US-Saudi Arabia ties at "crossroads", says Wall Street Journal
PTI
(Washington, October 31)
The US-Saudi relations are at a "crossroads" as Saudi Arabia is a principle source of funding for Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda terrorist network, an American daily has said.
Commenting editorially, the Wall Street Journal says "the US support for the House of Saud has now yielded Saudi support for those waging war on the US homeland."
"Today the dominant fact of the US-Saudi relationship is that this 'friend' is a principal source of funding for al Qaeda," it says, adding "the US-Saudi relationship is at a crossroads".
The paper says, "if a more radical regime is going to take hold in Saudi Arabia, better to face that fact sooner rather than later. Coping with an overtly hostile Saudi government would at least have the virtue of clarity that does not exist today. It would also force a decision on whether to take over the Saudi oilfields, which would put an end to OPEC."
It also says that a month before the September 11 terror attacks in the US, Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah had said that Saudi Arabia and the US had separate interests.
In a letter to Bush in August, Abdullah had said that "a time comes when peoples and nations part...It is time for the US and Saudi Arabia to look at their separate interests," the paper says.
The Journal says it is time the US took the Prince up on his offer, for the strains of the war on terrorism are revealing that the longstanding US-Saudi bargain cannot hold. |
