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James Woolsey |
" Saudi Arabia is a very complex country. Many of our
current problems I think derive from the extraordinary influence
of the Wahabi sect, which has been allied with the House of
Sauds since the 18th century... The Wahabis hate all Jews, Christians,
and Muslims who aren't like them, and they like to lop off heads
and stone..." James
Woolsey, AEI seminar March 25, 2003 |
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Richard Perle |
" I think the task of discouraging the continuing funding
of this extremism from Saudi Arabia is an urgent task because
in all the discussion about the root causes of terrorism, the
one that it seems to me gets the least attention but is probably
the most important certainly in the near term is the substantial
amount of money that is available for extremist indoctrination
through madrasas and other institutions. That's where the most
fanatical suicidal terrorists are coming." Richard
Perle, AEI seminar March 25, 2003 |
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Shiites |
" No one wants [Iraq] to disintegrate. It's not in the
interest of Saudi Arabia, which mortally fears a Shiite-led
government in southern Iraq because of the possible effect on
the large Shiite population on its own eastern seaboard."
Alistair
Lyon, Bangkok Post, 1998 |
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Council of Foreign Relations |
"We need to be more assertive," argues Max Boot,
a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, "and
stop letting all these two-bit dictators and rogue regimes push
us around and stop being a patsy for our so-called allies, especially
in Saudi Arabia." Hopefully, in Boot's view, laying down
the law will be enough. But he envisions a worst-case scenario
that would involve the United States "occupying the Saudi's
oil fields and administering them as a trust for the people
of the region." Joshua
Marshall, Washington Monthly, March 31, 2003 |
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US energy supply |
" America's economic vulnerability to oil-price fluctuations
has led Washington to strike a tacit bargain with Saudi
Arabia and other Persian Gulf oil producers. In return for
U.S. military protection and silence about the more unsavory
aspects of their societies, these countries increase production
when prices get too high and cut it when they get too low. In
addition, they price their oil in dollars and recycle their
petro-profits through U.S. financial institutions." Ricardo
Bayon in Atlantic Monthly, January 2003 |
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Saudi
Arabia