".. The view from the enormous marble palaces in Riyadh and Jidda is becoming grim"

"... Saudi Arabia has been rattled by the toppling of old friends like Tunisia’s Ben Ali (now in exile in the Kingdom) and Egypt’s Mubarak (who may not be far behind in moving into a Saudi retirement home). The Saudis have no love for Libya’s Gaddafi, who tried to assassinate King Abdullah only a few years ago, but they are worried by the contagion of unrest that is rolling across North Africa and into the Arabian Peninsula. The unrest in tiny Bahrain next door is particularly alarming as it threatens a fellow Sunni Muslim kingdom linked by a causeway to the Saudi Eastern Province where most of the royals’ oil is located. The Eastern Province is also the home of the Kingdom’s small (10-15%) Shia minority. Unrest among the Shia is endemic, and protests have already begun this month. Shia protests are inevitably seen through the prism of Persian-Arab rivalry with Iran across the Persian Gulf. For the Saudis Shia gains are seen as Iranian gains and thus bad news.
The bad news extends to the south as well for the Saudis. They have never been fond of Yemen’s dictator Ali Abdallah Salih... But Salih is the devil they know .....Salih is now in deep trouble, he has lost the backing of the south ....
As alarming as the unrest in Arabia is to the House of Saud, the American reaction is even more unsettling..."