How about off shore oil rigs?
Posted on 08/15/2002 4:25:17 PM PDT by Apollo
Intelligence sources believe that Saudi Arabia is quietly helping the establishment of al-Qaida in northern Iraq and nearby Syria, according to Geostrategy-Direct, the global intelligence news service.
Saudi princes are desperate to ensure the status quo and that means keeping Saddam in power, Geostrategy said.
The key Saudi fear is that the United States will create a democratic, pro-Western Iraq. Such a state would win tens of billions of dollars in foreign investment while its neighbors are ignored. At that point, why would Washington need Saudi Arabia?
The sources believe the leak of the Pentagon briefing last month on the future of Saudi Arabia was the clearest U.S. signal to the royal family that Washington is the only real friend Riyadh has. Take away U.S. protection and Saudi Arabia will be eaten by the wolves.
The sources point to another Pentagon briefing – by Max Singer, a longtime consultant to the Pentagon on the Soviet Union. Singer is considered a quiet and taciturn man who brought some cutting-edge strategic thinking to Washington on the post-Cold War era.
Singer's message to the Pentagon was that the United States should support a Shi'ite separatist movement in eastern Saudi Arabia. There, the Shi'ites already comprise a majority of the region, which contains most of the kingdom's oil and natural gas reserves. The Wahabis can keep the empty desert in the west.
This is likely why the Saudis have blocked a decision on the development of natural gas reserves in southeastern Saudi Arabia. Abdullah wants to launch the $30 billion project to explore and produce gas as well as build infrastructure. But the other Saudi princes are concerned that they will never ever see the results of such a gas project should Washington target the royal family.
I'd like to see the southern oil fields of Iraq joined with the eastern oil fields of Saudi Arabia and renamed Bush-arabia.
It would be tough for Alqaida to do anything there at all without being spotted. It's not remote, like Afghanistan used to be. The base is being whittled down daily.
It could make it more difficult for us to use Northern Iraq as a staging area to oust Saddam. It could also make things difficult for any post-Saddam democracy.
The two faced lying bitch has earned our hatred, and deserves to feel the wrath of a brutal American vengence.
Semper Fi
Too late, for the House of Saud -- you have all gone too far..
You have "messed" in your bread basket --- YOU now, are already among the ultimate targets.
Semper Fi
The Kurds might have a thing or two to say about this.
Making it more difficult for us is not the same as making it impossible for us. Unless they make it impossible for us, this action would guarentee we will come after Saddam.
It would make the post Saddam era more unstable and would mean we will be there longer.
How about off shore oil rigs?
But if I'm wrong it's not all bad - setting al Qaeda up in the desert in Iraq strikes me as the Saudi contribution to a target-rich environment. We may end up thanking them, or what's left of them, for that little favor.
There are several reasons. One is oil. Right now Iraq is not selling any due to the embargo that is in place. If Saddam is removed, the new Iraqi government will need money. The best way to get it would be to dismantle the WMD programs and get the embargo lifted. If this new Iraqi government began selling oil it would cause prices to go down(greater supply=lower price\basic economics). Saudi Arabia has an aprox. $5 billion deficit this year. The last thing they need is for the price of oil to go down.
However, speaking of irrelevancy, I respectfully disagree that the third point is so, in fact, it may be more relevant to the discussion than the other two. The issue isn't whether the U.S. would allow Saddam (or any other external opposition, whoever that might be) to march in, although I would have to agree with you that we probably wouldn't, it's whether the U.S. will protect the current Saudi government from their internal opposition. Here it sort of depends on whom the internal opposition is - if it's merely another faction of the current ruling family, possibly not, if it's a fundamentalist faction supported by the Wahabbis, intent on turning Saudi Arabia into an Islamic republic, then things get very interesting and all bets are off. In that case, too, the ostensible deployment of al Qaeda resources in Iraq may have little to do with Saddam at all...
Here speculation gets a little wild and I'd better stop. If it reaches this point we're in for some real instability in a very sensitive region - the Saudi calculation will be, as it always has been, how much we are willing to cede them in favor of stability. If they can no longer offer stability, and I suspect that may be increasingly the case, then this "friendship" everyone seems to be referring to will show itself to be the realpolitik it really is.
With Saddam in power Iraq is weak economically (little or no foriegn investment, not selling any oil, etc.), it poses little or no military threat to the Saudi's(U.S. protection), and Saddam distracts the rest of the world's attention from Saudi Arabia.
If Saddam is replaced the new government will most likely comply with the U.N. resolutions and thereby be able to sell oil. This will lower oil revenues for the Saudi's, who are already running a deficit. If the new government is a democracy it would be a natural ally for the U.S. and this would greatly diminish the Saudi's importance.
A democracy in Iraq would pose other threats to the Saudi's as well. The Saudi people may start to demand the same freedoms that would undoubtably be enjoyed by Iraqi's living in a democracy. A democracy in Iraq would most likely stregthen the Wahabbis in Saudi Arabia as well because it would add fuel to their anti-West fire.
As far as them funding fundamentalists in Iraq; it seems they may be trying to replace Saddam with someone that would be equally hostile to the U.S., thereby, in effect, maintaining the staus quo.
My point is that the Saudi rulers will be better able to defeat their internal foes with Saddam, or someone like him, in power.
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