The Saudi ambassador to the U.S., Prince Turki, packed up his shit and fled Washington after only 15 months, without an announcement and without the usual round of embassy going away parties.

His predesessor, Prince Bandor, had served for 22 years and was a brilliant, Western educated success.  The prince is back home for a year now, talking to the ailing king who will decide who will become Foreign Minister when Turki’s brother, who now holds the spot, retires.

Too arcane for you?

Well, consider this.  Saudi Arabia is important enough that the King literally summoned Dick Cheney to Riyahd and told him off right after the election.  Told him he’d lower oil prices to zero just to screw with Iran’s economy and that the Sunni Saudis would start backing Saddam’s insurgent Sunnis to prevent an Iranian backed Shi-ite majority from committing genocide.

What do you think happens to Aubrey McClendon, Chesapeake and Oklahoma City if oil prices plummet from $65 a bbl to $25 in a matter of weeks? 

Prime Minister of Israel Olmert let it slip this same week the open secret that Isreal is a nuclear power.  It’s been Israeli policy for many years now not to acknowledge what everyone is pretty sure has been true for a long time. Why do you suppose Olmert would talk about it out loud after all these years, at great personal cost, perhaps, since the Knesset is calling for his head?

Worst strategic mistake in American history.  Has a ring to it, doesn’t it?  Worst president in American history.  That may not cover the territory.

So, back to the desert kingdom.  The royal family runs this kingdom, it is not by any means a democracy.  The nation is wahhabist, a conservative Sunni sect, and they are in charge of Islam’s holiest sites.  Prince Turki is engaging in a little palace intrique and has been forced into using blunt tactics because Bandar is on site, the go to guy who is Johnny on the spot.  Turki, a former chief of Saudi intelligence, WANTS the power of the ministry.  All the present ruling office holders are getting up there and this is part of generational positioning in the most important palace in the world.  Turki still has the contacts to make a palace coup, a risky move with a huge prize. 

Meanwhile, the Iranians are hoping Armageddon is brewing in Baghdad and twitting the nose of the Western world with its Denial of Holocaust puppet show and Hezb’Allah is getting ready to take over Lebanon with a little help from Syria’s Alawite monarch.

Egypt, jealous of Iran’s newfound regional leadership role, is routinely murdering dissidents while it sees what develops and hoping people are ignoring the fact that young Egyptians are joining jihadist cells.

Jordan is playing a sort of British peacekeeping try to be the balancer game but knows that the Israeli nuke is right next door, well within range.

Much of this is tribal and so very ancient.  Some part of it is like watching Lawrence of Arabia replay.

The trick, as Lawrence famously said, is not minding it.