October 20, 2003

The one-and-only Mark Stein delineates in his own flawless way that our problems with Saudi Arabia not only aren't going away, but are growing all the time in his piece "With friends like the Saudis . . .".
In this article, Steyn highlights at least 10 instances of "coincidences" which point to the reality of state-sponsored Islamist terrorism by the Sauds.
His rundown doesn't include this recent one:
Saudi Arabia gives legal help to terror suspects in the US
And then there's those 28 pages about Saudi in the 9/11 Congressional report.
Worst yet, however, is David Warren's claim that the Sauds were behind Pakistan's nuclear proliferation and are moving towards their own nukes any day now...
Warren dubs it the upcoming Mother of All World Series.

Iran is not the only threat. One of the more unnerving now emerging is the possibility Pakistan might station some of its own nuclear arsenal on Saudi Arabian territory, ostensibly as a counter to the Iranian weapons that Pakistan helped develop (funnelling nuclear and missile technology to Iran from China and North Korea). The Saudis have adamantly denied that they have their own nuclear weapons programme, and there is no convincing reason to think they do; but they could get around their signature on non-proliferation agreements by leaving Pakistanis in control of the arsenal, on the analogy of the U.S. deployment of weapons in non-proliferating Germany. The only difference being that the Saudis have largely paid for Pakistan's nuclear development.

If this all sounds rather incestuous, or triangular, it is probably because it is. What all parties share -- Iran, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan -- is the commitment to an "Islamic bomb", which all believe, perhaps rightly, can provide the great equalizer between a weak Islamic world and a strong West.

The parties disagree about the form of the Islamic ideology they represent; but hardly disagree about the need to empower Islam in some form; or to preserve their own regimes against the threat of secularizing and democratizing forces. It is what puts each of them into a special relationship with international terrorism -- though much different in kind from country to country.

Gulp.
I so hope he's misinformed by his sources and/or is calling it wrongly... but unfortunately, I can't really argue with his conclusions.
Needless to say, I haven't been sleeping so well since I read it.
Anyway you cut, however, the U.S. is going to have a "High Noon" encounter with the Sauds.
And I want President Bush, their old (and let us hope, former) friend, to be the Sheriff for our side.