Disarraybian Peninsula

Last week was a crazy week for the Arabian Peninsula- Saudi Arabia, which has been building a wall on its northern border to keep out the ISIS menace it helped to create, just lost its aged, repellent king only to replace him with his aged, repellent brother. Meanwhile, Shiite rebels have overrun Yemen's capital.

It looks like the Arabian Peninsula is facing big problems. I can't shed any tears, though, as the place is a hotbed of Islamic Sunni fundamentalism, and the wellspring of Wahhabist terrorism throughout the world. Vixen Strangely has put up an appropriate obit for the royal shit, a great antidote to the fawning panegyrics to the bloodstained tyrant. Meanwhile, the Shiites running amok in Sana'a could present a counterbalance to Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, perhaps the most significant balance of terror since the original Star Trek aired.

The Arabian Peninsula is in disarray, but perhaps the reality of the sectarian war finally coming to bite its inhabitants in the ass is the best thing to happen to the Islamic world since the fall of the Ottoman Empire. It took the horrific violence of the Thirty Years War to end the religious wars on the European mainland and usher in a more secular culture... let's hope the current sectarian strife in the heart of the Middle East will weed out the fundamentalists on both sides of the Sunni/Shiite divide and allow a more pluralistic society to take hold.

I'm not holding my breath, though...

Meanwhile, I wonder if one of the reasons for the Saudis flooding the oil market is to gain an influx of cash in order for the royal family to make a mad dash to safety in exile.