Saudi Arabia Also Is the Enemy of America

The terrorism supporting Saudi Arabia is the ‘enemy’ of America and the ‘kernel of evil.’”

“If it’s necessary we can confiscate oil fields and their assets in America.”

Those were the contents, which were reported to the Defense Policy Bureau in the US Department of Defense on July 10th.

The Defense Policy Bureau is the highest policy consultation group, which is consisted with a former Secretary of the State Henry Kissinger, a former Secretary of Defense James Schulesinger, and a former Speaker Newt Gingrich, in the US Department of Defense.

The US Department of Defense was in an uproar when the Washington Post revealed this story on the 6th.

The Department of Defense announced a statement right after reading the first edition of the paper saying, “It is not the official opinion of the Department of Defense,” and the Secretary of the State Colin Powel called the Prince of Saudi Arabia Al Paizal and explained the situation. To that extent, the relationship with Saudi Arabia is a sensitive issue in the US Middle-East policy.

However, the newspaper reported, “A researcher of the Land Research Institute Laurent Muravik reported on that meeting, and the former Secretary Kisinger was the only one out of the consultation members who presented different opinion.”

The US and Saudi Arabia are allies for more than half a century. Saudi Arabia is holing the largest confirmed petroleum reserves in the world and the US is the largest petroleum consumer in the world. The US has guaranteed the hegemony of Saudi Arabia in Middle East and, in return, has gotten active cooperation in their Middle East policy from Saudi Arabia.

However, the 9-11 terror broke that relationship. The researcher Muravik pointed out that 15 out of the 19 suspects of the 9-11 terror incident were Saudi Arabian, and he stipulated, “Saudi Arabia, who support terrorism in every level including finance, military, and academic circle.”

The Washington Post reported that the report was connected with the neo-conservatism, which was expanding within the Bush Administration recently although it was still a minority, and the staff of the Vice President Dick Cheney was particularly influenced.

The neo-conservatism in the Middle East policy is summarized as ‘every road leads to Baghdad.’ The idea is that if the US invades Iraq and substitutes the President Sadam Hussein, they can increase the petroleum production and reduce the petroleum reliance level to Saudi Arabia, and then intensify their pressure on Saudi Arabia.

The neo-conservative magazines in the US continually published articles about considering Saudi Arabia as an enemy. The typical articles are “the Approaching Final Negotiation with Saudi Arabia” by the news magazine Weekly Standard (July 15) and the ‘Our Enemy, Saudi Arabia’ by the Commentary (August). They insist, “We must not keep an alliance with Saudi Arabia who is involving with the American diplomatic policies as well as supporting terrorism.”

Jung-Ahn Kim credo@donga.com