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

To: carranza2 who wrote (58530)	11/23/2002 3:50:02 PM
From: KLP	Respond to of 281500

Perhaps this is the real goal.... Bush needs to have a "come to Jesus" meeting with the Saudis after the Iraq invasion. The renewed flow of Iraqi oil after the invasion will diminish their influence. Friend or foe?

To: carranza2 who wrote (58530)	11/23/2002 4:38:07 PM
From: frankw1900	Respond to of 281500

As CB noted, there's smoke being blown every where. Couple of things to bear in mind when we look at this story. Politics in Saudi Arabia is family politics. It's medieval.Folk don't go through the same kind of channels we do. Second is that embassies also keep track of some of their citizens abroad. Wouldn't exactly call it spying but essentially that's what it is. It's always a good idea to follow the money but sometimes it's not always clear what the money was spent on and also it's not always clear that it got spent on what the donor intended. I agree Bandar is no child and I've no clear idea where he ultimately comes down on things. It's his job to represent well his country in US but he's also a player in SA so he's got enemies - that will be a given. All I'm saying is that it's probably an error here to rush to any conclusion. In an anachronistic culture like that of the Saudi Royals the double cross game is like chess played in an indeterminate number of dimensions - each piece is also a player with his own pieces and the game is played out over generations. The players in some ways have more freedom of action than US political players - for instance, they don't have a budget oversight board controlling as many of their expenditures. The US constitution puts constraints on the executive's freedom in foreign affairs whereas family politics puts constraints on Saudi executives conduct of foreign affairs. I'm not sure this is a good parallel but it's not completely wrong. All that said, the Saudis have a lot to answer to the US for - that article in the WP has some fine examples. frank@sinisterdextermanus.com