“Looking for Bin Laden became a side-business for Pakistan’s military to generate U.S. aid. As the Al Qaeda expert Lawrence Wright observed in The New Yorker this week: Pakistan’s Army and intelligence service “were in the looking-for-Bin-Laden business, and if they found him they’d be out of business.” (Friedman - Bad Bargains)Whatever we're looking for, a rotten pseudo-ally is willing to pretend to provide it
Iran: Good People - Bad Government
Iran has a stranglehold on Lebanon via proxy Hezbollah. It tentacles stretch from Afghanistan to Iraq and even to Venezuela and Argentina. If Iran had a people’s revolution that brought true parliamentary democracy to the country (Iranians are more capable of democratic success than any other country in the region), that would put a stop to funding these global terrorists. A newly-democratic Iran would have too many pressing issues at home for it to mess with funding terrorists, and no legitimate government wants to cultivate trouble with other nations, especially via such direct violence.
Why was Obama silent as the Iranian protesters were being slaughtered by the Revolutionary Guard? Is it because they didn’t have Muslim Brotherhood or Al Qaeda membership cards? I pray to God we are clandestinely helping the free people of Iran topple their rotten regime.
Saudi Arabia: America's Most Shameful Alliance
We protect them in exchange for oil, and the Saudis maintain a pact with the Wahabbis. Out of this dynamic metastasized militant Islam that has infected the globe:
During the 1980s, Saudi Arabia spent some $75 billion for the propagation of Wahhabism, funding schools, mosques, and charities throughout the Islamic world, from Pakistan to Afghanistan, Yemen, Algeria and beyond. ... (Friedman - Bad Bargains)We sought out and cultivated a relationship with Pakistan. This is the grain of truth that spurs conspiracy nuts to claim the CIA trained Bin Laden. The Pakistan bargain resembles our Saudi one; We pay them to marginally cooperate with our goals in Afghanistan (first against the Soviet Union, now against Taliban and Al Qaeda forces), and they pretend to comply. Meanwhile the Pakistani army rules the roost, papering it all over with a sham democracy. And they’re a member of the Nuts with Nukes club.
What both countries need is shock therapy. For Pakistan, that would mean America converting the lion’s share of its military aid to K-12 education programs, while also reducing the U.S. footprint in Afghanistan. Together, the message would be that we’re ready to help Pakistan fight its real enemies and ours — ignorance, illiteracy, corrupt elites and religious obscurantism.All three countries are full of good people, but our relationship with them is dysfunctional. We are the bogey monsters of America-hating Mullahs, and our every action is twisted into a sinister threat to Islam.
Ditto Saudi Arabia. We are in a ménage à trois with the al-Sauds and the Wahhabis. We provide the al-Sauds security, and they provide us oil. The Wahhabis provide the al-Sauds with legitimacy and the al-Sauds provide them with money (from us). It works really well for the al-Sauds, but not too well for us. (Friedman - Bad Bargains)
Unintended Consequences
I heard an older caller to a talk show say his father called WW II “The war to make the world safe for communism,” and there’s some cynical truth to that. When confronted with the dual threat of communism, and fascism, Churchill made the smart choice to leave fighting the Bolshies until after we had defeated the fascists. It took us another 45 years after the first victory to achieve the second.
We made a deal with the Saudis and the Pakistanis to dislodge the Soviets from Afghanistan. Did we defeat Communism only to make Southwest Asia safe for Wahabbism?
