My good friend Sovay has been asked a question:
Someone asked me today: If al-Qaeda were to overthrow the Saudi government and take control of the country, we'd still have to buy oil from them, wouldn't we?I know the answer to this question. It is not, in fact, a possibility.I don't know the answer to that question, but it's a frightening possibility. Not a likely possibility, but it's the type of scenario that makes you realize how important it is to end our total dependence on foreign oil.
Al Qaeda has enjoyed some startling successes as a terrorist group--literally startling, as they have made it their mission to move beyond the low-level blackmail-style operations that have characterized Muslim terrorism for most of the last thirty years. It is important not to overestimate the enemy, however, just as it is important not to underestimate him. Al Qaeda has been able to do what it has been able to do because terrorist operations are very cheap. Bin Laden did not inherit his $130 million because his family cut him off. As we saw from reading this week's 9/11 report, al Qaeda has been funded largely from charities operating as fronts, or partial fronts. That cash flow has largely stopped due to a worldwide effort by police and intelligence organizations. While there are new sources of funding in play (narcotics, for example, and possibly direct-aid from a few particularly bold governments such as Iran), these funding measures must by their nature remain small-scale to remain hidden.
The result is that al Qaeda can't field even a functional guerrilla force. Guerrilla operations are much more expensive than terrorist ones, and require a much more highly developed command infrastructure. Both the funding and the infrastructure would be targets that could be disrupted, and would have to be protected, again in the face of worldwide intelligence and law-enforcement--but here also military--efforts.
The guerrilla opposition we've seen in Iraq has been slightly effective, but only in the propaganda war. They have won not one single victory against US or coalition forces. After a year of combat, our forces have suffered an extremely low combat loss rate. You can find the numbers here. For casualties and fatalities, the combined number of dead and non-RTD wounded for 3 June is 3,769. The number deployed has hovered at about 160,000 Americans, which would put losses at 2.3%. However, we have rotated entire divisions in and out--the 3rd ID replaced by the 4th ID, and so on. If you count the total number of Americans who have been deployed in Iraq (thus giving these vaunted guerrillas the chance to kill them), the figure is under one percent.
The wailing and gnashing of teeth we have heard from the media over combat loss rates below one percent is indicative of two things: first, that the media (like the majority of the population) understands nothing about military science; and second, that the opponents of the war feel that the removal of the Saddam threat was not worth one single American life. There are enough people who feel that way for the very modest successes of the guerrillas to appear greater than they are. In fact, they have performed relatively poorly. Although some individual units in the Marine AOR have been exceptions (probably Hezbollah, from what I've heard, and you should read The Belmont Club on this topic and the one here as well), even they have not been adequate to hold any ground that we haven't simply chosen to let them keep rather than risk the lives of the civilians among whom they were hiding. Nor has any force in Iraq been able to engage any US force for as long as 24 hours without being forced to withdraw, or being routed or destroyed.
To hold the Saudi oil fields, even a much better guerrilla force would not be adequate. You cannot occupy and control ground with guerrillas; you need conventional forces. Conventional forces are more expensive and more complicated to field by an order of magnitude--just as terrorist operations can be quite cheap, and require little organization compared to guerrilla operations, so arming and feeding infantry divisions is that much harder than running a battallion-strength band of irregulars who largely feed themselves. Again, that organizational structure would be a target of the sort we can hit, and the money would be on a scale impossible to hide. A government has to be bold to fund terrorists in secret these days; it would have to be suicidal to fund them openly in overthrowing a neighbor country and US ally.
Now factor in this: the large Saudi oil fields are largely in Shi'ite areas. Al Qaeda would find the very forces it has been relying upon for survival in Pakistan and Afghanistan turned against it. The same would largely be true even for one of the Shi'ite militant movements--their religion would be the same, but the tribal concerns that have bedeviled us would bedevil any Iranian Persian groups, or Lebanese fighters, operating in the heart of Arabia.
It is more possible that there could be an internal coup in Saudi Arabia, and that a group more hostile to the US than the current ones might take over general control. In order to survive, however, they would need to continue providing oil to the West, even if not to the United States: the stability of Arabia is built on regular payoffs to tribal leaders, and those payoffs will have to continue if the tribes aren't to be up in arms. The only source for the monies for those payoffs is the oil; therefore, the oil must be sold.
As the US gets only 19% of our oil from Saudi Arabia, it is likely that we could make up the difference elsewhere if we had to do so--for example, from purchases from the Iraqi oil fields, which contain the largest remaining oil reserves in the world. The French, who import most of their oil from Saudi Arabia (and most of the rest from Norway) would be more likely to be troubled by any artificial shortfalls, should the new government think itself stable enough to risk them.
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