AUSTIN BAY offers this interesting observation:

There’s a case to be made — by no means totally facile — that the War on Terror is a Saudi civil war diverted to the rest of the globe. The Saud regime’s petro-princes were always an Al Qaeda target, but as long as Al Qaeda was off in Afghanistan with the Taliban or in East Africa blowing up American embassies, the princes could pretend the Islamists were no threat to them.

He also thinks that the mullahs in Iran are in trouble:

Don’t underestimate the strategic effects on Iran of Saddam’s demise. Saddam presented Iran with a long-term threat, one the ayatollahs could use to legitimate a degree of internal militarization. Now, the Butcher of Baghdad’s gone. Iranians have seen Iraqis dancing in the streets. Is it time for the Theocrats of Tehran to take a hike? In the past two weeks, street demonstrations have spread to every major city. Demonstrators no longer call for the political reform of the mullah’s regime, they demand replacement.

Will Iran slide into all-out civil war or follow the 1989 path of Eastern Europe’s decayed communist dictatorships? We may know that answer by July.

He suggests, in fact, that much of the middle east is really engaged in civil war.