I hear our troops are leaving Saudi Arabia because the Saudis don't want us attacking Iraq from their country. So we're moving our forces to Qatar, the Gulf, and other places from which we'll launch the war.

I don't buy that we should stay in Saudi Arabia just to spite Osama bin Laden though. He hates (or hated) the House of Saud and hates that we protect them with our military presence. I also hate the House of Saud and the fact that we protect them with our military presence, but for very different reasons than Osama does.

So if a nut like Osama wants me to stop doing something that I also want to stop doing I should keep on doing it just to piss him off? Nahh.

It won't matter in the long run anyway. Iran will soon turn of its own volition and we'll soon force Iraq to turn as well. Then we won't need the House of Saud and Osama will soon get another of his wishes. Just not in the way he had in mind.

I believe that questions like this will be moot after we finish the job in Iraq. Which may well be harder than we think, but which can and should be done, for a host of reasons.

Quietly and slowly moving out seems like the best course of action until then. Within a short time after that, the House of Saud will start having internal and external problems that they've been able to avoid with the status quo as it has been. The status of our bases will become trivial to us and irrelevant to them.

Sublet it to the Israeli Air Force. Let them do #5.

It's really quite simple, my good Dr. :-)

We withdraw gradually (but not completely), not because Osama told us so, but for the very logical reason that the Saudis won't let us use our forces for what they're supposed to do.

Then we do Iraq, and when this causes unrest, as it most undoubtedly will, in Saudi Arabia (and Iran, unless they've already freed themselves from the thugocracy of the clerics), we move all of our troops back in to support the rebels while saying that we're only doing so to protect our own people. Instant casus belli.

I have been thinking that it is better to get out, so we can later invade the place. Only thing i can't figure out is if Bush and his people have figured out that the Saudis are part of the problem.

We need to find General Sherman's great great great grandson and send him from Bagdad to Mecca the way the old fellow took his army from Atlanta to Fort Sumter

The big issue is if it happens before or after Saddam takes his dirt nap. Once Iraq falls, the situation in the Persian Gulf will be radically different. Iran may fall into a pro-west revolution as a result of our action in Iraq. The Sauds will be in a *lousy* strategic situation, and if they demand we leave, we should start making rumblings about the right of self-determination for the Shite minority in the country(who happen to sit right on top of their oil fields). I think it is in our interests in a post Saddam world to start seriously looking at ways of eliminating Saudi Islamofascist agitation by taking away their biggest source of income, and giving it to someone a bit more grateful and a lot less crazy.

Dear Dr. Well at least you tried to figure it out. Most conservobloggers can't even get this far.
"Get out of Saudi Arabia!"
"No then the terrorists will have won!"
"Oh right... charge! forward! back! O noble six hundred!"

The US ought to do the right thing whether Osama wants it or not, whether it's rewarding terrorists or not. Really the US was never defending Saudi Arabia, we have a base there to defend Israel. If Powell can get a peace plan betw the Arabs (including Iraq) and Israel, then there would be no need to have this base over there and no need to have the war and kill all those people. Wouldn't that be better?

The bases there will become unimportant after we take out Iraq. However, this won't be as easy as we might like it to be.

Playing devil's advocate, but maybe we could get a better deal from Saddam for oil if we just set him loose on saudi arabia. I am sure he would be willing to cut us any deal we want.

At least starting the negotiations wont hurt, and maybe it would bring clarity of thought to the saudis. It would certainly stabilize the region, having only one government there.

Eric M - what planet do you live on? Peace between the Arabs and the Israelis? We've only had 50 years of the current Arab governments demonizing Israel as the source of all evil in the world (well, and the US, of course) - they're just going to make peace? Welcome to the real world, where people hate to the point of being willing to blow themselves up, where people will kill themselves before making peace.

We put our troops into Saudi Arabia to further our own interests, and we should pull them out in a disciplined, phased manner for our own interests as well. The Middle East is a snake pit that probably is not likely to be cleaned up in our lifetimes -- and there are no doubt many surprises to come. Sultan Air Base is not going to be of much use to anyone who could do us real harm (are the Chinese likely to lease the base?). Why would we want to throw a tantrum and destroy the base? Let's be big boys. (On the other hand, let's bring back everything we reasonably can).

We have no right to destroy the base (Prince Sultan Air Base) as it is a Saudi base, used by the USAF and USN but belonging to the Saudis. However, most of the advanced equipment (all the nifty gee-whiz gadgets) are ours, and are more or less portable. If they ask us to leave, we take our toys and move to Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, or Oman, all of whom have demonstrated a willingness to accept more US aid in exchange for basing rights.

This issue is of particular concern to me, as the unit to which I am currently assigned deploys to Prince Sultan Air Base (four of my co-workers just returned from a three-month stay there). Uncertainty is never a good thing, and I'd hate to have to pack everything up and move because official relations have gone south. (We all know that the unofficial relations blow chunks, but the two governments are still making kissy-kissy sounds at one another.)

Sublet it to Israel... I like that. Do you think we could get a good price?

The problem with closing the base, in ANY of these scenarios, is this: if we pull out before the Second Iraqi War starts, Saddam can then threaten the Saudis. Who's to stop him, us? We aren't ready yet (by definition), and we just left the bases, so both our force mix and our political planning is jumbled. I have no confidence that the Saudi army could stop the Iraqi army (or the Northwestern Wildcats, for that matter) as it occupies key real estate in the Northeast corner. And then what? Now we're committed to fighting--but in Saudi Arabia, not Iraq. Not what we had in mind.

The draw-down option looks to be the best (i.e., the least-worst), but we can't afford to draw it down to nothing before the shooting starts up north. And every plane, soldier, etc. we leave there is unavailable for the Second Iraqi War.

Eric M.:

1. Pseudonyms don't bother me, but I don't like comments from people with fake e-mail addresses. It makes you look like a troll. Please provide either a functional e-mail address or a web-page or both. Otherwise future comments are likely to be deleted.

2. If we wanted bases in the area just to defend Israel, it would be a lot easier to put them in Israel. The bases in Saudi Arabia have a lot to do with protecting Saudi Arabia, not least from Saddam Hussein. If Bush I had not fought Gulf War I, how long would it have taken for Iraqi forces to continue down the road from Kuwait into Arabia? Not very, I would guess.

Timekeeper:

I'm talking about if a direct request for withdrawal comes. This site suggests that the U.S. built most of the base, even if the Saudis paid for some of it. (Details not entirely clear.) What bugs me is the two-facedness of the Saudis, who are glad to have us construct huge bases on their territory, but then don't allow us to use them. Sort of like waiting for the boyfriend/girlfriend to finish painting and reshingling your house and then kicking him/her out.

Other comments:

I agree with Dean Esmay, Mike L., and Steve White that gradual quiet withdrawal is probably the least of evils, but it's still a bad thing, which is why I thought it worth brainstorming other options. If Saudi Arabia evicts us like deadbeat tenants just when we need the bases most, and we go quietly, it doesn't exactly help deter the (other) bad guys in the area.

I would add an option:
#7 - Use the bases to take out Iraq. Claim that was what they were built for in the first place. Further claim thats what the Saud family signed on to when they allowed them to be built. Scratch the Saud family and clean up the political mess from there. For those that say your making a bad situation worse, I agree. But, the Saud money has successfully bought inaction on the U.S. part for a decade. It would at least change a static situation into a dynamic one.

PSAB was built at he request of the US, and the Saudis paid the majority of the construction costs. They pay some 75% of all operating costs as assistance-in-kind to the coalition forces. Basically, we run all the hi-tech, and the Saudis provide fuel, food , etc.
We could actually do a lot of what we need to do from outside the Kingdom, and we should leave after we take care of Saddam, because as much as I enjoyed my time there , and like individual Saudis, the regime and lifestyle are anathema to a lot of American ideals.

Here in NC at Cherry Point The marines were just shipped out to Prince Sultan base in Saudi. A couple of hundred