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

To: E who wrote (112003)	8/19/2003 4:02:11 PM
From: carranza2	Respond to of 281500

Very interesting, if a bit conspiratorial, analysis. Baer's book mentioned in the article is worth a read. Saudi oil is the perfect terror weapon. When the fundamentalists think that they can capture it, they'll do so, breaking whatever explicit or implicit arrangement they may have with the Saudis not to overthrow them in exchange for funding of terror. If they can't capture it because our troops are a stone's throw away in Iraq, they'll ruin the fragile Saudi oil infrastructure, plunging the West into an economic abyss similar to the one that took place in 1929. Therein lies the flaw in Sachs' thinking. The royals don't really matter--a significant number of them sympathize with the terrorists, anyway. Those that don't can be easily gotten rid of. The game is oil and the Super Bowl is played in Saudi Arabia. So long as we can't move the game to Iraq because of guerrilla warfare and terror there, the infrastructure to develop it as an alternative will never be in place. Do you really think we can take over Saudi oil? Not in a million years. The religious implications will drive even the most moderate Muslims to jihad. The Law of Unintended Consequences has struck again.

To: E who wrote (112003)	8/19/2003 8:25:43 PM
From: Win Smith	Respond to of 281500

For some historical context on that front, you might want to look up the Murawiec leak. Lamo SI search only picks up the tail end of the story here, but google turns up a nice summary at Slate as the first hit, slate.msn.com . But the PNAC people had Iraq first on their hit list long before 9/11, so I don't put a lot of stock in this particular Saudi theory. I'm sure the civilian DoD hotheads would like to do something there, but given the mess they made of Iraq, I'm somewhat hopeful that cooler heads will prevail. For somewhat deeper historical context, I used to cite theatlantic.com often. A tidbit, just for old time's sake: SIXTEEN years have passed since the CIA began providing weapons and funds -- eventually totaling more than $3 billion -- to a fratricidal alliance of seven Afghan resistance groups, none of whose leaders are by nature democratic, and all of which are fundamentalist in religion to some extent, autocratic in politics, and venomously anti-American. Washington's financial commitment to the jihad was exceeded only by Saudi Arabia's. At the time the jihad was getting under way there was no significant Islamist opposition movement in Saudi Arabia, and it apparently never occurred to the Saudi rulers, who feared the Soviets as much as Washington did, that the volunteers it sent might be converted by the jihad's ideology. Therein lies the greatest paradox of the bombing in Riyadh: it and the explosions in Peshawar and Islamabad could well prove to be part of the negative fallout -- or "blowback," in intelligence parlance -- of the U.S.- and Saudi-orchestrated Afghan jihad.

To: E who wrote (112003)	8/20/2003 1:08:03 AM
From: Hawkmoon	Respond to of 281500

The real target of the war in Iraq was Saudi Arabia Spot on analysis, IMO. I have stated identical, or similar, thoughts in previous posts. Hawk

To: E who wrote (112003)	8/20/2003 12:10:19 PM
From: frankw1900	Respond to of 281500

Sachs has looked at the elephant's foot and proclaimed it the elephant: The real target of the war in Iraq was Saudi Arabia He says this is the "disguised" motive. The motives for invading Iraq, including the one he advocates, were varied, serious and strategic, as the interminable discussion here has demonstrated. The idea a good portion, perhaps the majority, of the US public doesn't think invading Iraq has nothing to do with Saudi oil and 9/11, is absurd. Furthermore most of them, if asked to expand on the topic would probably make the point that it's not just in the US's interests the world oil market in the ME not be interrupted. And most of them probably know, and don't care, the Bushes etc are in the oil business and have been involved in it in the ME. It's disappointing to see the FT running conspiracy theory junk.