Glick - Saudi Arabia's exploitation of Palestinian UN bid

Caroline Glick
carolineglick.com
12 September '11

http://www.carolineglick.com/e/2011/09/saudi-arabias-exploitation-of.php

(Today I've also posted Jonathan Tobin's "Saudi Bluff on Palestinians Fools No One" addressing the same editorial, but arriving at a different conclusion. Yosef)

The Saudis effectively ended their strategic alliance with the US in the aftermath of the US-supported overthrow of Hosni Mubarak. Since then the Saudis have strengthened their ties to China and Russia and from what I understand have refused to sign any new oil contracts with the Americans.

Now in this op-ed in the New York Times, the Saudis are hitching a ride on the Palestinian UN bid to justify their previous abandonment of America.

As my readers are well aware, I think that the US's abandonment of Mubarak was one of the greatest strategic errors the US has ever committed. But of course, the Saudis can't play the populist/leader of the Muslim world card by opposing the mob in Cairo. And so they never announced their breach with their US patron, which in their mind had lost all credibility as an ally when it ditched Mubarak. But the Palestinians and the war against the Jews is the great populist issue in the Muslim world. And so, aside from everything else, the PLO's UN initiative gives the authoritarian likes of the Saudis a perfect excuse for publicly acknowledging their previous abandonment of the US.

Moreover, the increasingly anti-Jewish American Left will seize on the Saudi claim as proof that the US's alliance with the Jewish state is undermining America's standing in the Arab world.

Oh dear. Things are getting uglier and uglier.

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White House Ignores Iran’s Help to Al-Qaida in its Passion over Jerusalem Apartments

Barry Rubin
The Rubin Report
20 March '10

The United States is at war with al-Qaida. Al-Qaida carried out the attack on the World Trade Center that killed 3,000 Americans. Al-Qaida is killing Americans in Iraq and elsewhere. So one would think the fact that al-Qaida has found a powerful ally would be a big story in the American media and by a big priority for setting off U.S. government anger.

And this would be especially so if that was explained by one of the most respected men in the country, a man who has access to the highest-level intelligence.

Not at all.

In the same testimony which created lots of discussion regarding remarks on the Israel-Palestinian issue, General David Petraeus, head of the U.S. Central Command, revealed a bombshell story that has been ignored: Iran is helping al-Qaida attack Americans.

Iran, he said in military-speak, provides "a key facilitation hub, where facilitators connect al Qaida's senior leadership to regional affiliates." Translation: Tehran is letting al-Qaida leaders travel freely back and forth to Pakistan and Afghanistan, using its territory as a safe haven, while permitting them to hold meetings to plan terrorist attacks for attacking U.S. targets and killing Americans. While nominally Iran sometimes takes these people into custody, that seems, Petraeus says, a fiction to fool foreigners.

Oh, and Petraeus added that Iran also helps the Taliban fight America in Afghanistan. Regarding Iraq, the general explains, "The Qods Force [an elite Iranian military group within the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps] also maintains its lethal support to Shia Iraqi militia groups, providing them with weapons, funding and training,"

(Read full post)
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