"... None of those apply to organizations that are meerly teaching a radical version of Islam."
They sure as HELL do if those institutions are turning out suicide bombers!!!!!!
No they don't. Its not even close.
If they are training suicide bombers sure. But merely inspiring them with radical versions of a religion isn't directly "turning out suicide bombers".
"Would you tell the Saudi government "Stop him or we won't defend you if your ever attacked or threatened in the future"??"
Why not?
We would certainly reject that level of control over our citizens by foreigners. I imagine the Saudis would feel the same way. They would believe its relatively unlikely that we would let their oil wealth fall in to the hands of Iran. Iraq isn't a threat for now. And if the president tells them this, well than a new president will be around in another 4 or 8 years.
I'm not saying they wouldn't make some motions to try to appease us, they almost certainly would. But I doubt they would crack down hard, and in an effective way, or the donations of their private citizens to religious organizations, at least not ones directly connected to terrorism. (And teaching radical and hateful version of religions, while it certainly can and does inspire violence, isn't by itself a direct link).
Push to hard and you form a situation where the other party resents you and doesn't want to support you and your interests as much. You might be able to frighten them in to doing something, but if their heart is not in it, you get more failed attempts, or policies that are just for show and don't even really represent attempts, and less smart hard work to achieve the ends you desire.
If they go to far, then at some point you figure they are more your enemy than your ally, but if you do sill see them as your ally, and believe they think the same thing, that doesn't mean they are going to give over control to you.
then we may not feel it so necessary to continue spending the Billions that it takes to defend you
Right now we are spending money on capabilities that we would want to have even if we had no plans to defend Saudi under any circumstances. We are also spending money in Iraq because of issues in Iraq and wider middle east initiatives. Neither is direct spending on defending Saudi.
No we certainly would spend a lot to defend Saudi if a hostile power were invading it, but that's because it would be in our interest. |
