WHAT DOES HE KNOW?

Ex-Kuwaiti Amb.: Kerry "catastrophic" for Mid East (AP, 7/7/2004)

It would be "catastrophic" for the Middle East if Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry was elected to the White House, a former Kuwaiti ambassador to Washington said in comments published Wednesday.

Sheik Saud Al Nasser Al Sabah, who was Kuwait's ambassador to the United States when Republican President George Bush formed a US-led coalition to liberate Kuwait from Saddam Hussein's Iraqi army in the 1991 Gulf War, said a Republican government would do a better job in solving the region's problems.

"If the American administration changes in November, it will be catastrophic ... because those Democrats do not understand a thing about foreign policy, and they lack the determination to make decisions the way (President George W.) Bush made them in Iraq and elsewhere," Sheik Saud told Al-Siyassah daily in an interview conducted recently in Kuwait.

Sheik Saud served as ambassador to Washington from 1981 to 1992 and also held the Gulf state's oil and information ministries. He currently holds no official post and his views do not necessarily reflect those of the Kuwaiti government.

Kuwait became a staunch Washington ally following the Gulf War, which ended Iraq's seven-month occupation of Kuwait. Kuwait, whose people regard the elder Bush as a hero, opened its territories and air space for the US-led coalition that invaded Iraq last year and toppled Saddam.

Kuwait, which was the only Arab country to openly support the war, depends on Washington and other Western allies for its defense. More than any of Iraq's neighbors, Kuwait wants stability and security restored in the war-ravaged country, fearing that terrorism and infighting in Iraq would spill into it.

Sheik Saud told the daily that he feared a Democratic government would "fumble" when making decisions about the Middle East.

"Our only hope is that this (Bush) administration will continue for the next few years to finish off dealing with our regional problems," he added. The younger president Bush is running against Kerry for a second term in this November's vote.

Sheik Saud said Kuwait was lucky that George Bush Sr. was in the White House when Saddam invaded in 1990, while he believed America's post-1991 Gulf War president Bill Clinton was not as firm with the ousted Iraqi leader.

"Democrats are isolationists and they don't like foreign politics," the former official said. "Republicans are totally different."

One would have to assume the Sheik wasn't among the so-called foreign leaders Sen. Kerry referred to here.