Eye-opening claim by Stephen Schwartz that the current insurrection in Iraq is being spearheaded by Saudis:

'Arab-language media, including Saudi newspapers and Web sites, have disclosed that Saudi subjects make up the overwhelming majority of the "foreign fighters" involved in suicide terrorism in Iraq, from Fallujah to Baghdad, and from Mosul to Basra. But Ali al-Ahmed of the Saudi Institute, and other Saudi dissidents, complain that U.S. authorities have failed to compel the Saudis to shut off the flow of jihadists northward. Instead, 26 prominent Saudi clerics, most of them paid by the regime, signed a fatwa on Nov. 5 calling for continued jihad against the United States and the new military and police structures in Iraq. None of the signatories--all of them adherents of Wahhabism, the official Islamic sect in Saudi Arabia--has been questioned or suspended from religious duties since the fatwa was issued. In addition, the terrorist responsible for a Christmas Eve fuel-truck bombing in the Mansour neighborhood of Baghdad, which killed nine people, has been identified as a Saudi subject, 23-year-old Ahmad Abdallah Abd al-Rahman al-Shayea, of Riyadh. And so the deception continues.The bottom line remains the same as it was on Sept. 11: President Bush has to call the Saudis to account for their financing of the Wahhabis and their terrorism.'

Indeed. From the start of the war on terror, the US has failed to act against its Saudi ally. When the history of this whole saga comes to be written (if anyone remains in the west to do so) it will surely be seen that far from the gung-ho war-monger that he is painted by his enemies, President Bush failed to act against the rogue state that -- along with Iran -- is the fount of the jihad against the west, and yet seems to have le tout Washington in the folds of its robes.

Posted by melanie at January 6, 2005