Beginning of the End?
Last post of the night, I promise.
It appears that the Saudis have some disgruntled citizens on their hands.
To be honest, I don't know what to think of this. Both major political parties have a history of good relations with the House of Saud. The Saudi and American governments have a common interest, in that al Qaeda thinks both are corrupt and wants to see both fall. Some of the things the Saudis have done as a response to terrorism have been questionable in my mind (particularly that amnesty they offered terrorists a few months ago).
I've heard that if elections were held tomorrow in Saudi Arabia, and bin Laden was a candidate, he'd win. We don't need another Iran; we need a moderate ally, like Qatar, Bahrain, or Kuwait. At the same time, I think that this cry for elections demonstrates the wisdom of our support of democracy in Iraq and Afghanistan; people in fundamentalist Muslim nations see that their neighbors are determining their own destinies, and it's making them hungry for freedom of their own.
I'll neglect to comment on Iran, but it's worth mentioning that the Iranian people are very interested in pulling out of the dead end they're headed for under the mullahs. If a moderate Islamic republic were established there, that would leave a wide swath of moderate or semi-moderate Islamic republics stretching from Pakistan to Iraq, all of them allied with the United States. Add to that Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, and Turkey, and all you're left with is a bunch of loose cannons like Syria and Lebanon.
See? It's bigger than weapons of mass destruction.
It appears that the Saudis have some disgruntled citizens on their hands.
An exiled dissident leader is calling for protest marches in two major Saudi cities in support of regime change in the oil-rich desert kingdom.
"The regime is unreformable," said Saad al-Faqih, from the UK-based Movement for Islamic Reform in Arabia (Mira).
The protests will take place peacefully on Thursday after noon prayers in Riyadh and Jeddah, Mr Faqih said.
To be honest, I don't know what to think of this. Both major political parties have a history of good relations with the House of Saud. The Saudi and American governments have a common interest, in that al Qaeda thinks both are corrupt and wants to see both fall. Some of the things the Saudis have done as a response to terrorism have been questionable in my mind (particularly that amnesty they offered terrorists a few months ago).
I've heard that if elections were held tomorrow in Saudi Arabia, and bin Laden was a candidate, he'd win. We don't need another Iran; we need a moderate ally, like Qatar, Bahrain, or Kuwait. At the same time, I think that this cry for elections demonstrates the wisdom of our support of democracy in Iraq and Afghanistan; people in fundamentalist Muslim nations see that their neighbors are determining their own destinies, and it's making them hungry for freedom of their own.
I'll neglect to comment on Iran, but it's worth mentioning that the Iranian people are very interested in pulling out of the dead end they're headed for under the mullahs. If a moderate Islamic republic were established there, that would leave a wide swath of moderate or semi-moderate Islamic republics stretching from Pakistan to Iraq, all of them allied with the United States. Add to that Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, and Turkey, and all you're left with is a bunch of loose cannons like Syria and Lebanon.
See? It's bigger than weapons of mass destruction.
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