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KUWAIT: A Kuwaiti Islamist MP presented a request yesterday to question the Gulf state's only woman minister, a liberal who has been under hardline fire for refusing to wear a head scarf.Nouriya Al Subeeh had stirred the anger of Islamist MPs when she took the oath in parliament in April without wearing a head cover in line with strict Muslim laws. Since then she has been under scrutiny by Islamist MPs and could be dismissed if the grilling leads to a parliamentary no-confidence motion against her. -- from this news article
This is the kind of story that helps rip the mask off of the sheikhdom depicted in 1990-91 as "plucky little Kuwait," a splendid little sheikdom that was the victim of Saddam Hussein and Iraq. Plucky little Kuwait, brave little Kuwait, Kuwait the Soft, Kuwait the Victim, Kuwait the So-Much-More-Moderate-Than-Saudi-Arabia, brave little plucky little Kuwait saved by its age-old friends the Americans, who came in 1991 to save it from the rapaciousness of Saddam Hussein. And in so doing the Americans earned gratitude so eternal that it lasted as long as it took the first President Bush to come and collect, when out of office, a million dollar speaker's fee, and a few other well-placed Americans (was Clinton one of them? James Baker? I forget) to pocket similar sums for a half-day's work.
That eternal gratitude must have lasted at least 3-4 years. Then Kuwait, not the Kuwait represented by a handful of members of this or that family (Fouad Ajami visiting them from time to time) that sends its children to the American School of Kuwait, but all the other Kuwaitis, revered to type, to the type of all societies and peoples suffused with Islam.
The Gulf War certainly made sense as far as the ruling families of Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, the U.A.E., and Saudi Arabia were concerned. But did it, the original Gulf War, make sense for the long-term interests of Infidels? What if Saddam Hussein had captured and held the oil riches of Kuwait?
What then? What would Saudi Arabia have done? Saddam Hussein's army could not simply march into Saudi Arabia. The American Air Force could have destroyed it as it marched across the desert. Would Saddam Hussein have managed to appeal to the people who live in Saudi Arabia? Not to the Wahhabis, who would regard his brand of Sunni Islam -- just look at the freedoms of Iraqi women -- as far too secular. Not to the Shi'a in the Eastern Province, where the oil is produced: Saddam Hussein was the arch-enemy of the Shi'a. The Al-Saud would very likely have had to embrace, as they never really have embraced, the American government, and it would have been ready to pour out huge sums for a guarantee of protection against a more powerful, and closer, Iraq.
That would have been a good thing. We want the Al-Saud to be worried. We want them to have to worry about whether or not their enemies, foreign and domestic, will be held in check by the powerful Americans. We want to force them to give us far more of their unmerited wealth, for such protection, and thereby have less to spend on mosques, madrasas, and campaigns of Da'wa.
And what would Saddam Hussein have done had Iraq been able to take over Kuwait, and make it a province of Iraq? Would he not, over the next decade, have used that wealth to try again to destroy once and for all the "Persians" of Shi'a Iran? And would he not have been supported in such a new effort by the Saudis themselves, both because they would take his side against those "Persians" of Shi'a Iran, but because they might hope that he would once again be in an endless war with Iran, with Iraqi military might confronting the human-wave techniques of the basiji? For this would keep both Saddam Hussein and the Islamic Republic of Iran busy for a long time.
The American government at the time was intent on "protecting Saudi Arabia," and it saw things one-dimensionally. It could not conceive of how mischief-makers and megalomaniacs can sometimes be used, or at least not prevented from acting, in ways that, objectively, help the Camp of the Infidels, and damage the Camp of Islamic Jihad.
Posted by Hugh at January 2, 2008 9:23 AM
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Foggy Bottom is apt name for those have been schooled by funds provided by the house of saud. middle east specialists, what humbug!
Posted by: lonewolf![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/nav-commenters.gif)
at January 2, 2008 10:25 AM
A council was held; lots were cast... What about "plummy voice"? Don't we always get a "plummy voice" with "plucky little"?
Posted by: jsla at January 2, 2008 11:06 AM
Yes, plucky little countries often have a ruler or two with a plummy voice. Prince Hassan of Jordan, another plucky little country (four times the size of Israel, a country never described as "little" by the BBC or anyone else), has a "plummy voice" and has been described as possessing such, at Jihad Watch, on many occasions.
Posted by: Hugh at January 2, 2008 11:12 AM
The Kuwaiti Royals paid cold hard cash for their nation's rescue from Saddam's barbarian horde. Why does anyone expect them to feel any gratitude toward Infidel mercenaries hired to do their fighting for them?
Posted by: lilgadfly at January 2, 2008 3:26 PM
The American government, and certainly the people it claims to represent, were under the illusion that they were protecting a brave little, plucky little country, overwhelmed by Saddam Hussein's myrmidons. It also thought it was saving, from conceivable future attack, our "staunch ally" Saudi Arabia. It was reimbursed for much of the expense of the Gulf War, partly by such "Arab allies" because they had been rescued, from invasion (Kuwait) or threat of invasion (Saudi Arabia). They of course thought of Americans as their hired help (Military Division). But Americans did not think of themselves this way, and do not, and many American airmen stationed in Saudi Arabia have been made furious by the way in which they are treated as hired help by the Saudis.
Tell Americans they are being employed as Hessians, and those "Hessians" will promptly turn on their heels and leave, and that will be the end of any American protection for these unpleasant regimes and peoples.
Posted by: Hugh at January 2, 2008 4:02 PM
That is brilliant analysis Hugh. The only thing apart from murderous ideology, what has caused the spread of Islamic empire is the short sighted, self centered goals and stupidity of dhimmi rulers. The difference between USA and those which it is fighting are astronomical, yet the pretense of moral superiority and dhimmitude and self centered attitude of politicians make leaves no hope for infidels. At least we will be able to live freely as infidel and won't be given the choice of conversion or submission. However, we can only hope that for our children and even more remotely so for grandchildren. The destruction of civilization will be caused by the urge to be morally superior.
Posted by: pagan at January 2, 2008 10:40 PM
Hugh wrote: " We want to force them to give us far more of their unmerited wealth, for such protection, and thereby have less to spend on mosques, madrasas, and campaigns of Da'wa. "
Saudi Arabia loves for America to pay the price for the war in Iraq. As a result of America funding the war in their neighboring country, more Saudi dollars can be used to fund the worldwide expansive plan to convert all nations to Islam.
It is a fact that Saudi Arabia is by far the largest worldwide donor for mosques, madrasas, and the campaigns of Da'wa.
The house of Saud will gain much from the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Curtailing the Iranian (Shia) influence in the region is clearly a national interest of Saudi Arabia, however, the house of Saud actually contributes hardly any money to fund the U.S. war in Iraq.
Question: What are the consequences of the U.S. not asking the house of Saud for money to "stabilize" the region around them?
Answer: As Hugh correctly explained, more Saudi money will be channeled to Islamic causes- of the Whabbi sort.
Perhaps it isn't fair to blame the U.S. for the spread of Saudi Whabbi activity around the world.
But it is clear that an unintended consequence of America's funding of the Iraq war campaign is that more Saudi dollars will be spent to fund and promote Islam around the world.
Saddam was never a huge contributer to Islamic Da'wa. He held a Stalinistic approach to religion.
On the other hand, the house of Saud has done far more to promote the campaigns of Da'wa (Islamic missionary work) than Saddam ever did when he was alive. Yet Saddam was viewed as a more evil person who had to be eliminated. What legacy will historians in the future consider to be worse for the Middle East and the rest of the world: the House of Saud or Saddam's control over Iraq?
I can already hear historians saying how much Islam blossomed in the 20th and early 21st century due to the riches of the Saudi Kingdom. Saddam will never be credited for helping Islam to blossom.
Islam is much more ingrained in Saudi Arabia than it is in Iraq. The house of Saud has grown rich due in large part to America's penchant for oil.
America's foreign policy has shielded Saudi Arabia from its enemies while it has refused to ask for financial support- aside from gas contracts, support in OPEC, and some corporate alliances.
It is time for the U.S. to elect a leader who will put Saudi Arabia in its place and not allow the U.S. to be used as a doormat by the Saudis.
at January 3, 2008 2:30 AM
Hugh said
The Gulf War certainly made sense as far as the ruling families of Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, the U.A.E., and Saudi Arabia were concerned.
Yes. The Gulf War was never "about the oil". As you have pointed out, oil is fungible, somebody would have been pumping it and selling it, whether it was the Emirs or Saddam or someone else. It, the first Gulf War and the second, were about protecting a set of business partnerships, with some members on the Arabian Peninsula and some in Washington D.C.
And in D.C., political affiliation is subsumed to a more universal pursuit.
Posted by: special_guest at January 3, 2008 2:46 AM
Kuwait is not a real country but a political construction separated from the Basra Vilayet by Imperial Britain to reward the Al-Sabah family for services rendered. When Saddam sent in his army to end this false division of Basra, the al-Sabah's turned on the propaganda and dragged the US into the Iraqi quagmire.
Many may remember the young Kuwaiti girl, claiming she was a hospital intern, and testifying before Congress about how Saddam's evil army even took the incubator's out of the maternity ward of the Kuwait hospital along with other horror stories. Later it turned out that the tearful young woman was not only an Al-Sabah herself, but the daughter of the Kuwaiti Ambassador to the US. During the Iraqi invasion she was actually attending an elite prep school in Georgetown and had not been in Kuwait since she was eleven.
But by that time the lies no longer mattered. The US had already committed its army to restore the al-Sabah's billions and protect the Saudis against the evils of the Ba'ath secularism with which Saddam "threatened" the Muslim world. Now, thanks to US intervention, Arab secularism has been finally killed off and the world is safe for Saudi sponsored jihad.
Posted by: Provoslavni at January 3, 2008 2:42 PM
Me thinks the Bush's have never needed much persuading to help out the Saudi's and Arab's with cash. Considering what W is trying to do to Israel nothing surprises me about them any more.
Learning a bitter lesson in reality.
at January 4, 2008 4:28 PM
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