Free Republic

Among the WahhabisHatred’s KingdomHow Saudi Arabia Supports the New Global Terrorism by Dore Gold Regnery. 309 pp. $27.95Reviewed by Alex Alexiev AFTER A year and a half in which the war on terrorism consisted essentially of large tactical operations—liquidating the Taliban regime, destroying al Qaeda’s base in Afghanistan, rounding up Islamist agents around the world—the U.S. finally took its first step of truly strategic significance. Operation Iraqi Freedom was intended to deny to the Baghdad regime and its Islamist fellow-travelers the ability to develop and use weapons of mass destruction, thus removing one of the most urgent long-term threats to...

You won't find the newly published Hatred's Kingdom in Saudi Arabian bookshops, but it is so much in demand among Saudi high officials that the government has brought out a reprint of its own. Its author, Dore Gold, is a hardline Israeli spokesman. He argues that the "hatred" referred to in the title is rooted in Saudi Arabia's austere brand of Islamic orthodoxy, Wahhabism, which found its most horrific climax in the atrocities of September 11. The book has further fuelled a Saudi obsession and Arab guessing game known as "who is next?" The next candidate, that is, for the...

<p>Even with the U.S. winning a lightning victory in Iraq, the question will remain about how to win the overall war on terrorism. The war in Iraq reminds us that the Saudi role in global terrorism still needs to be addressed. The organizational link between Iraq and al Qaeda, identified as Ansar al-Islam by Secretary of State Colin Powell during his address before the U.N. Security Council, was not just a product of Iraqi policy.</p>