He’d been in bad shape for a decade.
So, the question is: What happens now? Does the Saudi family stay the course in regards to Muslim fundamentalists? Do they take a new course (either more Western in outlook or more fundamentalist)? Or will they be overthrown?
Hasn’t CPA pretty much been running the country anyways? I kinda doubt we’ll see too many sweeping policy changes if he’s the one who’s been formulating and implementing the policies in the first place.
I thought Fahd’s closest brothers were hoping Abdullah would die first, thus giving the line of succession to Sultan, another of Fahd’s full brothers. Not sure that it’ll make much difference though.
He has been, and while you might be right, think about this: George Bush I could travel outside the US and leave Quayle in charge and we weren’t crapping ourselves (too much ;)) at the thought. Now, what if Bush I had died while in office and Quayle had become President? :eek: Not saying that all Saudi’s see CPA as Quayle’s equal, mind you, it’s just that they might be willing to tolerate CPA in charge, so long as the king was still alive, but with him gone, they might decide they don’t really like CPA after all.
I don’t see the two situations as being at all analogous. Bush 1 travelling outside the country isn’t anything like King Fahd being incapacitated for a decade, and had Quayle become president we the people would have known his presidency came with one of three specific expiration dates (depending on how much of Bush’s term he served). I doubt there would’ve been any chance of a revolt among the American people had Quayle become president. Many of us would have been revolted but that’s another story.
They’re not identical situations, I agree, but the point is that while something might be tolerable under certain circumstances, if you change those circumstances only slightly, then suddenly that which was tolerable becomes intolerable.
There’s some dispute as to how bad King Fahd’s condition was after his stroke, with some saying that he was basically a vegetable immediately afterwards, while others saying that he was in a long slow decline, and it’s my understanding that the media in Saudi Arabia hasn’t been exactly forthcoming with details on the king’s health in years past, so there might be some dispute amongs the population there as to how much control CPA really had. Additionally, there’s a number of elements in Saudi Arabia who don’t like the royal family and they might seize upon this as an opportunity to attempt an overthrow. The royal family believes that Osama bin Laden directed many of the recent attacks in Saudi Arabia. So, is this going to cause him to escalate the attacks?