Our Enemies

I know that a lot of liberals are fond of trying to draw linkages between the need for energy policy reform and national security issues, but I worry when I read things like this from Thomas Friedman:

Yes, Iraq was always going to be hugely difficult, but the potential payoff of erecting a decent, democratizing government in the heart of the Arab world was also enormous. Yet Mr. Bush, in his signature issue, never mobilized the country, never punished incompetence, never made the bad guys “fight all of us,” as Bill Maher put it, by at least pushing through a real energy policy to reduce the resources of the very people we were fighting. He thought he could change the world with 50.1 percent of the country, and he couldn’t.

It's true, obviously, that the government of Saudi Arabia is not run along incredibly admirable lines. Nor is the Al-Sabah family of Kuwait a crew I'm enthusiastic about. And, again, much the same can be said about the regime in Teheran. Nevertheless, none of these are the very people we were fighting unless you think we're just fighting "Muslims" or "Arabs" writ large.

Photo courtesy of ping News

Comments

Yes, but I think you'd agree that the money to fund Al Qaeda is coming from Saudi Arabia. So to that extent, reducing our dependence on foreign oil would help.

Also, part of Al Qaeada's beef is that there are U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia. The reason they're there is because of oil. So if we weren't dependent on Saudi oil, no troops in Saudi Arabia, and one of Al Qaeada's cause celebre goes away.

Do I think reducing our dependence on foreign oil would make our problems go away? No. But could it help? Sure.

Posted by Dave | October 14, 2007 9:54 PM

As a huge admirer of Thomas Friedman, nevertheless, I've always had reservations regarding his advocacy of the use of military intervention by the U.S. as an entree' to "establish" a model democratic regime in the Mideast. Simply stated, that approach overlooked the fundamental paradigm that you can't dictate a fundamental modification/change to a resistant culture through military force-that lesson has existed throughout the history of Western civilization-and seems immutable to me. While I agree with his premise regarding the paramount urgency of establishing environmental priorities, I wish he would cease his advocating of American imposition of "democratization" in the Mideast. I do not believe that is any type of realistic possibility and therefore, should not be a policy consideration-previously, presently, or ever!

Posted by Bill Gardner | October 14, 2007 11:10 PM

Good Grief!!
Actually expecting sound reasoning from the guy who wanted to "GIVE WAR A CHANCE".

Posted by The Doctor | October 14, 2007 11:25 PM

Friedman is a moron. While over 50% of the populations of both Saudi Arabia and Kuwait support some or all of Osama's actions and teachings, very few of them will act on it. Take away their money through cheapening the price of oil, and guess what, instead of a few thousand terrists, you got a few million. How would you like it if the entire world boycotted Made in the USA goods?
Even if the United States did "go green", come on, China and India would step up to the plate and buy the oil that our rejection has made cheaper than before, so not only do we get stuck with massive government subsidies on the taxpayers, but we also get our rivals with their hands over all the oil in the world. And millions of otherwise content Arabs who are now pissed.
There's an old colonial Brit saying, to keep the Arabs from revolting, keep them well fed. Take away their oil and Micky D's, and you get an insurgency. (Similarly, to keep the Iranians from revolting, keep them hungry - which is why sanctions will never work on Iran).

Posted by Persian | October 15, 2007 12:47 AM

Yes, but I think you'd agree that the money to fund Al Qaeda is coming from Saudi Arabia. So to that extent, reducing our dependence on foreign oil would help.

Unfortunately, no it's not.

Very early on Friedman spelled out this wierd belief that 90% of the terrorism in the world was state sponspered. That's comforting, but it was never true. It was much more true in the 70's and 80's and the state sponsers quit the game because it didn't deliver any positive results (notable exception U.S support for Central and South American terrorist groups). By 2001 or so when he was writing that it was a hallucination.

It's a belief that's self-serving and comforting and offers a plan of action. You just decapitate the places that are directing all this badness and it goes away. You start drinking down Michael Ledeen's "The Terror Masters" and it all seems so simple. Unfortunately, it has exactly as much to do with reality as it's precise inverse school of thought that has placed the goverment behind all this as being led by the United States as a hoax.

Posted by Ed Marshall | October 15, 2007 1:10 AM

Ed Marshall - The Saudi money funding Osama, Hamas, etc. may not be coming from the highest levels of the Saudi government, but there's a lot of evidence showing that the $ is coming from low-level princes and private non-royal citizens.

I think MY misunderstands Friedman's point. I think it's a reasonable liberal position that "the very people we were fighting" on September 12th 2001 were non-state Islamist wackos, not Saddam Hussein. Given that oil money supports these non-state actors, it would have been a good idea to reduce US dependence on Arab oil. This is a good idea, but regrettably, Friedman seems to conflate this with a second (dumb) point, namely that the Iraq war was a good idea and we should have prosecuted it better.

Posted by nbt | October 15, 2007 1:21 AM

Whatever makes you feel good, but add up exactly how much it takes to buy some boxcutters and plane tickets.

If I was a Saudi Prince I'd start asking for some receipts.

Posted by Ed Marshall | October 15, 2007 2:20 AM

I realize that defending Tom Friedman is akin to denying the Holocaust, but I don’t think Matt is giving Friedman a fair shakedown here. I think it’s relatively clear that what Friedman’s referring to in his Sunday column aren’t the Kuwaiti or Saudi royal families. He’s obviously alluding to the fact that the Bin Laden group, had it not been for the influx of oil revenue, would not have been able to make billions in construction, a small fraction of which, by way of inheritance, the errant Osama used to fund al Qaeda.

Posted by smm | October 15, 2007 12:26 PM

Whatever makes you feel good, but add up exactly how much it takes to buy some boxcutters and plane tickets.

If I was a Saudi Prince I'd start asking for some receipts.

You need to read the 9/11 Commission's final report.

http://www.gpoaccess.gov/911/

I draw your attention specifically to part 7 "The Attack Looms."

Posted by kwo | October 15, 2007 12:30 PM

Let me clue you into a little secret, the Bush administration is the Saudi Royal Family's secret weapon against American power. All of the apparently stupid things the Bush Administration does is, in fact, deliberate actions designed to weaken the USA.

Posted by occam's comic | October 15, 2007 12:51 PM

I'm pretty surprised by the response here. Maybe you don't think the budget for Al Qaeda comes from Saudia Arabia. I guess its debatable. But if it does, its oil revenue.

What really surprises me is the people who seem to think that islam motivated terrorism wouldn't go away if there was suddenly no world market for oil. I don't know, do you see any terrorists coming out of Africa? The combination of an effectively non-functioning society and, yet, massive wealth, is very unusual.

Even if China and India are still buying oil, the development of alternative energy sources will lower the worldwide price of oil. That is just economics. There is some amount of demand elasticity.

Posted by mpowell | October 15, 2007 2:07 PM

Given that somebody in the Pakistan Intelligence Service - not a Saudi - wired one of the 9/11 boys a hundred grand - and given the stories about what these "good Muslims" were doing in strip clubs and the like, I'd say asking for some receipts is a good idea.

Of course, the same could be said about the CIA contractors who were hired to kidnap that dude in Italy. The hotel expenses they rang up are on a par with, say, Eddie Murphy on a bender...(Supposedly Eddie went through THREE $10-20,000/night hotel suites here in San Francisco in ONE night...)

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | October 15, 2007 11:28 PM