Originally Posted by
Bad-Andy
That is your opinion, but it is not universally shared. Many people (myself included) would argue that that the Shia are far more rational and predictable than the Suunis. And, as such, a partnership with Iran as the stabilizing power in the Middle East would be a lot better than our "partnership" with the House of Saud, in terms of long-term peace (as much as that might be possible) in the region...
It's more complicated than that. Worldwide, Sunnis in general are more stable (and numerous). Shia's in general are a bit crazy from our perspective, and Iran is center of gravity for radical Shia islam. Wahhabi Sunni's are on the far right of the crazy spectrum.
There are also numerous other subsects with widely variable attitudes.
And most of them hate each other.
As for Saudis vs. Iran, the Saudis have more oil (even counting undeveloped reserves). If we abandon them, conflict would ensue, possibly or even likely interrupting the oil flow on a short-term or long-term basis. Global economic catastrophe would ensue.
Once we wean a lot of our energy needs off of oil and the supply exceeds the demand then we can look at making big changes to our involvement in the region.
Also the Saudis are OK with Israel (they won't say so in public of course). The Iranians are not OK with Israel and that's not something we're ever going to come to terms with them on. Unless we move Israel to the Australian outback.