Doublespeak as Diplomacy

Submitted by Frank Luke (United States), Dec 27, 2010 at 18:26

It is common knowledge that governments in the middle east say things they want their audiences to hear in order to gain some advantage from the audience-of-the-moment. We can be sure many leaders from that part of the world will have mixed feelings about various issues. The Saudis would not be too eager for Iran to develop nukes because Iran would then dictate terms to Saudi Arabia. The house of Saud would be well aware that nukes in the hands of Americans is not as great a threat to their land as nukes in the hands of other Islamic nation would be (to their land and to the house of Saud in particular). However, in order to appease the masses in their lands, they would need to resort to "supporting a moslem nation against a non moslem nation".

Note: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Daniel Pipes. Original writing only, please. Comments are screened and in some cases edited before posting. Reasoned disagreement is welcome but not comments that are scurrilous, off-topic, commercial, disparaging religions, or otherwise inappropriate. For complete regulations, see the "Guidelines for Reader Comments".