In a surprise move, King Abdullah of Saudi
Arabia has personally directed the retirement of some two dozen senior defense
and military officials, including the country?s chief of intelligence. No
official reason was given for the move, which becomes effective after the end
of Ramadan (November 4th). It?s long been an open secret that many senior Saudi
officials were either tolerant of Islamic radicals, or did not believe they
could ever be a threat to the kingdom. Even the al Qaeda terrorist attacks of
the last year has not changed many minds at the top. But now the king appears
to have made up his mind, and swept away officials and commanders he feels are
not on the same page with him when it comes to fighting terrorism. The Saudi
king believes al Qaeda must be crushed, before it threatens Sunni Arab
domination throughout the region.



But the Saudis see al Qaeda as more than just a terrorist organization. The big
Saudi worry is Iran. For over 3,000 years, the Iranians have dominated the region.
This, more than anything else, is why the proud, and xenophobic Saudis cling to
their alliance with the infidel United States (and other Western nations).
Saddam Hussein was never seen as a major problem for Saudi Arabia, because
Saddam could be depended on to fight hard if the Iranians tried to move into
Arabia. The same cannot be said for the democratic leaders of post-Saddam Iraq.
The new leaders are mainly Shia, the sect of Islam practiced in Iran. The Shia
are the majority in Iraq, and over ten percent of the Saudi population. Saudis
openly talk of the ?Shia menace.?



This is one reason for the hostility between the new Iraq, and the Saudis. The
Iraqi Shias have long memories, and they have been getting the short end of
things for a long time. While the Shia Arabs of Iraq also fear the Iranians
(who may be Shia, but are not Arab, but Indo-Europeans, an important
distinction in this part of the world), they will accept Iranian help in
keeping the Sunni Arabs from taking control of Iraq once more.



All of the Sunni Arab nations in the Middle East are hostile to the new Iraqi
government, and are willing to overlook al Qaeda activities, to a certain
extent, if that will help bring Sunni Arabs back to power in Iraq. This causes
some strange situations. Take Syria. This is a Sunni Arab nation run by its
Alawite minority. The Alawites are another of those small Islamic sects that
are seen as somewhat heretical by the mainstream Sunnis. The Alawites are often
lumped in with the Shia, and that?s one reason why Syria has long been an ally
of Shia Iran (to provide some protection against Sunni run Iraq.) But now
things are, well, difficult. The Alawite leadership of Syria has no problem
with Shias running Iraq. But the Sunni Arab majority in Syria does. So, to keep
the peace, the Syrian leaders do not crack down on the enthusiastic support
many Syrians Sunnis are giving to the al Qaeda and Sunni Arab terrorists in
Iraq. So while the United States wants the Syrian leadership to crack down on
Syrian support for violence in Iraq, the U.S. doesn?t want to overthrow the
Alawite leadership of Syria. Because that would likely result in a Sunni Arab
dictator taking over, and making things worse.