To Prof Eidelberg..

Submitted by J.S. (Canada), Nov 8, 2006 at 17:35

I also wondered about the Saudi connection with the U.S. But, there's another interesting take on the problem. There was a column written by George Jonas on May 30, 2005 (published in the National Post), entitled: "The Genius of Prince Abdullah."

It is Jonas's arguement that Abdullah and his ilk run around funding the radical Islamists as part of a strategy to keep themselves in power. It is because the alternative (ie, a democratically elected Osama bin Laden) is so much worse!

The synopsis of the article states: "At first blush, the Royal House's politics make no sense. Saudi princes appear to subsidize their enemies. The royals of Riyadh dispense their largesse among the fanatics of Islam, the followers of Wahhabism, the proponents of theocracy. It's puzzling, for these ultra-conservative Islamists accuse King Fahd and his tribe of having betrayed Saudi interests to America. They're Osama bin Laden's followers, sometimes hands-on as the terrorists of 9/11, but minimally as sympathizers. It seems suicidal for the House of Saud to support them.

Yet support them it has, with [Abdullah] in the lead. ...[snip] Do despots have a defence against such high-minded treachery, American-style? Yes: They can make any alternative to themselves unmistakably worse. By breeding their own Wahhabi opposition, the Saudi princes leave nothing to chance. Democratic reform in Saudi Arabia raises the spectre of al-Qaeda. Much as George W. Bush supports democracy, he's unlikely to abandon his royal ally Abdullah to a democratically elected Osama bin Laden."

Now that is (you have to admit) pretty much the "genius" of Abdullah, eh?

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