Saudi Scapegoating

This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

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NEW YORK SUN CONTRIBUTOR

His Royal Highness Prince Saud Al Faisal, the minister of foreign affairs of the kingdom of Saudi Arabia, fetched up Tuesday at the Council on Foreign Relations here and offered an appearance so slippery it could have consumed a day’s production of the kingdom’s vast oil fields. “We are striving for reform and modernization,” the prince claimed. “We may not be a democracy in the Western sense, but our government functions … by constantly heeding the voice of the people.” He depicted the kingdom as the victim of “an unjustified intense onslaught” that made it the “scapegoat” of September 11, 2001.


Having asserted that Saudi Arabia should not be the scapegoat, the prince went on to offer up another kid for sacrifice – Israel. The cause of terrorism against the West and indeed of all conflict in the Middle East, to hear the prince tell it, is the intransigence of the Jewish state. He complained of Prime Minister Sharon’s remarks at the United Nations referencing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and defending Israel’s security fence, which the prince called a “separation wall.” Once the conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Arabs is resolved by Israel’s “total withdrawal,” the prince claimed, “the other conflicts in the region would vanish and fade.”


At least some members of the prince’s audience recognized that he was trying to advance his family’s interests in America – and that the goals of the Islamic terrorists run far beyond Israel’s withdrawal, total or otherwise, from the West Bank, Jerusalem, or anywhere else. Americans know full well the terrorists want to impose Saudi-style Islamic law on the whole world, including America. Let the prince not take Americans for fools. The notion that the Baathist remnant in Iraq or the Al Qaeda cells in London will desist the minute Israel abandons Judea and Samaria is understood by Americans as just flaky. They comprehend that the conflicts among Lebanese factions and the Syrian government in Damascus, or between Iraqi Shiites and Sunnis, are about something other than land disputes between Israel and the Palestinian Arabs. They have to do with religious differences among Arabs and with the effort by forces of evil to thwart freedom and democracy.


What little credibility the prince had was further shredded in the question and answer session, when he was asked about the flow of Saudi “foreign fighters” into Iraq. The minister referred to a report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, which he said showed that “the least amount of the fighters from outside are Saudis.” He claimed, “The Saudis who are going to Iraq are very few in number.” In fact, a May 19, 2005, draft of a CSIS paper on “Iraq’s Evolving Insurgency” by Anthony Cordesman reported “Reuven Paz calculated in March 2005 that some 200 suicide bombers could be documented and that 154 had be killed in the previous six months. He estimated that 61% were Saudi, and 25% were Iraqi, Kuwaiti, and Syrian. … Evan F. Kohlmann found 235 suicide bombers named on web sites since the summer of 2005, and estimated that more than 50% were Saudi.”


The CSIS report mentions a front page Washington Post story from May 15, 2005, headlined “‘Martyrs’ In Iraq Most Saudis.” It might have well mentioned, as well, an NBC News online story from June 2005 headlined “Who Are the Foreign Fighters in Iraq? An NBC News Analysis Finds 55 Percent Hail from Saudi Arabia.” The prince might get a warmer reception on his next visit to America if he stopped trying to drive a wedge between America and Israel and focused on trying to stop Saudis from killing innocent Americans and Iraqis.

NY Sun
NEW YORK SUN CONTRIBUTOR

This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.


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