Youssef Ibrahim reports on the Saudi double game in the New York Sun (thanks to James):
…For half a century, the West has preferred to believe that its choice in Saudi Arabia is the moderate, friendly Saudi royal family or the wild-eyed, sandal-clad zombies of jihad, disregarding the seamless relationship between the two.
We have blithely ignored that Mr. bin Laden was a product and a protégé “” even a full-fledged member “” of the ruling establishment in Saudi Arabia. Indeed, his 52 brothers and other members of his family have intermarried widely with the royal family.
Since Abdulaziz Al-Saud founded his kingdom in 1932, power in Saudi Arabia has rested in the hands of one rabid group of Muslim jihadists: the 40,000 perfumed princes and princesses of the Saud tribal dynasty. They are the public face of Saudi Arabia, the folks who show up in the White House as ambassadors to America.
In Saudi Arabia, these royals nurture a vast entourage and infrastructure of palaces, attached mosques, religious schools, and charitable networks at home and, more important, abroad. These institutions are tied to elegant public princes, but also to many more we never see overseas. They dole out the money and in return demand blind obedience and a steady stream of Wahhabite devotees.
Saudi royal wealth has funded not only hundreds of religious schools inside the kingdom, but also hundreds more in Pakistan, Egypt, Afghanistan, Britain, America, and Asia. The network stretches far and wide, and Wahhabi recruits create the fodder that supplies suicide bombers for Hamas, the Taliban, Iraqi jihadis, and Pakistani-British transit bombers.
Read it all.