Clearly it's not a good time for to be running any country in the Middle East. And with the upheaval in Bahrain and Libya, there's a legitimate question to be asked about the future of the hand-chopping, wife-beating Wahhabi fundamentalist regime in Saudi Arabia. And if that goes, the fall out flowing from a potential revolution inside the world's biggest oil producer will rock the global economy.
Already, the brewing revolt in Libya has pushed up the price of oil to its highest level in two and a half years and this is spreading to other commodities. We can expect more if or when it spreads to Saudi Arabia.
Oxford University historian Mark Almond warns that what we are now seeing in the Middle East is a warning. At the very least it could set off a bad civil war between the Sunni minority and the pro-Iranian Shi'ites who make up 70 per cent of the population seething with rage against the pro-Western king.
Oil prices are now soaring because of the Libyan bloodshed, creating massive inflationary forces that will rattle the global economy. If or when the unrest spreads to Saudi Arabia, it's going to get a lot worse.
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