September 12, 2003
IF ONLY WE'D DECALRED WAR ON THE SAUDS...
Memorial Day: How Bush squandered the chance to salvage American greatness from 9-11 (Michael Tomasky, 9/11/03, American Prospect)
This could have and should have been an era of unprecedented national -- indeed, international -- unity against a common enemy. President Bush could have gone to the other nations of the world and made a case for a new age of international cooperation against terrorism and fundamentalism. That cooperation, and that fight, would have been aimed squarely at the Taliban and at the House of Saud, and, to a lesser extent, at the smaller terrorist networks that operate in the Middle East. To be sure, this wouldn't have been easy. There would have been (as there are) vast disagreements between the United States and nations of Europe over how to deal with the Palestinian question and what to do about Saudi Arabia. But a historical process would have begun, and the United States would clearly and unambiguously have occupied the moral high ground in such a case. That United States would have been proposing a new and forward-looking framework for foreign policy, much as the "Wise Men" of the post-World War II period did. [...]There were and have always been good reasons for removing Saddam Hussein from power. But this excursion was retailed to us on false pretenses by a bunch of used-car salesmen, and now the deceptions and obfuscations have piled up. Iraq is the center of terrorism, as Bush asserted in his speech Sunday night? Well, if it wasn't it sure is now, as fundamentalists flock to Iraq to have a bash at the Great Satan.
It all could have been very different. We could have had an administration that responded to September 11 by saying, "Let's think about the best way to unite the civilized world in this fight."
We couldn't unite even our historic allies to fight Saddam Hussein--who as he says, there were good reasons to remove from power--but Mr. Tomasky thinks the world would have followed us if we'd waged a fight against the Sauds? The war with Saddam inflamed fundamentalists, but carrying it to Mecca itself wouldn't have? This may well be what the war comes to, but at that point it will be a crusade of Christendom vs. Islam, not a war on terror and an attempt to purge Islam of a metastisizing cancer. And it will be a crusade where we have even fewer allies than now. Posted by Orrin Judd at September 12, 2003 8:56 PM
Never mind, of course, what happens when you replace the House of Saud with something more representative of popular opinion there.
The House of Saud seems awful, until you stop to think about the alternatives.
Posted by: kevin whited at September 12, 2003 11:30 PMYou mean imagine a Taliban style government with control over $500B in oil reserves plus $40B in US arms sales including M1A2 Abrams tanks, AWACS, GBU-15 smart bombs, and F-15Es?
Gideon--
I could be wrong, but a "Taliban style government" would most likely outlive a mayfly, but not by much.
Arabs are terrific back alley men, bearers of grudges, back shooters, and settlers of scores. They are hell on wheels against helpless women and children, but haven't really fielded an effective conventional army since the days of Glubb Pasha, and the Arab Legion.
They're Arabs, Gideon. 'Nuff said.
Posted by: Mike James at September 13, 2003 1:07 AMTomsky only wants to fight the Saudis because we didn't fight the Saudis. Had that course of action been taken, he would have found Saddam to be the true nexus of all terrorist funding and dispersion of WMDs that could threaten the west.
However, since he has always parroted the beliefs of so many in the Democratic establishment so well over the years (one of the reasons I stopped subscribing to New York magazine), I would expect this to be be place where the eventual Democratic nominee for president will attempt to earn his bonafieds in foreign policy, by going after Bush for failing to overthrow the House of Saud. They wouldn't actually do anything if they were elected, of course, but they see this as Bush's biggest vunerability in the war of terror, and since in their hearts, they still don't take the war seriously -- or at least as seriously as they take the war over the 2002 Florida recount -- using those words as a meaningless political weapon in 2004 is perfectly reasonable.
Posted by: John at September 13, 2003 10:03 AM
Arab countries know perfectly well what they need to do to have effective armies. After all, they come here and we tell them. First of all, they need to push responsibility and initiative down into the ranks. The problem is that they don't dare let the people with guns know that they can also make choices. (The Russians had a similar problem, though for different reasons.)
The best short explanation for the impotency of Arab armies that I've ever seen was that Arab colonels have about the same level of responsibility and authority as American sergeants.
Posted by: David Cohen at September 13, 2003 10:27 AMTomsky and Chomsky are both fantasists. I'm surprised the article was published. However, it could stand as an example of using faulty logic in writing to support an unsupportable idealogical position ... intentionally. He couldn't be that stupid to believe it. Could he?
Posted by: genecis at September 13, 2003 11:51 AMWho said we were not going to do something to change the regime in Arabia? Strategy is necessary. If we had gone against Arabia first, we would have risked disrupting the global economy. No we picked the right target. The one in the middle, the one with sufficient reserves to cushion a shut down of the arabian fields.