Saudi Arabia: The Nexus of Evil

April 16, 2003

With Bush administration admonitions to Syria, many are postulating that it will be the next target of American persuasion. That presumes that there is a next target, although the administration maintains there is not. That is unfortunate, because there should be. The target of such action should not however be Syria but Saudi Arabia. Although the Syrian government’s hands have been covered with terrorist blood for years, the truth is that with the new President Bashar Assad, success may be achieved by different means.

If Syria is part of the recently coined Junior Varsity of the Axis of Evil, Saudi Arabia should similarly be seen for precisely what it is, the Nexus of the Axis of Evil. Simply put, Saudi money or Wahhabi influence is directly or indirectly responsible for practically every incident of radical Islamic terrorism that has occurred over the last decade. Terrorist events do not occur in a vacuum. They must be nurtured and fed like a plant. From financial support to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers to building venomous madrasas around the world to being the home of fifteen of the nineteen September 11^th hijackers, Saudi protection and money has been the garden from which Islamic terror has blossomed. The Saudi regime has used its billions of petrodollars to export extremist Wahhabi Islam across the planet for decades.

Let us be clear, this is not a call to arms against Islam. On the contrary, it is a call to arms against Wahhabism, a fascist sect of Islam. Bernard Lewis, the respected Middle East scholar painted a perfect analogy of what the Saudis have wrought over the last thirty years: "Imagine if the Ku Klux Klan or Aryan Nation obtained total control of Texas and had at its disposal all of the oil revenues, and used this money to establish a network of well-endowed schools and colleges all over Christendom peddling their particular brand of Christianity. This was what the Saudis have done with Wahhabism. The oil money has enabled them to spread this fanatical, destructive form of Islam all over the Muslim world and among Muslims in the West. Without oil and the creation of the Saudi kingdom, Wahhabism would have remained a lunatic fringe."

A second comparison describes what is occurring today. Long before Auschwitz and Dachou became part of "The Final Solution," Adolph Hitler utilized "scientific" data to suggest that Jews were not "pure" humans and were a different "race" altogether. This reclassification and dehumanization gave the Germans (and collaborators throughout Europe) the moral justification to abuse, experiment on and eventually exterminate more than six million Jews. By referring to Jews, Christians and differently believing Muslims as kufar (infidels) or mushrikun (polytheists) the Wahhabi ulma (leaders) use formal and informal interpretation to remove the protection (tolerance) accorded these groups by the Koran. In removing that tolerance, Wahhabism gives its followers permission to kill innocents of all kinds in the name of Allah. Wahhabism has spread like a virus for decades, infecting millions of people from Cairo to Peshawar, from Hamburg to London and from Buffalo and Phoenix. For a fascinating (and well-documented) account of how the Saudi government and royal family has hoisted this terror upon the world, read Dore Gold’s "Hatred’s Kingdom; How Saudi Arabia Supports the New Global Terrorism." For a companion account of how that support has propagated hate throughout America, read Steve Emerson’s excellent "American Jihad; The Terrorists Living Amongst Us."

While much of the hate and terrorism that exists today is claimed to be grass roots opposition to Western "imperialism", in reality much of it is anything but home grown. From Chechnia and Kashmir to Bali and the West Bank, most of the terrorists whose viscous acts have made the civilized world recoil were educated in mosques or madrasas built by Saudi "charities" filled with Wahhabi hatred. Others were trained in terrorist camps funded by Saudi money directly.

The United States government should use its recent success and the threat of further deployment to effect a change in the Saudi government. One might be tempted to call that Imperialism, but it is not. The American Heritage dictionary defines imperialism as: The policy of extending a nation's authority by territorial acquisition or by the establishment of economic and political hegemony over other nations. Much like Iraq, the goal of this action would not to create a 51^st state, to establish an American economic post or establish a puppet government. It is instead a defensive action intended to protect the lives of innocent Americans and the citizens of civilized countries across the globe. While the Saudi people are welcome to live under a fascist Wahhabi regime if they choose, they do not have the right to export that hate, which has resulted in two World Trade Center attacks, nightclub bombings in Bali and Israel and the theater takeover in Moscow. All of these events and many others can be connected to the Saudis. Now that we have won the war against Saddam, it is time to win the War on Terrorism and that road leads to Saudi Arabia. With the potential to combine indiscriminate terror with weapons such as Sarin, Anthrax, radioactive materials or even nuclear weapons, sufferance of these Wahhabi fascists can no longer be tolerated. Used in moderation, gunboat diplomacy can be a very effective form of negotiation.

As for what kind of government should replace the dictatorship that exists now in Saudi Arabia, Winston Churchill, the greatest and most prescient figure of the 20^th Century put it best "It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried".