The Saudis Are Still Pulling Our Strings

With Friends Like This ...

JIDDAH, Saudi Arabia — Saudi Arabia's foreign minister said Wednesday that the kingdom soon will open an embassy in Baghdad for the first time since Saddam Hussein's 1990 Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, a step the U.S. has pressed the Saudis to take.

The announcement by Prince Saud al-Faisal came after a Riyadh delegation returned from Iraq, where al-Faisal said it had investigated the possibility of the embassy's opening.
"After we received the delegation's report, it is expected that an embassy will open soon," al-Faisal told reporters in the Red Sea port city of Jiddah.

The United States has pushed the kingdom to open an embassy in Baghdad as a sign of support for the government of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, which Sunni Saudi Arabia has kept at arm's length and often criticizes as biased against Iraq's Sunni Arab minority.

An umbrella insurgent group of Iraqi Sunni Muslims — Jihad and Reform Front — has warned Riyadh against the opening, saying in a recent Web posting that the move would only comfort the Shiite-dominated government.

... Sunni Saudi Arabia would presumably act as a deterrent to Shiite Iran. The problem is; the Saudis are the ones most responsible for financially supporting Islamic terrorism! Does this make sense to anyone?...

Meanwhile ... Saudi Arabia will probably skip a Mideast peace conference called by President Bush if it doesn't tackle substantive issues such as the status of Jerusalem and Palestinian refugees, the kingdom's foreign minister said yesterday.

Saud al-Faisal's remarks echoed the skepticism of other Arab leaders over a meeting Washington has billed as a major step forward but whose agenda and participants remain unknown.

"The kingdom sees no benefit in any peace meeting or conference if it is not comprehensive and if it doesn't tackle major issues," Faisal said. "If the conference doesn't provide these things, then the kingdom's participation is doubtful."

... if memory serves, President Bush met with those former NAZIs, the "Saudi Royal Family" very quickly after 9-11. Just who runs the Executive Branch of our government? - It makes me wonder.