Two Proufound Events

I may be naive about such things, but it seems there were two recent profound events that recently ocurred that should have implications for years.

The first, and most important, was the passing of King Fahd of Saudi Arabia. While in a coma for nearly a decade, certain factions of the Saudi royal family have been hoping for him to outlive the Crowned Prince Abdullah (now King Abdullah). This faction believed Abdullah to be too much of a reformer in the kingdom. Fortunately for this country, that faction has lost. Now we shall see the direction the kingdom shall take.

Second is the United States involvement in Kyrgystan and Uzbekistan. Both countries recently asked us to wrap up our military involvement in those countries in relation to our operations in Afghanistan. Uzbekistan is by far the least democratic of the two nations and has recently been accused of slaughtering several hundred dissidents. Despite our military necessity, we have been diplomatically nudging Uzbekistan to reform, which admittedly will be a difficult task. After hearing too much of this, Islam Karimov (president of Uzbekistan) asked the US to leave. To our credit, we did not tone down our reformer rhetoric despite our interests there (not to mention from an energy perspective). If we can follow through, this shall have positive ramifications for years to come.