Old age and experiance more often than not BEATS youth and skill.
As one QP told me,"Experiance is something you wish you had had 15 minutes ago". I suspect Wissam al Waili wishs he had more experiance right now.
On a serious note I'm reading Mark Bowden's book on the Iranain Hostatge Crisis, in the book it seems like the students had far more politcal power than the actual govt of Iran. It seems insane to me to allow a bunch of college students to drive the ship of state.
Then after being in the ME nothing really surprises me anymore.