That said, here's Hillary covered at the Christian Science Monitor leveling a veiled warning to the House of Saud... YOUR DAYS ARE NUMBERED:
Speaking from a security conference in Munich, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warned of a "perfect storm of powerful trends" across the region, including a young population, political repression, economic disparity, and dwindling supplies of oil and water.
"This is what has driven demonstrators into the streets of Tunis, Cairo, and cities throughout the region," Clinton said in her speech Saturday.
"Some leaders may believe that their country is an exception – that their people will not demand greater political or economic opportunities, or that they can be placated with half-measures,” she said. "In the short term, that may be true; but in the long term that is untenable."Just who do you think she was addressing? Reuters? The President of the Congo Republic? Nope. That was for Saudi, as in Saud, consumption. In case anybody missed it, the U.S. just fired a warning shot over the bow of their most important satellite - Saudi Arabia - and anybody that thinks that a sitting U.S. Secretary of State made that statement in a well covered venue off the cuff, and without a dozen people parsing every freaking word, doesn't. Think, that is.
My bet is that over the coming weeks and months this message is going to get some volume - and given that, I would expect the Administration is going to take other, more concrete, steps as well. I need to think about it a bit more... but something's coming in that regard... and its going to be big... big enough to try to give these folks some cover should it unfold before November 2012... Because as I said before... none of the political leaders in office in the West can survive $300 Oil next election around.