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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Ilaine who wrote (16711)	1/18/2002 2:52:57 AM
From: Nadine Carroll	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

Well, wouldn't that just be a huge win for Osama bin Laden? Pity Saddam Hussein is such a menace, I'd love nothing better than to leave the Saudis to his tender mercies. Instead, let's take out Iraq, create a Shia state in the south, and let the Shias whisper sweet nothings in the ears of the Saudi Shias. Serve 'em right. We should arm the Shias, while we're at it.

To: Ilaine who wrote (16711)	1/18/2002 3:51:52 AM
From: FaultLine	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

"We need it [Prince Sultan Air Base] if we go to war with Iran or Iraq. You don't deter from 'over the horizon' the way you can from the ground," said Anthony H. Cordesman, a specialist on the Middle East at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "The United States needs Saudi airspace depth in case of an attack on Iraq." Cordesman and several Defense Department analysts said the idea of transferring U.S. aircraft and personnel to bases in Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar and Oman was not realistic because those countries were already "saturated" with U.S. ships, aircraft and emergency war materiel. This is the fellow we saw on CSPAN last week. I was very impressed with his presentation. It was difficult for me to weigh his points vis-a-vis the other presenters, but you have to admit that Cordesman understands his positions extremely well and presents them forcefully. I'd like to know what "saturated" with U.S. ships, aircraft and emergency war materiel means. This description of the situation on the ground surprises me. --fl

To: Ilaine who wrote (16711)	1/18/2002 3:54:38 AM
From: frankw1900	Respond to of 281500

The article is mostly BS. One big problem for Abdullah, said several past and present officials, is anti-American sentiment in Saudi society. "For the first time since 1973, we actually have a situation in which the United States is so unpopular among the [Saudi] public that the royal family now thinks its security is best served by publicly distancing itself from the United States," remarked Chas. W. Freeman Jr. a former U.S. ambassador to Riyadh and frequent visitor to the kingdom. Some, not all, saudis want the US out because it is getting in the way of the Wahabbi missionary program. The royal family, which owns Saudi Arabia, are wahabbi. What happened is that bin Laden and others have started to hijack wahabbism and are threatening the family and the result, soon enough, will be civil war. But in the meantime, the anti western (particulalrly anti US) rhetorical outlet given the non family wahabbists has made a focus of US presence there. The reason they don't want the US to displace present regime in Iraq is because the outcome might be a successful muslim democracy. This is the reason for SA's rapprochment with Iran - actually, not with Iran but with the nasty mullahs there. A successful Iraqi democracy would doom both regimes and certainly undercut their fundamentalist program. If the above reads confusedly, that's because the situation there is confused - some significant portion of the family is not against the US presence. But right now they are on the retreat and that's why US forces there had to go hide in the desert. The other unspoken reason that some saudis want the US out of the country is bad conscience. It's their folk who did 9/11 and they fear the US might (justifiably) turn on them....