Geitner Simmons notes that bloggers should give some thought to the nuclear dimension as we ponder the Saudi problem.

My thoughts are very simple: get these guys! It doesn't take a genius to figure out that Saudi Arabia will have an "exit plan" for as many of Saddam's scientists as it can lay its hands on. Which will make them similarly dangerous in short order, especially since they feel themselves to be in Washington's sights, and are becoming more and more obviously hostile. We can wait until after Iraq, but they have to go - preferably sooner rather than later.

As the President is fond of noting, time is not on our side for stuff like this. Saudi Arabia has essentially declared war on the West, as their press makes clear every day. Fine. Let them reap the whirlwind they have sown.

Attempts to place more friendly factions on the throne there will only perpetuate the problem, in my view. The "Gordian Knot" here is the pact between the rulers and the Wahhabi clerisy, who have a significant faction of young adherents via their control of the education system. That's the source of our problems. To be effective, therefore, we need to adopt 4 goals in the near term:

1. Cut the Gordian Knot and shatter the pact, ending all official support for the Wahhabis;
   
2. End state funding of madrassas abroad, which are exporting a witch's brew of Islamist hatred and Arab cultural imperialism to the rest of the Muslim world;
   
3. Defeat the Wahhabis and their supporters when they try to stop 1 & 2 by force and set up a Taliban state. Do so in a crushing fashion that thoroughly discredits them as a force in the Arab world;
   
4. Set up the aftermath so that more tolerant forms of Islam and Islamic influences have leads into the population, and are seen as rising/ascendant.

Democracy and liberty can come later, but at some point they must come. Occupation a la Japan and Germany will create problems throughout the Muslim world, though, so we'd rather avoid that if at all possible.

Here's the core of one possible path to these goals. Right now, it's the one I'd favour:

Once Iraq is done, inflame the tensions that already seem to exist among the ruling princes. Indeed, fan the embers into full-scale civil war if possible. This should make full scale WMD development efforts very problematic, as funds and attention are tied up in the internal wars. The princes and protagonists will call for outside help during this process. Accept those invitations, and use them to send Special Forces hit teams after people whenever our target list coincides with theirs.

Even so, odds are high that either a radical Islamic state will rise from this process, or the results will endanger oil supplies at some point. Once that happens, intervene at the behest of one or more combatants. Crush and partition the state. The Hashemites get custody of Mecca and Medina again, and the sheikdoms that supported us re: Iraq (Bahrain, Qatar, possibly Oman and Kuwait) divvy up the Saudi oil territories.

Supportive members/factions from the internal wars get some kind of administrative responsibility, and oil revenue shares. They're also reminded that their security and longevity would be enhanced if their survivng rivals were removed from the picture. That's their problem... but I'm sure some ex-SAS folks won't mind topping up their retirement funds. If they don't act with respect to remaining Saudi princes found to have ties to terror, we should - unless an imprisonment mechanism exists that would allow seizure of their assets too.

Dispensation of the city of Riyadh will require some thought, but the aim should be to help make it much smaller and reduce its importance so it can't become any kind of oppositional power center.

Along the way, no letup. No mercy. "The New Team B" needs to keep up the pressure. 15 of the 19... the House of Saud Delenda Est (the House of Saud must be destroyed).