Literally this. Graduate degree in Poli Sci here, and our entire sector of academia has been operating from this premise for two decades. I’m not sure why The Atlantic thinks a majority of Americans are too stupid to have drawn this conclusion for themselves. It sure as hell wasn’t the indigent feuding Deobandi tribes and post-Soviet invasion Afghan Mujahideen financing AQAP’s Jihadi-Reject Summer Camps. The fact that OBL and his 38 siblings are Saudi Nationals by birth—as were all but two or three of the 9/11 hijackers—has been implicit of a much more insidious state backing by the Saud Family cronies since the jump. If not for our bilateral petroleum arrangements, instead of bothering with the anachronism that was Afghanistan we would have rightfully launched a full-scale invasion of Saudi Arabia and deposed the entire Al Saud bloodline. We made them, and we can just as easily break them. American Defense Contractors have furnished their entire military establishment. If we opt to terminate those friendly benefits and sanction them back to the Stone Age, they’ll be lucky to source third-hand Soviet-era matériel. Good luck keeping your population oppressed, beholden, and subjugated without modern military technology.

This is a great question. We are in the middle of shift. I am not sure what it all means but it feels real.