Because the best things in life are free.

 
Saudi Arabia, Suddenly the World's Most Scrutinized Kingdom

Perhaps it was a blessing in disguise when the soccer team representing the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia managed to lose all of its round-robin games in the World Cup. Nothing else the al-Saud family seems to do gets positive media exposure in the US, or is it really just the imagination of the conservatives? Not longer after, of course, the World Trade Center fell down, the FBI released the names of the nineteen perpetrators. On its face, the majority of them did carry Saudi citizen and did manage to escape undetected. The royal family preceeded to buy newspaper advertisements in major newspapers declaring how much it grieved. Not long after the Bureau arrested a man in connection with an abandoned rocket launcher outside the Prince Sultan Air Base last week, two conservative political pundits seem to take issue with the country, only to get an interesting coincidence.

Simon Veness, a British man working in the capital, Riyadh was the target of a car bomb that would look totally appropriate in a place like Spain, but sort of suspicious in the land of Mohammed. Meanwhile, Jay Mowbray of National Review details in their July 1 issue that a visa express program by the United States allowed three of said hijackers to enter the country. When Mr. Mowbray appeared on Fox News Channel with John Gibson, I had to protest. Saudi travel agents are not working to help Al-Qaeda allow in more potential terrorists. Instead, Consular Affairs allowed travel agents to collect forms and other such documentation for them, but not process it. The accusation that Mowbray should have made is that why do Saudi citizens enjoy a streamlined visa process to enter the United States when business visas only became available to Americans traveling to the Kingdom in the past decade? You can now go on a "government approved tour" that allows a tourist visa in a sense, but this is all very new. Not to mention the fact, you have to be sponsored, and the processing takes "several months". It seems odd not that Consular Affairs would delegate work to the travel agents, but allow such dilatory tactics by the Kingdom for US travelers.

But wait, there is more. Bill Kristol announced to the world today that apparently, the Bush administration conitnues to push for a "provisional Palestinean state" because of a back-room deal when Crown Prince Abdullah visited the Crawford, Texas ranch that is the President's nominal home. Kristol speculates that among other things, the administration must dearly want a reprieve from being kicked out of its military bases because an attack on Iraq is "imminent". Unfortunately, Kristol has been advocating an assault on the Axis of Evil for a while now, and gotten nothing for all the hot air expended. There is no doubt that Bush is getting gored by dealing with the Saudis on foreign policy, but as an oil man himself, he understands how big the stakes are should the Saudis decide that they want to do something like another oil embargo. Abdullah has the ability to hurt us very deeply. But as Condelezza Rice warned the Iraqis in April: "We hope you enjoy eating your oil?" Even if Saudi Arabia turned off the spigot, it would have too much invested capital elsewhere...not to mention nothing to buy other imports with.

The reason to worry now is not that Bush promised a Palestinean state or more jet fighters to Crown Prince Abdullah. Instead, the car bomb should be the real concern. Al Qaeda would love nothing more than knock the royal family out of control, and force the US to occupy Saudi Arabia. From there, Osama Bin Laden would hope once and for all that Muslims would rise and expel the tyrannical American regime. As the Economist once pointed out, Saddam Hussein might be a dictator, but he would not tear down the oil wells. The Taliban might try to. Bush meanwhile, is trying to keep his oil men friends happy by ensuring that the Saudis get what they want. The grim reality is that too much of the world energy apparatus is dependent on this very weak regime, and so long as Bush and the oil lobby is in power, we will have to fight to the end to defend it.







posted by Thomas at 6:29 PM 0 comments