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Goodman: In recent weeks, lawmakers have repeatedly warned about the role played by foreign militants in Iraq, but the focus has not been Saudi Arabia, but Iran. This is what Independent Senator Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut said on ABC's This Week with George Stephanopoulos:
Lieberman: I had an Arab diplomat say to me two weeks ago that what is happening in the Middle East today reminds him of what happened in Europe during the 1930s, when Nazi Germany began to make moves and the rest of Europe and the United States did not act quick enough to stop the Second World War. He was talking about Iran. Iran is on the move in Iraq, Lebanon, Palestine and Afghanistan. And if we pull out of Iraq, Iran and al-Qaeda are the victors. And so, my answer is, as long as we have a reasonable chance of success in Iraq, then I am going to say it's worth it for us to stay, because if Iran and al-Qaeda take over Iraq, they will destabilize the entire Middle East, and they will strike at us here at home ... with more frequency and ferocity.
Goodman: I also want to bring into this conversation Toby Jones, former Persian Gulf analyst with the International Crisis Group, completing a fellowship at Swarthmore College, teaching history at Rutgers University this fall.
Can you elaborate on what the reporter in Baghdad was talking to us about?
Toby Jones: It's certainly not breaking news that Saudis have been involved in Iraq since early in 2003. As early as 2004 and 2005, when I was last in the Gulf for an extended period of time, there were figures tossed about by both Saudi officials and citizens alike that there were upwards of 2,500 to 3,000 Saudis to that point who had traveled from the kingdom to Iraq to participate in the insurgency. I think the kingdom has done a better job in recent years trying to crack down on the flow of militants back and forth between the two countries, but it's certainly unable to control or stem the tide completely.
And that's compounded by an additional problem that Saudi security and police officials are unable to or have proven unwilling to crack down on the ideologues within the kingdom who foment both anti-American sentiment and a growing anti-Shiism, which simply supports or provides secour to Saudis who desire to go and fight in the jihad.
Gonzalez: But then the press attention and the emphasis of our political leaders in this country don't deal with the fact either that so many of the foreign fighters are coming from Saudi Arabia or that they are retraining and regrouping in Pakistan, in terms of the continuing war of al-Qaeda. These are, of course, two American allies in the Middle East.
Jones: It's symptomatic of the war more generally, in that the United States has proven mostly incapable of managing the political forces that are driving violence in both of those two places. It's unwilling to sacrifice its alliances for whatever -- however it defines its interests in the region. In the case of Saudi Arabia, it's both because the US considers Saudi Arabia to be a stabilizing ally, perhaps ironically, given its role in destabilizing Iraq, and Pakistan similarly in Central Asia. So the inability of the United States to manage its political affairs at this point shouldn't come as much of a surprise, but I think that's the lesson, also, about the question of addressing Saudi fighters in Iraq, is that the US has been disinterested, more inclined to talk about Iran and the regional threat that Iran allegedly represents than the details on the ground.
Goodman: Toby Jones, can you talk about the prisoners who have just been released from Guantanamo to Saudi Arabia, like Dossary and then the Lackawanna Six, the people Upstate New York in Buffalo, the Yemenis who were arrested?
Jones: Well, I mean, the number of Saudis in detention in Guantanamo is decreasing steadily over time. They're being repatriated, released back into Saudi custody. So that number is diminishing. What's happening to those former detainees in Saudi Arabia is unclear. Some of them are being tried, others are being released into the care of their families. Their fates after that is unknown. That reflects more generally Saudi Arabia's handling of the militant question more generally, in which it attempts to sort of regenerate or rescue militants from their radical ways.
With respect to Dossary's trip to Upstate New York, you know, my understanding is that he, according to the Washington Post, gave some rousing talks to audiences in Lackawanna, and, of course, we have six alleged members of al-Qaeda from New York who have been arrested and gained quite some notoreity. I can't speak specifically to Dossary's role in any of that. I'm not familiar with his personal experiences in the region, but I think that it shouldn't be surprising that the detainees and others have traveled back and forth and globally to preach radical messages. That doesn't necessarily indict him or any of the other detainees with specific acts of militancy or terrorism.
Goodman: And Vice President Cheney going to Saudi Arabia, what is his connection with Saudi Arabia and Saudi Arabia's concerns in Iraq right now not wanting troops to be pulled out?
Jones: Well, Cheney, along with Bush -- and, really, it must be said that the United States has maintained a close relationship with Saudi Arabia since the mid-1940s, so arguments that the Bush family represents some parallel to the House of Saud as a kind of a dynastic American political family are really wide of the mark. The United States has made very clear that it's willing to protect its interests in the Persian Gulf, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, including with military force.
Cheney's interest in pushing Saudi Arabia quietly -- I mean, the fact that Cheney gets sent, as opposed to more high -- somebody who's willing to take a high-profile media position, indicates that the US wants to push quietly behind the scenes, but is interested in pressuring the Saudis to deal seriously with both the question of the insurgency and how Saudi Arabia might be involved more productively in Iraq.
As for Saudi Arabia's perspective, I think it understands that it faces a paradoxical dilemma in Iraq. On the one hand, it fear the rise and perhaps a rise to hegemonic power of a Shia-dominated Iraq. Whether Shia Iraq acts as a proxy for Iran or not, it threatens Saudi Arabia's sense of hegemony in the Gulf. Secondarily, and contradictorily, it also fears instability in Iraq. So it would like to see the United States stay in Iraq in order to contain the insurgency as best as possible so that it doesn't spill over Iraq's borders and into the Gulf, but at the same time it sees the US is strengthening Shia power in Iraq. So Saudi Arabia is struggling much like other powers are in figuring out how best to determine its policy there.
Gonzalez: And how stable is the Saudi government itself, vis-à-vis its own population and its own domestic unrest? It has a significant Shia minority within Saudi Arabia itself, in addition to obviously a much more radicalized youth in its population.
Jones: I don't think Saudi Arabia is poised to topple anytime soon. Of course, those could be famous last words, but Saudi Arabia has proven resilient. It's very strong. It's managed to crack down severely on its own domestic al-Qaeda threat. We might argue that it's shipping fighters off so that it deflects pressure on itself. The royal family is mostly united at this point. There are future concerns about succession after King Abdullah passes. Sultan will take over, but there is no indication that they've resolved who will then be third in line to power, and that could open Saudi Arabia up to internal rivalries within the royal family.
As for Saudi Arabia's Shia population, there are about 1.5 to 2 million Shias who reside mostly in the eastern province. The region is strategically sensitive because it's where all of Saudi Arabia's oil is. Most Saudi Shias have pursued a political line of accommodation and reconciliation since the early 1990s. They've sought to be included in the national political system. That hasn't worked particularly well, but they've not radicalized significantly.
There should be a concern that there will be an Iraq effect on al-Qaeda's strategic thinking more broadly outside of Iraq and that the anti-Shiism endemic in Iraq may spread, become a strategic approach that al-Qaeda adopts outside of Iraq. And that makes Shia communities in Bahrain, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, like in Pakistan, vulnerable to future strikes.
__________________ The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it. United State Constitution, Art. I Sec. 9 Par. 2
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