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Source: http://washingtontimes.com/commentary/20020827-69492890.htm
Thinking the Unthinkable
(Washington Times) Arnaud de Borchgrave - Kenneth Adelman, a former Reagan arms controller, is a member of the Defense Policy Board. Adelman, speaking on C-SPAN (Aug. 21), said Saudi Arabia is "a terribly barbaric society at the bottom of the human-rights list, worst of the worst, along with North Korea. Why should we keep troops there to defend the Saudis? Makes no sense." The U.S. has moved swiftly to reduce dependence on Saudi oil. Almost unnoticed, the U.S. now gets only 8 percent of its oil needs from the kingdom. September 11 revealed an ugly House of Saud secret. The scheme was brilliant in its simplicity. Saudi's fanatical Wahhabi clergy was allocated untold billions during the past 20 years to turn the Koran into a book of holy war against the U.S. and Israel and spread its teachings in mosques and Koranic schools around the world. In return, the Saudi clergy agreed to keep the 25,000-strong royal family out of its crosshairs. What the House of Saud still can't accept is that it has sown the seeds of its own destruction. It is now reassessing its strategic relationship with the U.S. Washington's reassessment of that relationship started after September 11. It is now almost complete.