Word: saudi
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...wasn't supposed to be this way. For many Americans, one of the key lessons of Sept. 11 was that the U.S.-Saudi alliance had become an extremely dangerous affair. The 9/11 commission called Riyadh "a problematic ally." Congress tried to impose sanctions, and President George W. Bush demanded that the monarchy embrace political reform. "Saudi Arabia used to have a lot of apologists in this country," declared Eliot Cohen, a member of Bush's Defense Policy Board, in 2002. "Now there are very...
...Iraq war was designed, at least in part, to free America from Riyadh's grasp. A friendly government in Baghdad would make the U.S. less reliant on Saudi oil. And a democratic government in Baghdad would pressure the kingdom to open its political system. Either Saudi Arabia's regime would change, or its relationship with the U.S. would change, or both...
...also brought a Shi'ite government to power in Baghdad, prompting panic in the region--and the White House--about Iranian domination of the Middle East. As a result, the Bush Administration is frantically trying to assemble a bloc of friendly regimes to contain Tehran--with Saudi Arabia, Iran's longtime rival in the Persian Gulf, as the linchpin. The Saudis have been working hard to make sure Iran's ally Hizballah doesn't overthrow Fouad Siniora's government in Beirut. They've been trying to reconcile the Palestinians, partly to wean the militant Hamas from its funders in Tehran...
Rice may see the new divide in the Middle East as pitting responsible governments against extremist ones, but in Riyadh, that means Sunnis vs. Shi'ites. According to the Iraq Study Group, individual Saudis have been funding the Sunni insurgency in Iraq. Last November an adviser to the Saudi government warned that if the U.S. withdrew its troops, the monarchy would arm Sunni insurgents. Saudi clerics have stepped up their denunciation of Shi'ites as heretics. And King Abdullah has endorsed toxic rumors that Shi'ites are trying to convert Sunnis to their faith...
...exacerbating existing tensions between Sunnis and Shi'ites and reanimating long-dormant ones. In Lebanon, some Hizballah supporters seeking to topple the government in Beirut chant the name of radical Iraqi cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, whose militia is blamed for thousands of Sunni deaths. In Sunni Arab countries like Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Egypt, sympathy for Sunnis in Iraq is spiked with the fear, notably in official circles, of a Shi'ite tide rising across the Middle East, instigated and underwritten by an ancient enemy of the Arabs: Iran...