I'm With Dick! Let's Make War!
By MAUREEN DOWD
I was dubious at first. But now I think Dick Cheney has it
right.
Making the case for going to war in the Middle East to veterans on Monday,
the vice president said that "our goal would be . . . a government that is
democratic and pluralistic, a nation where the human rights of every ethnic
and religious group are recognized and protected."
O.K., I'm on board. Let's declare war on Saudi Arabia! Let's do "regime
change" in a kingdom that gives medieval a bad name.
By overthrowing the Saudi monarchy, the Cheney-Rummy-Condi-Wolfy-Perle-W.
contingent could realize its dream of redrawing the Middle East map.
Once everyone realizes that we're no longer being hypocrites, coddling a
corrupt, repressive dictatorship that sponsors terrorism even as we plot to
crush a corrupt, repressive dictatorship that sponsors terrorism, it will
transform our relationship with the Arab world.
We won't need Charlotte Beers at the State Department, thinking up Madison
Avenue slogans to make the Arab avenue love us. ("Democracy! Mm-mm, good.")
If America is going to have a policy of justified pre-emption, in Henry
Kissinger's clinical phrase, why not start by chasing out those sorry Saudi
royals? If we're willing to knock over Saddam for gassing the Kurds, we
should be willing to knock over the Saudis for letting the state-supported
religious police burn 15 girls to death last March in a Mecca school,
forcing them back inside a fiery building because they tried to flee without
their scarves. And shouldn't we pre-empt them before they teach more boys to
hate American infidels and before they can stunt the lives of more women?
The vice president declared on Monday, "This nation will not live at the
mercy of terrorists or terror regimes." I am absolutely with him.
Why should we (and our S.U.V.'s) be at the mercy of this family that we arm
and protect and go to war for? The Saudis have never formally apologized to
America for the 15 Saudi citizens who came here and killed 3,000 Americans
as they went to work one sun-dappled September morning. They have never even
tried to rewrite their incendiary terrorist-breeding textbooks or stop their
newspapers from spewing anti-American, anti-Semitic lies, like their stories
accusing Jews of drinking children's blood. They brazenly held a telethon,
with King Fahd and Crown Prince Abdullah giving millions, to raise money for
families of Palestinian suicide bombers, or "martyrs." Last week the Saudi
embassy here put out a glossy brochure hailing their "humanitarian work" at
the telethon.
It was embarrassing yesterday, given President Bush's swagger on Iraq, to
watch him fawn over the Saudis. At lunch at his ranch he entertained Prince
Bandar, the man who got private planes to spirit Osama bin Laden's relatives
out of the U.S. after the attacks. Mr. Bush also called Crown Prince
Abdullah yesterday to assure him of the "eternal friendship" between their
countries and to soothe hurt Saudi feelings over a lawsuit filed by 9/11
victims charging Saudi support of terrorism.
Mr. Cheney argues that we must invade Iraq while we have a strategic window
for action, while Saddam's army is still reeling.
But attacking the Saudis would be even easier. They are soft and spoiled.
Only yesterday Jerome Socolovsky of The A.P. wrote about how King Fahd
brought thousands of members of the House of Saud to Marbella, Spain, where
they stocked up on luxury items and hired North African servants. Women in
veils and waterproof robes rode Jet Skis and members of the royal family
talked about the 9/11 attacks as an Israeli-C.I.A. plot.
A Saudi invasion would be like the Panama invasion during Bush I. We already
have bases to use there. And this time Mr. Cheney won't have to beg the
royals to use their air space, or send American forces.
Once we make Saudi Arabia into our own self-serve gas pump, its neighbors
will get the democracy bug.
The Saudis would probably use surrogates to fight anyway. They pay poor
workers from other countries to do their menial labor. And they paid the
Americans to fight the Iraqis in 1991. The joke among the American forces
then was: "What's the Saudi national anthem? `Onward, Christian Soldiers.' "
We haven't been hit at home by any of Saddam's Scud missiles. But the human
missiles launched by Saudi Arabia have taken their toll. |
