The war between the Saudi monarchy and al-Qaeda is fast becoming a struggle between regime survival and regime change. The underlying objective is replacement of the royalist autocrats by puritanical hierocrats. Saudi autocrats are finally convinced that their regime is faced with the possibility of extinction. Consequently, their natural survival instincts have nullified all previous claims that responsibilities for the al-Qaeda-related terrorist acts should really be placed elsewhere.
Reports currently filtering from Washington and Riyadh state that intelligence agents of the monarchy and the American democracy are reportedly joined at the hip - with the creation of one or more "fusion cells" in Saudi Arabia - to save the autocratic regime, and to ensure uninterrupted access to world's largest oil reserves. The unanswerable question is whether this cooperation will save the oil kingdom, or has it already become a futile endeavor to save a doomed cause.
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