US Treasury under secretary Stuart Levey: "If I could somehow snap my fingers and cut off the funding from one country, it would be Saudi Arabia,"

Gal Luft, fmr. Colonel in the IDF, in FP, here

"...Iran and Venezuela, the two countries first in line to succeed Saudi Arabia as the de facto leaders of OPEC, would certainly not be more accommodating to consumers. Nor would the Saudis' disappearance calm religious tension in the Middle East. On the contrary, a vacuum in which various sects within Islam vied for control over Mecca and Medina would only allow Iran to materialize its ambitions to establish a Shiite hegemony in the Persian Gulf. ......Without the Saudi state, the veneer of political correctness that has characterized the U.S. attitude toward Wahhabism would quickly dissolve, and the United States would be free to fight back against radical Islam openly and decisively..."