Nawaf Obaid, a Saudi security expert who is managing director of the Saudi National Security Assessment Project in Riyadh and an adjunct fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, says that over the past year much has changed.

What was then unthinkable is now feared. A sudden departure of U.S. forces will place the future of Iraq's Sunnis in serious jeopardy from well-armed Shiite militias backed by Tehran. Numerous voices, says Obaid, have called for Saudi Arabia to protect the Sunni community in Iraq and to counter Iran's growing influence.

Obaid told United Press International that the Saudi leadership feels it would have no choice but to intervene militarily in Iraq in the event of a premature American pullout. But, adds Obaid, "I don't think they will withdraw any time soon, not any time soon."

But in politics saying one thing and following through is not always a guarantee.

And when it comes to pulling U.S. forces out of Iraq there are two opposing schools of thought. The first is that the United States will not withdraw from Iraq until the security void can be filled (by Iraqis) in order to prevent further deterioration in what is already being called a civil war. If the Bush administration still refuses to admit that the violence tearing that country apart is in fact a civil war, a number of major media outlets in the United States have already adopted that label to describe the violence in that country.

President Bush has reiterated on numerous occasions that he would not pull out U.S. troops and leave the ground open to terrorists and pro-Baathist insurgents. But again, things change.

The second school of thought -- albeit a rather Machiavellian one -- sees a unique "opportunity" to entangle the Muslim world in a fratricidal war that would keep Islamic forces occupied for years, if not decades, to come. Should in fact the U.S. choose to remove its troops from Iraq and in the process leave that country's Sunni community in harm's way, there is no doubt Saudi Arabia will intervene, as it said it would, by sending its military in great force to protect their co-religionists.

What could ensue is a protracted Shiite-Sunni war.

While this could turn out to be the worst case scenario -- the worst nightmare -- for Saudi Arabia and other countries in the region, for some policymakers it could provide the answer to what they perceive as a rising threat that three years of continued all out war by the world's best armed, best trained, best equipped and most motivated army in the world could not resolve.

Under this scenario Saudi troops, along with billions of Saudi petro-dollars, would be tied up for years to come fighting Iranian-backed insurgents in Iraq. Chances are that the fighting may very well spill over into neighboring countries such as Saudi Arabia itself, Jordan, Iran and possibly beyond. In fact chances of this happening would be very high.

The thinking among groups supporting that theory is that this would tie down fundamentalist forces on both sides for years to come. Saudi Arabia would find itself funneling large sums of money to sustain Iraq's Sunnis and their troops in that country. That would be money diverted from other Saudi projects, such as financing Islamic schools and mosques in Europe and North America.

Intra-Muslim fighting would also weaken the Shiites in Iraq as well as in neighboring Iran. As a result, a weakened Iran would be less inclined -- and certainly less financially inclined -- to pursue its nuclear program or to foment revolts beyond its borders. Or even be to preoccupied by what is going on its own front yard to continue its active support for Lebanon's Hezbollah party.

Saudi King Abdullah is worried enough by this concept that he asked for an urgent meeting with Vice President Dick Cheney, prompting the vice president two fly an 18,000-mile round-trip for a two-hour meeting with the Saudi sovereign.

For the moment Obaid says President Bush told King Abdullah that U.S. troops would stand fast in Iraq. In return The Saudi king gave his word to the American president that Saudi Arabia was not to meddle in Iraq, despite repeated requests from Sunni tribesmen for Saudi intervention. But as Obaid points out, these requests will be heeded if American troops are withdrawn and the Sunnis find themselves under fire and threat of ethnic cleansing.

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