Excellent Post and Comments over at TPC: " Should we Worry About Saudi Threats?"

[KoKo]

(This is an excellent read in full and the comment section, too.)


Should We Worry About the Saudi Threats?
By Vali Nasr | bio

These are nervous times for Saudi Arabia. The Kingdom appears to have thrown its customary caution to the wind. In Opinion pieces, through leaks and in face-to-face talks with the Vice President who was hastily summoned to Riyadh, Saudis are expressing their deep frustration with the turn of events. Their long investment in Lebanon is coming undone, Iraq is breaking up into a hostile Shia unite and a potentially troublesome Sunni “al-Qaedaland”, both sharing borders with the Kingdom. More worrisome, the Shia-Sunni conflict in Iraq has somehow metamorphosed into a broader Saudi-Iranian competition at a time when Iran seems to hold most of the cards—in Iraq and Lebanon, and over the Palestinian issue. Iran is emerging as a hegemon with nuclear capability at a time when U.S. staying power in the region is open to question. Saudis fear an aggressive Iran, but perhaps fear even more an opening in US-Iran relations—which would then confirm Iranian status in the Persian Gulf and relegate them to second-class regional status. Not a surprise that King Abdullah has objected to U.S.-Iran talks.

The Kingdom’s response to this depressing turn of events has been uncharacteristically risky. First Riyadh reached out to Tel Aviv in the hope of putting together an anti-Iranian front. Then Riyadh bluntly threatened to use the oil weapon against Iran, and finally, upped the ante by threatening to support the Sunni insurgency in Iraq if the U.S. were to hastily withdraw its troops. The threat is a surprise and a worry. To begin with, it undermines the stated U.S. policy these days that the best way to get the attention of Iraqi leaders is to threaten them with leaving. Saudis seems to be signaling that the insurgents need not worry; Riyadh will come to their help. But beyond running at cross purposes with Washington rhetoric on Iraq, the Saudi strategy runs in the face of America’s commitment to the war on terror. All Saudi Arabia has to offer is funding jihadis!

More at.........

http://www.tpmcafe.com/blog/americaabroad/2006/dec/18/should_we_worry_about_the_saudi_threats

[Kikosexy2]

1. Let the Saudis...

and Iranians duke it out over Iraq and our troops can leave...Let's remember that it was Saudi hijackers/terrorists who attacked us on 9/11. Time they pay a price for the 9/11 and the Iraq fiasco...Goes to show the Bushies and Darth Dick are nothing more than the Saudis' bitches...

[KoKo]

3. It's not that easy....and it's a good post and read if you are interested

in what's going on with the Saudi's and how we can get out of Iraq sooner. Good insight from some of the comment on the thread, too.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

2. Last paragraph quite telling

bold face put in by me:

All this is a throwback to the decade leading up to 9/11. In the 1980s and 1990s Saudis confronted Iran by funding radical Sunnis, especially in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The result was Taliban and jihadis in Pakistan, and al-Qaeda’s war on America. The West was collateral damage to a containment policy gone wrong. Saudis could set jihadis on a war path with Iran—and they did well there—but then could not control the Frankenstein they had created. We are still dealing with the consequences of that strategy. America has for long followed a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy when it comes to Saudi ties to militant groups. We looked the other way before 9/11, and we have probably been looking the other way while they have been supporting the insurgency. We cannot afford to let Saudis mount another global jihad campaign. Iran presents serious challenges, but support for radicalism is not the answer. The cost is too high. Jihadism is not a clean weapon, and Saudis have shown they cannot control the demons that they create. It looks like Saudi Arabia has not learned anything from 9/11. Let us at least hope that Washington is smarter this time around. Let us also hope that Prince Turki al-Faysal, the architect of Saudi Arabia’s jihad strategy of the 1980s and 1990s, did not abruptly leave his post as Ambassador to Washington to take charge of the new jihad campaign.

[KoKo]

4. yes....very interesting perspective in the article with view of

Saudi's involvement. The "monster" they created which our Media and Government don't ever want to talk about....

[bobthedrummer]

5. Here in HOMELAND (TM) one of the main functions of James A. Baker III

has been to conceal the Saudi connections to the BFEE.

Even though the poodle is still UK PM there are more serious questions being raised across the pond since this goes directly back to Reagan/Bush/Thatcher IranContra and using BAE "commissions" to fund Osama bin Laden, another Saudi by golly-that's the BFEE.

"Saudi inquiry decision faces legal challenge" (Guardian)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/armstrade/story/0,,1973356,00.html

More background on this
http://cryptome.org/soil/soiled-dove2.htm

[KoKo]

7. Thanks for links...and since Baker Represented Saudi's against 9/11 Families

one wonders about ANY credibility about whatever he does. Amazing how the MSM never REPORTED that Baker Represented SAUDI's AGAINST 9/11 VICTIMS FAMILIES....

Corrupt Corporate MSM....

[bobthedrummer]

10. The BFEE uses perception management, mind control, classical conditioning,

psychological operations all in the context of "strategic influence"-like the programs of the "closed" Office of Stategic Influence called for outside of the US--except that that's precisely what we have here in HOMELAND (TM)-yet some of us seem to be immune to it.

And when this is pointed out it is met with silence or ridicule, both considered "appropriate responses" by the BFEE, which would rather have people mesmerized by the latest celebrity sex scandal or the newest information on some meaningless fake science finding conveyed by the fake "journalists" instead of getting the indictments on the criminals and traitors that have occupied and corrupted the Executive, the Legislative and Judicial branches.

How many people are aware that the leading force behind that "closed" Office of Strategic Influence was former USAF General Simon P. Worden who now as a "civilian" is in control of NASA's most powerful supercomputer and many of the space-based systems of who knows what at the Ames Research Center???

Here's another link that gets into much of the components of this BFEE propaganda machine, which a humble person with access to the Internet used to be able to circumvent-until network centric information warfare was inexplicably loosed domestically by privatized and governmental organizations...

"Reality vs. perception management: the tinfoil controversy"
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x71919

[Jcrowley]

13. Kick for this post

Needs to be revisited and updated. Excellent links throughout but it seems much was left untouched.

Kudos

[cosmicdot]

14. knr'ing this thread to knr the 'reality v. perception' thread

n/m

[KoKo]

6. Kick for the "After Work Crowd."

:kick:

[moondust]

8. Bush's intransigence

may be due in part to Saudi pressure behind the scenes, probably related to oil. It's pretty radical to defy the Joint Chiefs, Congress, the voters, and the rest of the world.

[cool user name]

9. Kicking ...

[BleedingHeartPatriot]

11. Quoting Michael Moore in F 9/11..."Who's your daddy?" n/t

MKJ

[bobthedrummer]

12. kick

[David Zephyr]

15. Thanks for the link and commentary.

:thumbsup:

[leftofthedial]

16. America has little to worry about

if we were allowed to, within a few years, we could be independent of foreign oil.

THAT is what the threat is about--not a threat against us, but rather a threat against the oil bidniz boys who run our country