Or is it an outright low-intensity civil war in Saudi Arabia? According to this report in The Independent, former Vinnell trainers of the Saudi National Guard who were injured in the attack of May 2003 claim that there was inside help and that both Vinnell and the Saudi royal family did nothing to heighten security after repeated warnings of such an attack being planned. Benign neglect? Not good if true. Attacks indicate that al Qaida seeks to destabilize the pro-Western kingdom.
For the record, Vinnell, as US company, has been in Saudi Arabia since 1975 training their national guard. Apparently, al Qaida's first attack in 1995 targeted Vinnell. It's unclear to me how much Osama bin Laden was outraged by the nepotism of the royal family and US support thereto.
Saudi Arabia has problems. It's a monarchy, fueled by oil wealth. They filters the Internet to censor criticism of the royal family. They only recently openly acknowledged that poverty is a serious problem. Combined with a population boom underway, they are in need oil revenue to pump their economy up and provide sufficient employment. The situation is not sustainable as is, so change is underway, albeit slowly. Time will tell if it will be too slow or not. On the economic side, they need to diversify further from reliance on oil wealth.
While outright democracy might seem an obvious solution from a Western standpoint, some policy makers are also concerned that attempts at political reform might lead to an anti-US government. Not all the royals are fond of the USA.
While the country isn't about to topple overnight in an Islamic revolution, the situation remains uncertain. It is perhaps telling that the USA pulled troops from Saudi Arabia. Technically this move was appeasement of al Qaida. That US air base, set up in 1991 during the first Gulf War, was specifically mentioned early on in Osama bin Laden's fatwa of 1998, which deemed its seven-year presence in Saudi Arabia to be an occupation.
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