What goes around, comes around on terror
Tuesday, July 20, 2004 at 11:36AM "Saudis Facing Return of Radicals: Young Iraq Veterans Join Underground," by Craig Whitlock, Washington Post, 11 July, p. A1.
"President Says U.S. to Examine Iran-Qaeda Tie: Sept. 11 Terrorists May Have Been Given Aid," by Philip Shenon, New York Times, 20 July, p. A1.
More and more evidence that the young men prone to terrorism that Saudi Arabia has been exporting all these years are increasingly returning to the kingdom with violent designs on the House of Saud.
Saudi Arabia is in a tough spot, which is exactly where they should be in a long-term strategy to transform the Middle East political scene. If Iraq continues to boil, all it does is generate more opportunities for Saudis to go there and cut their teeth as terrorists. And when it settles, guess who's coming for dinner?
Like their compatriots in Iraq, cells operating in Saudi Arabia have repeatedly stated that their primary aim is to drive out all "infidels," including more than 100,000 Western expatriates who help run the country's oil industry and whose military and technical support is crucial to the Saudi government.
If the House of Saud is set to get its just desserts, then Iran is also likely to come under increasing fireófrom the U.S. With Iraq out of the way, the biggest security issues in the Gulf are: 1) Iran's rather open support for terrorist networks in the region; and 2) their push for nukes. Expect to see the Bush Administration begin seeding the long-term narrative on that confrontation. If Iran pushes hard enough on the WMD and doesn't come clean enough on its long-term support for terrorists, it could easily rise to the top of the heap of either a re-elected Bush Administration or a new Kerry one, giving Kim Jong Il just that much more time for mischief as he awaits his inevitable turn.
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