A Way Forward, a Look Back (Robert Parry)

[laststeamtrain]

A Way Forward, a Look Back

By Robert Parry
December 13, 2006


Prince Turki al-Faisal, the Saudi ambassador to Washington and the former chief of Saudi intelligence, informed the State Department on Dec. 11 that he had resigned after only 15 months on the job and flew home.

The unceremonious departure was seen as another signal of Saudi anger over Bush’s regional policies. In that view, Turki’s resignation was akin to the recall of an ambassador between two hostile states, albeit softened by Turki’s insistence that he was leaving to spend more time with his family.

Two weeks earlier, Saudi King Abdullah summoned Vice President Dick Cheney to Riyadh to express the kingdom’s displeasure with developments in Iraq, as the pro-Iranian Shiite majority gains the upper hand over the Sunni minority that dominated the country under Saddam Hussein.

The oil-rich Saudis, who represent the heart of Sunni power and influence in the Middle East, had long viewed a Sunni-led Iraq as a crucial buffer against the Shiite fundamentalists who gained control of Iran in 1979 by overthrowing the pro-U.S. Shah of Iran.

The Saudi royal family feared that Iran’s austere fundamentalism could spread across the Middle East, radicalizing the Shiite populations and threatening the pampered lifestyles of the Persian Gulf’s sheiks and princes. Iraq, with what was then the Arab world’s strongest army, was positioned to stop that.

So, in 1980, the Saudis privately conveyed to Saddam Hussein what they claimed was a “green light” from U.S. President Jimmy Carter for Hussein to attack Iran, according to a “top secret” document that then-Secretary of State Alexander Haig used to brief President Ronald Reagan in 1981.

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http://www.consortiumnews.com/2006/121306.html

[tom_paine]

1. Parry speaks the truth, but it is not certain it will play out this way

The future has yet to be determined.

But Bush and his cabal are sociopaths at heart, and Parry's views have often turned out to be prescient.

[KoKo]

4. (...)

[enough]

2. An excellent analysis by Parry, well worth reading the whole thing.

Thanks for posting this.

[KoKo]

3. What Parry proposes is interesting....

but the Neo-Cons and Think Tanks will never support it. Seems that Bush/Cheney's policies of creating havoc, chaos and war in the ME to "rearrange the map" is very popular with those groups still. And our Corporate Media seems to still favor Bush. It's the Corporate Media that must turn on them for anything to move. Corporate Mainstream Media has been their enabler for well over a decade and is embedded with the Think Tanks. Until that changes reasonable and rational solutions to the Middle East and terrorism don't have a prayer.

Bush/Cheney/Congress and the Media have truly wrought destruction and they don't even seem to realize it because whatever is going on seems to be profitable in some way for them.

It's such a disaster.....and they don't listen.

[Tellurian]

5. Exactly what I found lacking in Parry's analysis

He never addresses the motivation of "why" Bush remains undeterred from withdrawing from Iraq.
It is as if beyond labeling the neocons and their think tanks as the sole reason for US soldiers
to be risking their lives; Parry never ventures an opinion as to the money being made by Arms
Dealers and the logistics supplied by Halliburton and into who's pockets those moneys ostensibly arrive.
The Iraqi oil fields and the protection of same aren't even a foot note in Parry's article.

I read his article as full of ideological suggestions that on their own provide perfect solutions to problems that have plagued the ME for thousands of years. Unfortunately, I'm not impressed.