Of all the media myths about Islamist extremism prevalent in the West, none is hardier than the claim that Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida seek to overthrow the Saudi monarchy. This cliché is repeated time after time by network and cable television anchors, newspaper reporters, columnists and other pundits, and government experts on all sides. It is, of course, also assiduously purveyed by the Saudis themselves through their diplomatic representatives and spin experts, who never tire of telling Americans they are targets of the same enemy, and on the same side as America, in the war on terror.Yet the history of al-Qaida inside Saudi Arabia is filled with unanswered questions and bizarre ambiguities. Al-Qaida has never attacked a single one of the thousands of Saudi princes and princesses, and has never assaulted any of the vast number of Saudi business offices and other enterprises around the world. This makes it unique in the history of radical movements, if it truly opposes the Saudi state. Although threats and imprecations against the Saudi royal family, and calls for its overthrow, are typically attributed to Bin Laden by Westerners, a close reading of his diatribes shows no such language. Bin Laden calls for death and expulsion of foreigners, but not for the destruction of the Saudi regime.