Prince Turki Al Faisal urged the five permanent U.N. Security Council members to guarantee a nuclear security umbrella for Mideast countries that agree to a nuclear weapons-free zone and impose sanctions on countries that develop or maintain nuclear weapons.

“I think that’s a better way of going at this issue of nuclear enrichment of uranium, or preventing Iran from acquiring weapons of mass destruction,” he told the Associated Press. “If it goes that route, I think it’s a much more equitable procedure than what has been happening in the last 10 years or so.”

Officials were quick to cheer the deal, saying it “will positively impact the US economy” and that it wouldn’t harm Israel, adding that “all sales to the region must be evaluated for the impact on Israel.”

The real question, however, is why Saudi Arabia is bothering to spend such massive amounts of money on US weaponry that is of no obvious use to them, Saudi foreign intervention mostly involving deploying ground troops to tiny neighbors to help crush popular uprisings.

Some official comments suggested it was something to do with Iran, but no one seriously expects the Saudis to attack Iran, or vice versa, and it seems unlikely that if a war did break out it would involve epic dogfights between the Saudi F-15s and Iranian MiG-29s.

Rather the sales of hugely expensive warplanes to Gulf nations appears to be more a question of national prestige than utility, with the Obama Administration pushing the sales in the hopes of following through on promises to increase America’s arms sales abroad.

Both Israel and the Saudis are long time enemies of the Iranian government, and even if they both came by this in very different ways it should come as no surprise that the Sunni-dominated regimes of the Gulf nations are fine with Israel attacking a major Shi’ite nation.

Of course the Israeli preference remains seeing the US starting the war, but increasingly Israel’s current far-right government is mulling attacking unilaterally. Either way, Gulf officials seem to hope starting a war with Iran will quiet their respective Shi’ite populaces, which they are convinced are being roused to protest primarily by Iran.

Which seems unlikely. If anything an unprovoked attack on Iran seems liable to rile up the Shi’ites in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, et al. all the more. It also is likely to bring neighboring Iraq’s current Shi’ite-dominated government more squarely in the camp of the Iranian government, as such an attack is likely to rouse considerable anger after the 2003 US invasion of Iraq led to nearly a decade of occupation.

The exact content of the US letter was not made public, but given Obama Administration rhetoric it presumably blamed Iran for the entire affair and demanded the international community back whatever the US decides to do about it.

Iran’s own letter, in keeping with the lack of evidence implicating them, condemned the US for making hasty allegations, and insisted it set a dangerous precedent to allow countries to make up culprits for dubious plots. Iranian officials are also said to have urged the Saudis to tread carefully regarding the allegation, saying it was “baseless” and ought not to be taken at face value.

Many foreign analysts seem to be agreeing with Iran on this one, saying the plot sounds just too far-fetched and fits too neatly into the Obama Administration’s existing policy goals.

And even though the US and Saudi policies on Iran are both similar, the Saudi government seems to be cautious as well, condemning the plot but stopping short of actually blaming the Iranian government for it, and saying they would make a “measured response” to the plot.

Saudi officials, who have never been shy about shooting people in the Shi’ite dominated region, confirmed the attacks, saying they were shooting “seditious” residents of the region who had been ginned up by Iran to protest.

Protests last took place in Qatif in mid-March, when massive pro-democracy protests were taking place just off the coast in Shi’ite majority Bahrain. The Saudi military not only shot protesters in Qatif then, but invaded Bahrain to help the regime there crush their protests.

Though the protests fell out of the public space for awhile, the crackdowns only increased the amount of resentment in Qatif, and it seems that as usual, the regime is hoping that it can shoot its way out of having to offer free elections.

“Saudi Arabia would no longer be able to cooperate with America in the same way it historically has,” Prince Turki al-Faisal, the former Saudi intelligence chief, wrote in an opinion piece that was officially sanctioned by the monarchy. “Saudi leaders would be forced by domestic and regional pressures to adopt a far more independent and assertive foreign policy.”

The Obama administration has been firm in denouncing Palestinian attempts to generate support for its bid for statehood and has promised to veto the resolution at the Security Council this month.

If the US follows through on that promise, wrote al-Faisal, “Saudi Arabia would pursue other policies at odds with those of the United States, including opposing the government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki in Iraq and refusing to open an embassy there despite American pressure to do so. The Saudi government might part ways with Washington in Afghanistan and Yemen as well.”

Prince Turki al-Faisal stressed that the starting point for peace must be a two-state solution based on the pre-1967 borders, something the US and Israel have slighted for decades, and still in the Obama administration.

The couple and their children abandoned the house with three newly registered vehicles and a refrigerator full of food, fleeing the nation ahead of the hijackings.

The incident was investigated, and the home was said to have been visited by 9/11 hijackers, and phone calls were made by Mohamed Atta and other hijackers to the house in the leadup.

The most interesting part of this investigation is that the FBI, which carried it out, inexplicably kept its probe a secret, never reporting it to Congress. The probe likewise went unmentioned in the 9/11 Commission Report.

The Justice Department declined comment on the report, saying they would only discuss information which had already been released.

According to direct Rami Abdelrahman of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, the protesters wanted to “express support for the King as the first Arab ruler to express his opinion publicly about the situation in Syria.”

Expressing opinions publicly is a big no-no in Saudi Arabia, however, which earlier this year invaded Bahrain to help the regime there crush pro-democracy protests, and the 164 expat protesters were arrested for violating a Saudi ban on all public demonstrations.

The detentions reflect Saudi paranoia about dissent in any form, but are particularly noteworthy in this case because the Saudi Kingdom seems to be hoping that Assad is overthrown in favor of a more Saudi-friendly government. Even demonstrators taking a position largely congruent with regime interests aren’t exempt from the Saudi police state, it seems.

Protests in Saudi Arabia may have halted, but the ones in Syria are continuing apace, as are crackdowns in the east, where troops killed at least one person and arrested scores.

Taken at face value the comments seem fairly uncontroversial, a simple rehash of what most other nations are saying now. Saudi Arabia, however, is not just any nation but is a regional power which has acted with upmost cynicism with regard to the Arab Spring revolts.

Having eagerly taken in the first dictator ousted by protests, Zine el-Abidine bin Ali of Tunisia, the Saudi government followed up with an invasion of Bahrain to violently put down pro-democracy rallies there, while taking a very Syrian tack in their own crackdown on protesters in Qatf. Mass arrests and accusations of “sedition” were and are the order of the day for reformists within the Saudi Kingdom, and it eagerly facilitates crackdowns by neighboring regimes.

The difference, then, lies in Syria’s precarious position in Middle East power struggles. The Assad regime is Shi’ite, albeit in a largely Sunni country. This would put it in the same position as the Sunni Bahraini royal family on that mostly Shi’ite island, but Saudi Arabia, which still envisions itself as a “defender of the faith” in sort of a 16th century Holy Roman Empire way, is more than willing to cynically hold a double standard if it means getting one up on the Shi’ites of the region.

Of course backing the protesters is also a recognition of the reality that the protest movement is growing by leaps and bounds despite of, and in many cases because of, the violent crackdowns. The US also jumped on the protester bandwagon a few months in (and reiterated their stance today), as did al-Qaeda’s new leader Ayman al-Zawahiri. Though the Assad regime still exudes confidence about its position, it seems that the knee-jerk moves toward heavy-handed violence reveal a growing fear that the pro-democracy movement is simply growing too big to stop.

Brennan’s talks were aimed at convincing Saleh to agree to immediately step down and hand over control of the nation to his deputy, Major General Hadi. Indications were however that Saleh was no more open to the deal now than he has been for the past several months.

And perhaps pointing to that being an unacceptable response, Brennan was in Yemen today, meeting with Maj. Gen. Hadi to press him to accept a “swift transition” deal. Hadi has previously been unwilling to accept a deal to oust Saleh.

Brennan said the Obama Administration was willing to increase aid to Yemen, which is in a state of virtual collapse after months of protests and assorted civil wars, but only after the GCC proposal for a transition is “signed and implemented.” It seems the US may not care if it is signed by Saleh or Hadi.