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DUBYA'S GROVEL
By RALPH PETERS
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
August 9, 2002 -- THE spectacle of President Bush groveling to Saudi bigots is a disgrace. The Saudis sponsor terror, export hatred, undercut American interests and kill Americans. They are our enemies. Period. History will marvel at this administration's insistence that they remain our friends.
After Sept. 11, Bush took an impressive stand against global terrorism, although his resolve has grown wobbly in recent months - especially in the Middle East. But his administration consistently turned a blind eye to Saudi culpability. Our president speaks of an "axis of evil," but ignores the nexus of evil in Riyadh.
The sad explanation seems to be that this oilman's administration cannot see beyond the lure of oil deals, past cozy historical relationships between American dynasties and the Saudi dynasty, or past the traditional wisdom that has served to protect only degenerate Saudi princes, not the American people.
Reluctantly, one is forced to wonder what the Saudi ruling family knows that might prove embarrassing to our current political leadership, were it to be revealed. Is this a case merely of strategic blindness, or of implicit blackmail? How can this administration berate Israel for defending itself, while begging Saudi forgiveness for a closed-door briefing?
The trigger for the latest orgy of kissing Saudi feet was an article in The Washington Post by one of our nation's finest reporters, Thomas E. Ricks, revealing that a Pentagon briefing to top insiders dared to question Saudi virtue and perfection.
President Bush & Co. immediately got on the phone to Prince Bunkum bin Bigot to insist we didn't really mean it, like a spineless husband caught cheating on camera. In this grotesque case, our president clearly forgot who he works for. Bush family friends or not, the Saudis are murderers. And their preferred victims are Americans.
The royal family doesn't do its own dirty work, of course - no more than they fight their own wars. Like mafia dons, they put out contracts. Some of those contracts are for oil deals or public-relations blitzes, or to buy influence-packing lobbyists inside the Beltway. Others involve money handed to terrorists to spread the cruelest imaginable perversion of a great world religion - in the end, the Saudis are even greater enemies to the future of the Islamic world than they are to the United States.
In fact, the comparison to the mafia is unfair to organized crime, since the mafia did have a code of honor, a sense of obligation and respect for women.
Having worked in Washington during the thought-police Clinton years, when even classified intelligence products had to be tailored to avoid offending one constituency or another, I had hoped that the change in administrations would mean we might return to honest assessments within our security community.
The contrarian briefing on the Saudis by a Rand Corporation associate - who likely will be exiled to assess traffic-light timing in Jellystone National Park - was exactly the sort of alternative presentation we need. But the administration's hysterical over-reaction to the report that freedom of speech had been exercised behind closed doors at the Pentagon portends another crackdown on fresh thinking.
How on earth can our intelligence system ever get better if its voices cannot speak honestly? If we are not permitted to consider alternative futures, we shall inevitably remain prisoners of the traditional wisdom that has failed us so tragically.
And what about alternative futures in the Middle East? The administration's lack of vision regarding the Saudis is compounded by Washington's desperate efforts to cling to past models in a rapidly changing world. At a time when our Saudi "friends" publicly and insultingly announce that we cannot use the multibillion-dollar military facilities we built on their soil to eliminate Iraq's dictator (a creature almost as dangerous and vicious as the Saudi ruling family), it's time to start asking hard questions.
It's also time to stop begging the Saudis. For anything.
Of course the Saudis don't want Saddam toppled, because a pro-Western regime in Iraq would be yet another alternative source of oil. Despite their whining about injustice toward the Palestinians, the Saudis like the Middle East situation just as it is. They want to retain as much oil-supply leverage over us as they can, and they're already worried about the nearly 50 percent decline in their share of exports to the United States since the days when they could afford to turn off the taps and throw our country into economic crisis. (Yeah, they were our "friends" back then, too.)
Let's do what Washington is too gutless to do and imagine, briefly, an alternative Middle East: Saddam's gone, the peoples who compose Iraq are free and the oil's flowing. Engagement with Iran helps the Iranian people oust the last desperate religious hardliners, and the oil's flowing.
And warrants are issued internationally for the arrest of every Saudi prince who has given money to terrorist organizations or otherwise sponsored the murder of Americans, making it clear that we really are serious about fighting terror everywhere. Those warrants would cause severe financial hardship to numerous European luxury hotels, casinos, high-end prostitutes, vintners and distillers, but life's tough.
Next, we let the House of Saud collapse like the house of cards it really is. Contrary to the woe-is-us warnings of the Washington intelligentsia ("Yes, Comrade Stalin, anything you say, Comrade Stalin!"), a more amenable, humane regime might emerge from the fall of the Bedouin billionaires who turned back the clock on Islam while lighting the global terrorist fuse.
If a fundamentalist regime emerges on the Arabian peninsula, it likely would be transitional. During that transition, the United States could - and should - administer Saudi Arabia's oil fields for the common good of the people of the region. That means money for schools that educate youth for a better future, not madrassas that wallow in old hatreds.
It means money for health care for the poor, not blood money for the families of suicide bombers. It means funds to build a legitimate, democratic Palestinian state free of armaments, terror and corruption. And it means justice for all, men, women and children, not medieval oppression, torture and religious persecution.
It is astonishing that the Bush administration cannot imagine a world without the Saudi ruling family. I certainly can. And it's a world that looks a great deal more humane for Muslims, Jews and Christians.
Mr. President, it is time to stop bending over to kiss Saudi feet and time to stand tall in the face of Saudi bigotry, corruption and terrorism.
Ralph Peters is a retired Army officer and the author of the new book "Beyond Terror: Strategy in a Changing World."
By RALPH PETERS
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
August 9, 2002 -- THE spectacle of President Bush groveling to Saudi bigots is a disgrace. The Saudis sponsor terror, export hatred, undercut American interests and kill Americans. They are our enemies. Period. History will marvel at this administration's insistence that they remain our friends.
After Sept. 11, Bush took an impressive stand against global terrorism, although his resolve has grown wobbly in recent months - especially in the Middle East. But his administration consistently turned a blind eye to Saudi culpability. Our president speaks of an "axis of evil," but ignores the nexus of evil in Riyadh.
The sad explanation seems to be that this oilman's administration cannot see beyond the lure of oil deals, past cozy historical relationships between American dynasties and the Saudi dynasty, or past the traditional wisdom that has served to protect only degenerate Saudi princes, not the American people.
Reluctantly, one is forced to wonder what the Saudi ruling family knows that might prove embarrassing to our current political leadership, were it to be revealed. Is this a case merely of strategic blindness, or of implicit blackmail? How can this administration berate Israel for defending itself, while begging Saudi forgiveness for a closed-door briefing?
The trigger for the latest orgy of kissing Saudi feet was an article in The Washington Post by one of our nation's finest reporters, Thomas E. Ricks, revealing that a Pentagon briefing to top insiders dared to question Saudi virtue and perfection.
President Bush & Co. immediately got on the phone to Prince Bunkum bin Bigot to insist we didn't really mean it, like a spineless husband caught cheating on camera. In this grotesque case, our president clearly forgot who he works for. Bush family friends or not, the Saudis are murderers. And their preferred victims are Americans.
The royal family doesn't do its own dirty work, of course - no more than they fight their own wars. Like mafia dons, they put out contracts. Some of those contracts are for oil deals or public-relations blitzes, or to buy influence-packing lobbyists inside the Beltway. Others involve money handed to terrorists to spread the cruelest imaginable perversion of a great world religion - in the end, the Saudis are even greater enemies to the future of the Islamic world than they are to the United States.
In fact, the comparison to the mafia is unfair to organized crime, since the mafia did have a code of honor, a sense of obligation and respect for women.
Having worked in Washington during the thought-police Clinton years, when even classified intelligence products had to be tailored to avoid offending one constituency or another, I had hoped that the change in administrations would mean we might return to honest assessments within our security community.
The contrarian briefing on the Saudis by a Rand Corporation associate - who likely will be exiled to assess traffic-light timing in Jellystone National Park - was exactly the sort of alternative presentation we need. But the administration's hysterical over-reaction to the report that freedom of speech had been exercised behind closed doors at the Pentagon portends another crackdown on fresh thinking.
How on earth can our intelligence system ever get better if its voices cannot speak honestly? If we are not permitted to consider alternative futures, we shall inevitably remain prisoners of the traditional wisdom that has failed us so tragically.
And what about alternative futures in the Middle East? The administration's lack of vision regarding the Saudis is compounded by Washington's desperate efforts to cling to past models in a rapidly changing world. At a time when our Saudi "friends" publicly and insultingly announce that we cannot use the multibillion-dollar military facilities we built on their soil to eliminate Iraq's dictator (a creature almost as dangerous and vicious as the Saudi ruling family), it's time to start asking hard questions.
It's also time to stop begging the Saudis. For anything.
Of course the Saudis don't want Saddam toppled, because a pro-Western regime in Iraq would be yet another alternative source of oil. Despite their whining about injustice toward the Palestinians, the Saudis like the Middle East situation just as it is. They want to retain as much oil-supply leverage over us as they can, and they're already worried about the nearly 50 percent decline in their share of exports to the United States since the days when they could afford to turn off the taps and throw our country into economic crisis. (Yeah, they were our "friends" back then, too.)
Let's do what Washington is too gutless to do and imagine, briefly, an alternative Middle East: Saddam's gone, the peoples who compose Iraq are free and the oil's flowing. Engagement with Iran helps the Iranian people oust the last desperate religious hardliners, and the oil's flowing.
And warrants are issued internationally for the arrest of every Saudi prince who has given money to terrorist organizations or otherwise sponsored the murder of Americans, making it clear that we really are serious about fighting terror everywhere. Those warrants would cause severe financial hardship to numerous European luxury hotels, casinos, high-end prostitutes, vintners and distillers, but life's tough.
Next, we let the House of Saud collapse like the house of cards it really is. Contrary to the woe-is-us warnings of the Washington intelligentsia ("Yes, Comrade Stalin, anything you say, Comrade Stalin!"), a more amenable, humane regime might emerge from the fall of the Bedouin billionaires who turned back the clock on Islam while lighting the global terrorist fuse.
If a fundamentalist regime emerges on the Arabian peninsula, it likely would be transitional. During that transition, the United States could - and should - administer Saudi Arabia's oil fields for the common good of the people of the region. That means money for schools that educate youth for a better future, not madrassas that wallow in old hatreds.
It means money for health care for the poor, not blood money for the families of suicide bombers. It means funds to build a legitimate, democratic Palestinian state free of armaments, terror and corruption. And it means justice for all, men, women and children, not medieval oppression, torture and religious persecution.
It is astonishing that the Bush administration cannot imagine a world without the Saudi ruling family. I certainly can. And it's a world that looks a great deal more humane for Muslims, Jews and Christians.
Mr. President, it is time to stop bending over to kiss Saudi feet and time to stand tall in the face of Saudi bigotry, corruption and terrorism.
Ralph Peters is a retired Army officer and the author of the new book "Beyond Terror: Strategy in a Changing World."
