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Home > Saudi Arabia and 9/11: The Kingdom May Be in for a Nasty Shock
________________________________________
Saudi Arabia and 9/11: The Kingdom May Be in for a Nasty Shock
By Patrick Cockburn [1] / The Independent [2]
April 27, 2016
Foreign leaders visiting King Salman of Saudi Arabia have noticed that there
is a large flower display positioned just in front of where the 80-year-old
monarch sits. On closer investigation, the visitors realised that the
purpose of the flowers is to conceal a computer which acts as a
teleprompter, enabling the King to appear capable of carrying on a coherent
conversation about important issues.
One visiting U.S. delegation meeting with King Salman recently observed a
different method of convincing visitors-or at least television viewers
watching the encounter-that he can deal with the escalating crises facing
Saudi Arabia. The king did not look at the group but at a giant television
screen hanging from the ceiling of the room on which was appearing prompts.
Simon Henderson, the Saudi expert at the Washington Institute for Near East
Policy, who tells the story, writes that off to one side in the room was an
aide who "furiously hammered talking points into a keyboard."
Of course, King Salman is not the only world leader past or present whose
inability to cope has been artfully concealed by aides and courtiers. But
eyewitness accounts of his incapacity does put in perspective the claim by
the White House that President Obama's visit to Saudi Arabia and two-hour
meeting with the king on April 20 was "cordial" and cleared the air after a
troubled period in Saudi-U.S. relations.
It is hardly a secret that real authority is shifting to Crown Prince
Muhammad bin Nayef and his son, Deputy Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman. But
the power vacuum does help explain the bizarre and self-destructive nature
of present-day Saudi foreign policy that suddenly shifted from cautious use
of Saudi Arabia's vast oil wealth to further its aims, while always keeping
its options open, to a militarised and confrontational pursuit of foreign
policy objectives.
It is not exactly that the Saudi's priorities have changed, but that the
means being used to achieve them are far riskier than in the past. Since
King Salman succeeded to the throne, Saudi Arabia has escalated its
involvement in the war in Syria and engaged directly in an air war in Yemen.
Both ventures have failed: greater support for armed opposition to President
Bashar al-Assad in Syria early last year allowed the rebels to advance, but
also provoked direct Russian military intervention, making Assad very
difficult to displace. Bombing Yemen has not forced the Houthi opposition
out of the capital Sanaa and, where the Houthis have retreated, there is
chaos which al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula has used to set up their own
mini-state on the south coast of Yemen.
The Saudi leaders are more or less openly saying that they are waiting for
the departure of President Obama from the White House to resume their status
of most favoured ally of the U.S. The permanently anti-Saudi bias of the
present administration, though usually verbal rather than operational, came
across clearly in the interviews with Mr Obama and his top officials in the
Atlantic by Jeffrey Goldberg. He says that "in the White House these days,
one occasionally hears Obama's National Security Officials pointedly
reminding visitors that the large majority of 9/11 hijackers were not
Iranian, but Saudi."
But the Saudis are making a mistake in imagining that hostility to them will
dissipate once Mr Obama leaves office. There is renewed pressure for the
release of the unpublished 28 pages in the official Congressional 9/11
report on possible Saudi official complicity in the attacks, with CBS's
influential and widely watched 60 Minutesdevoting a segment to it, thereby
putting it back on the political agenda. "Saudi Arabia legitimises Islamic
extremism and intolerance around the world," states an op-ed by Nicholas
Kristof in The New York Times. ""If you want to stop bombings in Brussels or
San Bernardino, then turn off the spigots of incitement from Saudi Arabia
and other Gulf countries." Not only is there a growing anti-Saudi mood in
the U.S., but it is one of the few political developments common to both
parties.
In reality, the missing 28 pages in the 9/11 report on possible high level
Saudi involvement may not be as categorical or as damaging to the Kingdom as
the fact of their continued non-publication. The secrets that Saudi Arabia
has most interest in hiding may be rather different, and relate to
allegations that between 1995 and 2001, two senior Saudi princes spent
hundreds of millions of state funds paying off Osama bin Laden not to make
attacks within Saudi Arabia, but leaving him free to do whatever he wanted
in the rest of the world.
Patrick Cockburn is a Middle East Correspondent for the Independent. He has
written four books on Iraq's recent history-The Rise of Islamic State: ISIS
and the Sunni Revolution, Muqtada al-Sadr and the Fall of Iraq, The
Occupation, and Saddam Hussein: An American Obsession (with Andrew
Cockburn)-as well as a memoir, The Broken Boy and, with his son, a book on
schizophrenia, Henry's Demons, which was shortlisted for a Costa Award.
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[1] http://www.alternet.org/authors/patrick-cockburn
[2] http://www.theind.com
[3] mailto:corrections@xxxxxxxxxxxx?Subject=Typo on Saudi Arabia and 9/11:
The Kingdom May Be in for a Nasty Shock
[4] http://www.alternet.org/
[5] http://www.alternet.org/%2Bnew_src%2B
Published on Alternet (http://www.alternet.org)
Home > Saudi Arabia and 9/11: The Kingdom May Be in for a Nasty Shock
Saudi Arabia and 9/11: The Kingdom May Be in for a Nasty Shock
By Patrick Cockburn [1] / The Independent [2]
April 27, 2016
Foreign leaders visiting King Salman of Saudi Arabia have noticed that there
is a large flower display positioned just in front of where the 80-year-old
monarch sits. On closer investigation, the visitors realised that the
purpose of the flowers is to conceal a computer which acts as a
teleprompter, enabling the King to appear capable of carrying on a coherent
conversation about important issues.
One visiting U.S. delegation meeting with King Salman recently observed a
different method of convincing visitors-or at least television viewers
watching the encounter-that he can deal with the escalating crises facing
Saudi Arabia. The king did not look at the group but at a giant television
screen hanging from the ceiling of the room on which was appearing prompts.
Simon Henderson, the Saudi expert at the Washington Institute for Near East
Policy, who tells the story, writes that off to one side in the room was an
aide who "furiously hammered talking points into a keyboard."
Of course, King Salman is not the only world leader past or present whose
inability to cope has been artfully concealed by aides and courtiers. But
eyewitness accounts of his incapacity does put in perspective the claim by
the White House that President Obama's visit to Saudi Arabia and two-hour
meeting with the king on April 20 was "cordial" and cleared the air after a
troubled period in Saudi-U.S. relations.
It is hardly a secret that real authority is shifting to Crown Prince
Muhammad bin Nayef and his son, Deputy Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman. But
the power vacuum does help explain the bizarre and self-destructive nature
of present-day Saudi foreign policy that suddenly shifted from cautious use
of Saudi Arabia's vast oil wealth to further its aims, while always keeping
its options open, to a militarised and confrontational pursuit of foreign
policy objectives.
It is not exactly that the Saudi's priorities have changed, but that the
means being used to achieve them are far riskier than in the past. Since
King Salman succeeded to the throne, Saudi Arabia has escalated its
involvement in the war in Syria and engaged directly in an air war in Yemen.
Both ventures have failed: greater support for armed opposition to President
Bashar al-Assad in Syria early last year allowed the rebels to advance, but
also provoked direct Russian military intervention, making Assad very
difficult to displace. Bombing Yemen has not forced the Houthi opposition
out of the capital Sanaa and, where the Houthis have retreated, there is
chaos which al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula has used to set up their own
mini-state on the south coast of Yemen.
The Saudi leaders are more or less openly saying that they are waiting for
the departure of President Obama from the White House to resume their status
of most favoured ally of the U.S. The permanently anti-Saudi bias of the
present administration, though usually verbal rather than operational, came
across clearly in the interviews with Mr Obama and his top officials in the
Atlantic by Jeffrey Goldberg. He says that "in the White House these days,
one occasionally hears Obama's National Security Officials pointedly
reminding visitors that the large majority of 9/11 hijackers were not
Iranian, but Saudi."
But the Saudis are making a mistake in imagining that hostility to them will
dissipate once Mr Obama leaves office. There is renewed pressure for the
release of the unpublished 28 pages in the official Congressional 9/11
report on possible Saudi official complicity in the attacks, with CBS's
influential and widely watched 60 Minutesdevoting a segment to it, thereby
putting it back on the political agenda. "Saudi Arabia legitimises Islamic
extremism and intolerance around the world," states an op-ed by Nicholas
Kristof in The New York Times. ""If you want to stop bombings in Brussels or
San Bernardino, then turn off the spigots of incitement from Saudi Arabia
and other Gulf countries." Not only is there a growing anti-Saudi mood in
the U.S., but it is one of the few political developments common to both
parties.
In reality, the missing 28 pages in the 9/11 report on possible high level
Saudi involvement may not be as categorical or as damaging to the Kingdom as
the fact of their continued non-publication. The secrets that Saudi Arabia
has most interest in hiding may be rather different, and relate to
allegations that between 1995 and 2001, two senior Saudi princes spent
hundreds of millions of state funds paying off Osama bin Laden not to make
attacks within Saudi Arabia, but leaving him free to do whatever he wanted
in the rest of the world.
Patrick Cockburn is a Middle East Correspondent for the Independent. He has
written four books on Iraq's recent history-The Rise of Islamic State: ISIS
and the Sunni Revolution, Muqtada al-Sadr and the Fall of Iraq, The
Occupation, and Saddam Hussein: An American Obsession (with Andrew
Cockburn)-as well as a memoir, The Broken Boy and, with his son, a book on
schizophrenia, Henry's Demons, which was shortlisted for a Costa Award.
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Report typos and corrections to 'corrections@xxxxxxxxxxxx'. [3]
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Source URL:
http://www.alternet.org/world/saudi-arabia-and-911-kingdom-may-be-nasty-shoc
k
Links:
[1] http://www.alternet.org/authors/patrick-cockburn
[2] http://www.theind.com
[3] mailto:corrections@xxxxxxxxxxxx?Subject=Typo on Saudi Arabia and 9/11:
The Kingdom May Be in for a Nasty Shock
[4] http://www.alternet.org/
[5] http://www.alternet.org/%2Bnew_src%2B
