Meanwhile, Back at the Ranch

What was the point of Saudi crown prince Abdullah's trip to Crawford, Texas? Nothing substantial emerged from the so-called summit. The Arabian oil autocrat said nothing at the end of his meeting with President Bush. No new guidelines for the Saudis' increasingly overdue investigation of their citizens' involvement in September 11 and al Qaeda were revealed. Nor did the American side unveil any new agreement for common action on Iraq.

In other words, the U.S.-Saudi summit seemed to be business as usual. And that meant a discreet encounter, with Washington continuing to downplay the abuses of the Saudi regime--namely, its central role in inspiring and funding (or, to be generous, its failure to crack down on Saudi citizens who inspire and fund) anti-Western Islamic extremist terror.

The summit was preceded by an amazing article in the New York Times that appeared the day of the meeting. Grounded in quotes attributed to a "person familiar with the Crown Prince's thinking," the article, headlined "Saudi to Warn Bush of Rupture Over Israel Policy," was a litany of demands and "blunt messages" and grievances.

The gist: Abdullah would call the tune in Texas. He would sternly admonish Bush to rein in Ariel Sharon or face a renewed oil boycott, an end to Saudi cooperation with the U.S. military, and the threat that the world's most reactionary regime would align itself with Saddam Hussein and other militarist radicals. Saudi Arabia, not the United States, would issue demands.

Why is it that our government must refrain from making demands on our longtime petroleum partner? If we can make demands on Israel, why not on Saudi Arabia? What possible grievances can Riyadh have with us? On September 11, our cities, not theirs, were brutally attacked by 15 of their nationals, not ours. And the corrupt Saudi monarchy does not speak for the Palestinians, except in funding Yasser Arafat's parasitical bureaucracy and the Hamas terror network. Yet the arrival in Texas of Abdullah was preceded by aggressive rhetoric aimed at placing President Bush on the defensive.

And in response, President Bush publicly offered predictable assurances: that he was assured that oil will not be used as a weapon; that Abdullah condemns the murder of American citizens; and that Abdullah opposes bin Laden, wherever the Wahhabi warrior may be hiding. But Abdullah did not, it seems, condemn those on his own territory and in his state media who preach the murder of Americans, and who fund and acclaim the massacre of Jewish and Arab civilians by terror bombers in Israel.

Indeed, the Saudi regime continues to speak out of both sides of its mouth, and the United States continues to maintain a double standard when dealing with Arab states. Ghazi Algosaibi, the Saudi ambassador to London, chose two days before the Crawford chat to post on his embassy's website an insulting defense of his recent "poem" in support of suicide bombing. "While we are on the subject of terrorism," he wrote to a British Jewish group that had complained about his verse, "I am most curious to know your view of Samson of the Old Testament. Was he a suicide terrorist?" Meanwhile, Secretary of State Colin Powell affirmed in Senate testimony last week that money raised in a Saudi telethon for Palestinian "martyrs" goes to Hamas.

Surely the American tradition of refraining from publicly making reasonable demands on the Saudi monarchy has outlived whatever usefulness it ever had. There is nothing to be gained by pretending there is no crisis in the relationship, or reassuring ourselves that the royal family is in control, or arguing in the style of countless former diplomats to the kingdom that the United States ought not make demands on the kingdom. The crisis is here. It will not go away.

The Saudi crisis is moral. The country--its religious establishment especially--is deeply implicated in the worst terror attacks of modern times. This has yet to become a crisis of the regime. But it could become one. In the history of such regimes, there is often a single incident that rips the mask away from its true face. For the Saudis, September 11 was such an event.

Sources inside the Saudi kingdom describe Abdullah as wishing to extricate the country from the grip of the radical Wahhabi clerics and their supporters among the princes who control the royal bureaucracy and the main armed forces. If this is the case, it is in the interest of both the United States and Saudi Arabia for the crown prince to prevail. Indeed, if a faction of the Saudi regime is worried about the country's role in September 11, American candor should help that group. The demands should be flowing from Washington to Riyadh, not the other way around. Foremost among them should be a public, detailed, and thorough investigation of Saudi involvement in September 11, beginning with the ideological preparation and continuing with the financing and recruitment of the participants. The investigation should conclude with the arrest and prosecution of any and all Saudi nationals involved in September 11. And it should be complemented by U.S. congressional hearings into the same matter.

Such an investigation is the only hope for the current regime to turn a new page in Saudi history. It would be comparable to Nikita Khrushchev's speech denouncing Stalin's crimes in 1956. American pressure could help reformers in Saudi Arabia bring this about. If, on the other hand, the reformers are too weak to succeed, the United States has no stake in preserving a status quo characterized by the poisonous formula of Saudi money promoting Wahhabi ideology. In either case, it is time for the American government to speak truth to Saudi power.

Despite the assurances, oils has now been used as a threat.

Because of the threats Israelis and Jewish deaths do not count in the War for Enduring Freedom.

And what resulted from the capitulation to the Saudis who
spawn and pay murderers of Americans?

TODAY's TERRORISM SPAWNED BY ARAFAT et alia
included a 5 year old girl murdered as she hid under her bed.
Her murderers have been encouraged by the UN, the EU, and US State Department.

Maybe I'm wrong, but I think this editorial is much too pessimistic. I think the Saudis went over the top with their threats against Bush and the United States. That was not at all smart of them. I think it shows they are getting pretty desperate.

A couple of weeks ago, I heard an economist who is an expert in the Middle East say that oil will never become an issue regardless of the fighting between Israelis and Palis.

Fighting wars are far too common and nothing new. Commerce must go on. Otherwise, the disruption would cause too much turmoil and topil too many dictators/heads of state.

Twas an interesting take, and one I believe to be true.

Every American should be glad Bill Kristol's power and influence is limited to the Weakly Standard. If John McCain had become POTUS, Kristol would have been offered a high position of his choice, in a McCain administration. Kristol's interventionist mentality, would have been right in line with McCain's desire to bully the world. Billy probably would have suggested dropping H-bombs on every nation state from Iraq to Saudi Arabia, wiping out all Arab's and Muslim's. Kristol really enjoys throwing up all the shit he can find and seeing what sticks. He enjoys tossing bombs, from the back row of American politics, at President Bushes highly calculated diplomatic efforts in the ME. If Bill Kristol had his way, US troops would not only be defending and protecting America's real interests in the world, but Kristol would have the US military intervened in every corner of the globe, terrorism or no terrorism! Kristol is a dangerous war monger and needs to be kept in his cage, away from civilized folks.

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