesors to the Saudis would be far worse. If the House of Saud falls, expect what happened in Egypt, Tunisia and Libya only significantly more dangerous (and that’s saying something) since this is the capital of the Umma, the epicentre of the Islamic religion.
The popular uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya etc. against secular dictatorships have proved diastrous. The US cannot make the same mistake in Saudi Arabia, if it ever came to it (which it could one day).
Not that I blame you all. I know Obama supports abortion, so its between the devil and the deep blue sea.