Saudi Arabia is the necessary ally in the War on Iraq which Bush and his gang are committed to. So far the Saudis have said no. The propaganda merchants have decided to put pressure on the Saudis: what they are doing is leaking deliberately warnings that the Saudis, if they don't behave, they will become the target of the war.

You will notice on Yahoo etc. that the RAND military think tank is supposed to have considered a report on Saudi Arabia as the enemy. You will have seen in the last issue of the New Statesman, that a former Ministry of Defence apparatchik, now in place at a defence magazine, interviewed George Galloway about the possible partition of Saudi Arabia, with the West (or friendly clients) taking over the oil rich East of the country. All of this is aimed at frightening the Saudi ruling elite into lending their support to the war on Iraq.

Will the Saudi royal family hold its nerve under this deliberate pressure? Or will it fall in to line?