Buried in the rubble of Riyadh are some of the Bush administration's basic assumptions: that Al Qaeda was finished, that invading Iraq would bring regional stability and that a show of American superpower against Saddam would cow terrorists.
Precisely the opposite is the case: and the exception of al qaeda activity in Saudi Arabia only underscores the brute facts. The Arabian penninsula is al qaeda's last redoubt. Mainly because the House of Saud resisted our efforts to follow them there, their funds, their leaders. Elsewhere in Muslim world, e.g. Yemen, Pakistan, our commanders in the field have been gleefully capturing or assassinating known or suspected al qaeda operatives. So elsewhere in the Muslim world al qaeda
is finished, reduced to releasing cassettes, bombing nightclubs, and granting interviews etc.
Riyad, however, is the new Kandahar.
Agreed. Saudi Arabia is just about the last place Al Queda can operate now, and one of the main reasons is because parts of the government of the Kingdom are complicit in their operations.
I find it astonishing that in a repressive quasi-police state like Saudi that nineteen terrorists could simply get away. When I lived there there were random police stops on all the major highways and armed service personnel at virtually every major intersection. Did these terrorists simply melt into the desert like Lawrence of Arabia?