(06-20-2019, 04:22 PM)Predator Wrote:

(06-20-2019, 07:12 AM)mikesez Wrote: I just don't see it that way.
I think if we stop propping up that regime, Iran will conquer some of their territory, and then some clan or group of clans will remove the house of Saud from power within a few years.

The scenario you are suggesting will put the entire middle east in political jihad resulting in hundreds of thousands or even millions of deaths like Syria, but on a larger scale.

And when that happens, who do you think the UN will expect to send in tens of thousands of troops to resolve this humanitarian crisis?

Chaos would certainly ensue.  
I just doubt Russia or China would involve themselves.  They have no footprint over there, nothing to build on.
Whoever conquers the wells will want the oil to flow.
Saddam Hussein's army briefly overran this part of Saudi Arabia in 1991, and they might still be there if we hadn't decided to intervene.  Iran might have butted in by now in that alternate history, though.
The only possible bad outcome for NATO countries is one army having a greater share of world oil production than Saudi or Iraq have today.  Saddam certainly intended to gain that kind of near monopoly for himself, but, there were lighter and more subtle ways to prevent all of that, compared to the course we chose in 1991.  We could have let it play out a little longer.  Saddam was overextending.

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