There are a few other memorable statements in this New Duranty Times (aka New York Times) article about Saudi nervousness over Iran, but that was the best one. There is also a great deal here about the Sunni-Shia rift that will continue despite our efforts to paper over it. "Bickering Saudis Struggle for an Answer to Iran’s Rising Influence in the Middle East," by Hassan M. Fattah in the Times, with thanks to all who sent this in:
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia, Dec. 21 — At a late-night reading this week, a self-styled poet raised his hand for silence and began a riff on neighboring Iraq, in the old style of Bedouin storytellers.“Saddam Hussein was a real leader who deserved our support,” he began, making up the lines as he went. “He kept Iraq stable and peaceful,” he added, “and most of all he fought back the Iranians.” He continued, “His one mistake was invading Kuwait.”
This "self-styled poet" is apparently proceeding from the standpoint of Saudi security, not Islamic assumptions, for otherwise he would have denounced Saddam as a hypocrite. But Islam does end up being brought into the picture by others:
Across the kingdom, in both official and casual conversation, once-quiet concern over the chaos in Iraq and Iran’s growing regional influence has burst into the open.Saudi newspapers now denounce Iran’s growing power. Religious leaders here, who view Shiism as heresy, have begun talking about a “Persian onslaught” that threatens Islam. In the salons and diwans of Riyadh, the “Iranian threat” is raised almost as frequently as the stock market.
Shiism threatens "Islam." A loaded choice of words.
“Iran has become more dangerous than Israel itself,” said Sheik Musa bin Abdulaziz, editor of the magazine Al Salafi, who describes himself as a moderate Salafi, a fundamentalist Muslim movement. “The Iranian revolution has come to renew the Persian presence in the region. This is the real clash of civilizations.”
Sheik Musa bin Abdulaziz has been inhaling too much of his own propaganda if he really believes Israel is a threat to Saudi Arabia. And "this is the real clash of civilizations"? Between Sunni and Shi'ite? This is an example of the depth of this division, and how it could be exploited, as Hugh Fitzgerald has tirelessly pointed out here, to keep the heat off the infidels.
Many here say a showdown with Iran is inevitable. After several years of a thaw in relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia, Saudis are growing concerned that Iran may build a nuclear bomb and become the de facto superpower in the region.In recent weeks, the Saudis, with other Persian Gulf countries, have announced plans to develop peaceful nuclear power.
Oh, peaceful nuclear power! Why, that's just what the Iranians are developing! It's interesting that the Times would juxtapose this to a paragraph about the Iranian nuclear threat, as if to signal that no one in the entire world takes these protestations of peacefulness seriously.
Saudi officials publicly welcomed the Iraqi Harith al-Dhari, whose Muslim Scholars Association has links to the insurgency, during a visit in October, and they have indicated that they may support Iraq’s Sunnis over the majority Shiites with links to Iran. All were meant to send a message to Iran.“You need to create a strategic challenge to Iran,” said Steve Clemons, senior fellow and director of the American Strategy Program at the New America Foundation. “To some degree, what the Saudis are doing is puffing up because they see nobody else in the region doing so.”
Yes, and neither is the United States. So far.
The saudi journo is actually right, evenas anti-israeli as he is...saudi is more fearful of iran than Isreal. After all, the saudi royal family is what stopped us in the first gulf war, and ONLY them...they wanted to teach saddam a lesson, not kill him, as they were far more afraid of iran than even saddam...and they were right on that part.
Not that we need yet another islamic state with nukes, but the house of saud is on the verge of collapse itself if it doesn't maintain its iron grip on its own, 70% of which hate their guts, and will cause saudi to collapse in on itself.
A set of dominos about to crash is in the making...james baker anyone?
Well, at least they now have found something to distract them from Israel.
In the Middle East there is a saying: "Me against my brother, my brother and I against my cousin, my brother my cousin and I against...." and so on and so forth.
You can be certain that the Saudis, and other Sunni countries in the region, will be banging on the white house door, demanding that the U.S. take some preemtive action against the threat of Iran. And when the U.S. agrees, the Saudis and their Sunni brothers will fade into the background, and pretend that, like good Muslims, they never encouraged any Infidel power to make war against a fellow Islamic state. And they certainly won't offer any public material or moral support. That might enrage their Wahkabi constituents who keep them in power.
If anyone thinks that George Bush attacked Iraq without the proding of Saudi Arabia, they're living in a dream world.
If Sunni nations in the region start demanding -- behind closed doors, of course -- that we take action against Iran, we should offer them all the planes, bombs and targets they need, and tell them to do it themselves. If we should use ground troops, they should be required to contribute an equal number of divisions as our own.
If they're not willing to support us openly, let em save their own asses for a change.
Iran hangs Arab separatists
Ummah News Links
Iran has much to fear from the powerful Saudi military. (NOT)
Iran was once a stable ally whose leader, for all his faults, kept the troops in line and Iraq in its place until Jimmy Carter decided he wasn't pure enough to be an American ally.
Then Iraq, whose leader was once named the most dangerous person in the world by US News and World Report, suddenly became our "buffer" against a militant Iran.
Now, after almost three decades of terrorism, Iran is suddenly "a danger" to Islam? What's next, that Israel is Sunni Islam's only defense against a Shiite-dominated Islam? Imagine the Saudis signing a mutual defense pact with Israel! Next thing you know, the Jews will be allowed to return to their original homes in Mecca from whence they were evicted by Mohammad.
Get our people out of there NOW and let the Saudis fester in their own doo-doo. They've earned it.
Many Azeris see Iranian hand behind wave of unrest
Ummah News Links
Iran has much to fear from the powerful Saudi military. (NOT)
Posted by: exsgtbrown
I am not so sure. Sunni militants will pour into arabia to protect Mecca from the Shia. Also when was the last time Iran won a war???????
200 perhaps 300 years ago...
I am not impressed by the Iranian military despite all the fancy new stuff they have.
Also god help them if the Turks get into it. Talk about the muslims version of "Britain vs. France". What a ass whooping that would be. Heck the Turks could take over the whole dam area....
Not that I would want that....but it could happen. Just look at the Turkish military supplied with U.S. equipment and look at the rest of the muslim nations in the area....
Even if they all combined they would not stand a chance.
Let me pose this question to Robert or Hugh...
What if Turkey gets into it? Lets say instead of stopping at Kurdistan they go all the way to Mecca. They restablish a greater Turkey bringing back memories of the Ottoman Empire???
Of course all their military hardware comes from the US but they are the only one if push came to shove could produce their own equipment. Is this good or bad????
Food for the mind...
Sounds like it's time to export lots of Pampers to Saudi Arabia because those rich fat cats are soiling their drawers. And well they should, because even though Iran is no match for the US they will probably kick the hell out of the Saudis even with their US hardware. This is wonderful-the two biggest troublemakers in the region fighting each other makes one drool. Let them get it on!
“His one mistake was invading Kuwait.”
That was one of the very few intelligent statements from any Arab in a loooong time. I don't care how many Shiites he killed and tortured. Who out there in cyberland does?
Saddam would not have been the first thug we ever made an alliance with against a bigger threat. The first one was Stalin against NAZI Germany. Think of all the petty little dictators we supported during the Cold War. And that reminds me of that different petty little (place your favorite dirty word here) who adandoned the Shah.
Sad to say, like our temporary "alliance" with stalin is, once the first threat was eliminated, it only ended up substituting one threat for an even bigger one.
Though I still believe in civilians making policy, this is one reason I hate it, as George Patton did, and is repeatedly proven right on...
...the problem with politicians is they always stop short & leave us with another war to fight.
Aggravating as hell, but the alternative is even less palatable.
They don't pay us enough for this BS, lol.
I think it's long overdue that we see a significant realignmnet among the Islamic powers in that whole region. And a little (non-nuclear!) fireworks might provide just the distraction from their war against the Great & Little Satans! I'm beginning to detest the whole lot of 'em!
Is dubya going to fight Saudi's war like daddy did?
O/T but interesting:
Egyptians demand that Israel hand over Eilat to Palestinians
By David Bedein December 22, 2006
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It will be remembered that the 1967 war broke out after Egypt closed the straits of Tiran and strangled the trade from Israel's southern port city of Eliat.
Yet it is hardly known by anyone that Egypt has staked a claim to the city of Eilat, ever since Egypt lost Eilat to the nascent state of Israel in the wake of the Israeli defeat of the Egyptian army in the 1948 war and the expulsion of the Egyptians from this southern port city on the Red Sea.
Now, in wake of recent reports about plans to dig a canal linking the Red Sea on the Israeli side and the Dead Sea on its Jordanian side, a fiery argument broke out in Egypt's parliament, with the MPs speaking out against the "Israeli plot to choke the Suez Canal to death."
In the course of the debate, which has been going on in parliament for the last two days, Abed el-Aziz Sayef a-Nasser, an aide to the Egyptian foreign minister, was called as an expert witness. A-Nasser is the director of the Egyptian Foreign Ministry's legal department.
"Eilat, or by its former name Umm Rashrash, belongs to the Palestinians," he said, representing the opinion of the Egyptian Foreign Ministry.
His predecessor, Dr. Nabil el-Arabi, was the head of the Foreign Ministry's legal department and headed the delegation for negotiations at Taba. He also emphatically declared: "Eilat belongs to the Palestinians."
A-Nasser's response was meant to calm tempers in the rowdy debate in the Egyptian parliament, after dozens of opposition representatives demanding holding negotiations to have Eilat returned to Egyptian sovereignty.
Opposition MPs recruited several legal experts, international law lecturers and experts on geography and topography who showed documents and opinions that Eilat is territory that belongs to Egypt and was captured in 1949 by Israel. They contend that the Egyptian negotiating team to Taba conceded Eilat to Israel 20 years ago "in the framework of the wish to build confidence and to display Egyptian good will in the spirit of the peace
agreement."
This was not the end of the matter. An Egyptian international law expert presented an intermediate position in parliament: "Eilat belongs formally to Egypt and administratively to the Palestinians."
In the debate in parliament two days ago, an opposition MP, Mohammed el-Aadali, whipped out a document from 1906 which states, in the name of the Ottoman sultan: Umm Rashrash belongs to Egypt. In this spot-said the Egyptian experts on topography and geography-Egyptian pilgrims would stop and rest on their way to the holy cities in Saudi Arabia.
Another document brings testimony relating to 350 Egyptian police who were in Umm Rashrash just before it was captured in March 1949 and who were killed in battles with IDF soldiers.
Significantly, in the debate among the Egyptian MPs, the experts and the Foreign Ministry officials, no mention is made of possible legitimate Israeli sovereignty of Eilat. The debate in Cairo is between two camps: the Egyptian Foreign Ministry which claims that Eilat belongs to the Palestinians, and the opposition MPs who claim that Eilat belongs to Egypt.
The opposition Egyptian MPs threatened yesterday to relay their demand for an Israeli withdrawal from Eilat to the Arab League to handle. Despite Israel's 1979 peace treaty with Egypt, the Arab League's 1948 declaration of war to liquidate the state of Israel remains in force. While Egypt was the kingpin of the Arab League from 1948 until 1977, the current dominant power in the Arab League is Saudi Arabia, which remains in a consistent state of war with the Jewish State until the present day. To that end, Saudi Arabia finances all Islamic terror groups that fight Israel, and continues to forbid any Jew from stepping on the soil of the Saudi kingdom.
http://web.israelinsider.com/Articles/Politics/10120.htm
Having Arabia dragged into a new Shiite-Sunni war would be like a dream come true, like 1980 all over again, those were the days, those were the salad days for Infidels everywhere, those were...
... I, I think I'm gonna be verklempt!
I agree with Alarmed Pig Farmer any thing that promotes Shia-Sunni violence is fine by me. They're already edging around Iraq like the scavengers they are and the Saudis are already sweating about a Shia bomb. This one even said Iran is worse than Israel that's a huge thing for a Muslim to say! Hopefully they will use nuclear weapons on each other first.
I see it, in years to come, we, the U.S. will have to slap them all down once and for all; it's only a matter of time. We invented the mess and it'll have to be by us, to destroy it. Nuclear is not safe for anyone.