April 13, 2005
Al Quada Schism?
John Gibson is reporting that there may be a schism in the top leadership of Al Qaeda, with the Nominal leader, Ossama bin Laden, wanting to continue attacking targets in the US, and his number two, Ayman al-Zawahiri, wanting to take controll of another Muslim country to provide for a base of operations to replace the one they had in Afghanistan from which to spread their terrorism. His target of choice seems to be Saudi Arabia.
It would seem that Zawahiri is taking the long term position, while Osama just wants to concentrate on the "Great Satan". IF this schism is reality, it would be to our benefit to exploit it.
As much as I find the present government In Saudi Arabia to be an abhorrent dictatorship, if we don't support their efforts to defend their autonomy, we may find that we will have a much worse enemy to contend with there in the near future. I am wondering if we may just be able to use this opportunity to steer the Saudi government onto a path more ameaneable to the freedom of it's citizens? We do need to help provide protection to the Kingdom to prevent it from becomeing an Al Quada tool, but there is no reason that that protection can't come with a price tag for the present Saudi system.
Those on the Left have long accused the West of propping up dictatorships in the ME, and to some extent they are correct; that we did interfere somewhat with the internal politics of the region. It must be realized however that sometimes you have to deal with what is, to prevent something worse, and with oil reseves there vitaly necessary to the economic well being of the Industrialized West, it may be that some of the past actions were justified in the context of the times. It must also be remembered that most of the administrations that conducted those past actions were controlled by the Democrats, so it's disingenious of them to try to proclaim their innocence in those actions now.
Now however, there is a new paradiegm, and a chance to change the ME for the better, especially for it's own resident population. We cannot let past actions make us fear to seize the opportunity to effect dramatic change now. The future existance of a free West is depending upon it. Otherwise, we will founder under continual war against those for whom the West represents everything they despise in their religious fanatacism, and the common residents of the ME will suffer even worse than we will, at least initially.
I have felt for a long time that Osama is dead. Or at least in very poor health. Yes, I know we've seen tapes of him but they are after all tapes.
This would explain why there have been no more attacks on US soil since 9/11. I believe Osama was the driving force behind attacking the US while Zawahiri is more focused on re-gaining and securing a strong hold in the Middle East. I can even see why he might choose Saudia Arabia as the most likely target. Irag and Afghanistan are currently out of the question with all the presence of US forces. Iran has too strong a leadership to allow Al Qaida much wiggle room. The Saudi's have been wishy washy in their allegiance to the US. Their royal family is connected to Bin Laden and therefore have weaknesses where he is concerned. Of course there are other factors as well.
I disagree with you on only one issue. "...administrations that conducted those past actions were controlled by the Democrats..."
Both parties have done their fair share of propping up dictatorships in the ME. But if I had to say one or the other were more guilty it would have to be the administrations of Regan and Bush Sr. Even now, Bush battles with Iraq, he does nothing to steer Saudi royalty toward a more democratic government.
As for religious fanatics, we have way too many of those in our own government. I often wonder how long before we have our own American Taliban. One only need to look at the persistance by the right that religion be involved in every aspect of our lives. From schools, to our judicial system.
"Both parties have done their fair share of propping up dictatorships in the ME. But if I had to say one or the other were more guilty it would have to be the administrations of Regan and Bush Sr."
One problem with your thesis Wanda...The policies were first set in the Truman administration...most of the subsequent policies were just continuations of the status quo. And remember that, even under Reagan, the majority party was still the Democrats. Reagan's genius was that he was effectively able to bypass the governmental wonks of the Democratic party and get the PEOPLE to provide the pressure on their Democratic representatives to enable him to get his policies into play.
The first President that tried to significantly change the policy was Jimmy Carter, which led to the takeover of Iran by the Mad Mullahs, not to mention the gas lines caused by OPEC seeing that they were dealing with a man that didn't have the cojones to stick up for his country in what is a messy political area of the world. The Arab world view is one where the only thing that is respected is raw power, and the will to use it. That is slowly changing now, but at the time, the showing of weakness was the worst possible thing to do, and in many ways, has led to the current situation.
With that example of a disasterous result, it's no wonder that none of the following administrations tried any serious deviations from the "status quo" lest they get the same results in other countries in the ME.
Posted by: delftsman3 at April 15, 2005 01:15 PM