Today's Saudi Arabia can't last much longer--and the social and economic fallout of its demise could be calamitous.

In the air in Riyadh and Jidda is the conviction that oil money has corrupted the ruling family beyond redemption, even as the general population has grown and gotten poorer; that the country's leaders have failed to protect fellow Muslims in Palestine and elsewhere; and that the House of Saud has let Islam be humiliated--that, in short, the country needs a radical "purification."

The kingdom's mosque schools have become a breeding ground for militant Islam. Recent attacks in Bali, Bosnia, Chechnya, Kenya, and the United States, not to mention those against U.S. military personnel within Saudi Arabia, all point back to these schools--and to the House of Saud itself, which, terrified at the prospect of a militant uprising against it, shovels protection money at the fundamentalists and tries to divert their attention abroad.

For a surprising number of Saudis, including some members of the royal family, taking the kingdom's oil off the world market--even for years, and at the risk of destroying their own economy--is an acceptable alternative to the status quo.

from The Fall of the House of Saud by Robert Baer

And the rest is a pretty grim picture of the House of Saud: dysfunctional and in bed with our government, and especially the Bushes.