DJ, I notice you very gradually and rather effectively placing me in a
corner regarding Bush and the Saudi influence in radical Islam. So
before you break out the paint brush, I better come clean. When this
subject first arose in the post-9/11 environment, I bought into the
argument that given the importance of Saudi oil, we (meaning the West,
not the USA) had too much at stake to confront the Royal Family.
However, as the funding continued, and if anything was growing, I
began to recognize that the same trait I admired in Bush, the
willingness to tell the world to go to hell and doing the right thing
was NOT being carried out in the KSA.
The fact is that we can no longer afford to permit the KSA to play
sugar daddy to the Muztards REGARDLESS of what the spineless Europeans
have to say. The KSA needs the USA just as badly as we need to keep
their oil on the market, and it is time we played that card.
Unfortunately, it will somewhat more difficult for Obama to pursue
such a policy. The only potential Western European ally we had in
such a change, Tony Blair, has been replaced by a man who resembles
Neville Chamberlain. I suspect Obama will have a very tough time
trying to sell such a policy to the Europeans, and I do not see him
anxious to launch a new initiative that will antagonize them.
The other possibility is that such a policy could topple the House of
Saud. If so, we need to have the military ready to seize the Saudi
oilfields, since the loss of these fields would send the world into
energy turmoil. This could probably not be accomplished in a timely
manner until we are at least 50% withdrawn from Iraq.