Maybe you're like me: Utterly, completely flummoxed by the Bush Administration's decision to sell $20 billion worth of arms to Saudi Arabia and other Gulf potentates. I mean, aren't these guys pretty actively backing Sunni insurgents in Iraq? And where did those 9/11 hijackers come from, again?
Chris Allbritton parses the Escher-esque political calculations behind the sale:
Condoleezza Rice denied there was any quid pro quo for the package, saying
“We are working with these states to fight back extremism.” Yeah, whatever. Back in Washington, undersecretary of state for political affairs Nicholas Burns didn’t get the memo, however, saying, “We would want our friends in the region to be supportive not only of what the United States is doing in Iraq, but of the Iraqi government itself.” Translation: of course it’s a quid pro quo.
"The problem with the Saudis, though, is that time and again they have proved to be unbribable and unmaneuverable," says Ha'Aretz's Shmuel Rosner.
This new deal with the kingdom is no more than another down payment, an attempt to ensure its future cooperation on a number of issues on which the Saudis should have cooperated long ago. The "Saudis have offered financial support to
Sunni groups in Iraq," and U.S. officials are increasingly concerned about its close Arab ally's "counterproductive" role in Iraq, the New York Times reported last week. This is one of many instances in which the Saudis have defied U.S. interests and played the double agent: working with Syria on the fate of Lebanon, orchestrating an agreement between rival
Palestinian groups Fatah and Hamas, allowing Saudi businessmen to keep an open channel to al-Qaida.
UPDATE: Reps. Mike Ferguson, Anthony Weiner, and Robert Wexler say they'll author legislation "to block the arms sales."
