No one seems to be writing opinion pieces quite the way I would, so I decided to do it myself.

The name? Taverns are places where one goes to discuss the interesting events and things in the world, so this is my tavern.

I will offer my views on politics, economics, and whatever else strikes my fancy.
I will occasionally publish the entire article from another journal for purposes of causing discussion.

 

Don't forget Saudi Arabia

While we have troops in Iraq, most of our news comes from Iraq. Saudi Arabia hasn't been a major focus except that it has been a source of funds for fundamentalist militants.

The recent bombing of a mostly Arab housing compound during Ramadan highlights the dilemma the Saudi Royal family is in. This from the Christian Science monitor:

The Saudi government has always had to walk a fine line in combatting Al Qaeda and other militants who claim to act from religious motives. "The government is based on Islamic legitimacy, and to crack down, you really need to make arrests of popular preachers," says Joshua Teitelbaum, an Israeli expert on Saudi affairs. "But if you start arresting these people you may find that you have less Islamic legitimacy, because you're arresting Islamic preachers. Those have always been the horns of the government's dilemma."

The problem the Saudi Royal Family has is that the preachers are painting them as not extreme enough as Islamicists to be the custodians of the most sacred of the Islamic sites. The US presence in Saudi Arabia is a continuing problem, and the US preemptive invasion of Iraq has created more problems.

Mr. Awaji, who is initiating an effort to mediate between the government and the militants, says the situation in Iraq is influencing events in Saudi Arabia. "The news coming from Iraq" - especially the reports of rising US casualties, "is encouraging militants to go ahead with jihad everywhere," he says, using the Arabic word meaning "holy struggle."

"They believe Iraq is a new Afghanistan for them," he adds.

Whatever the result in Saudi Arabia, it will not be greater democracy. A government under such threats will have to crack down on freedoms in the populace. The question is how effective such crack-downs can be.

posted by Richard at 11:27 AM