A BUZZFLASH NEWS ANALYSIS

The alleged Saudi threat to help Iraqi Sunnis fight Shiites if America withdraws from Iraq sure sounds bad for world security. But it sounds great for the Bush Administration. Saudi Arabia's pledge not to intervene in Iraq is contingent on our presence, so now - the argument becomes - we have to stay to avoid an even nastier civil war and increased destabilization across the region.

Two weeks ago, Dick Cheney made a sudden trip to Riyadh to visit Saudi King Abdullah, but no details about their meeting were officially released (other than "to discuss issues of 'mutual interest' in the Middle East," according [1] to Cheney's office). The New York Times reported [2] yesterday that the purpose was to relay the intervention message personally. Though the White House and the Saudi government are denying this claim, the threat is certainly in their "mutual interests."

Saudi Arabia has religious ties to the Iraqi Sunnis, and they also score points at home by opposing the US. They would love to get as much of a claim on oil profits as possible, and ties to a favorable Sunni Iraqi government would help. The Bush Administration, on the other hand, needs any excuse it can come up with for why we need to keep troops in Iraq. Many Americans may be persuaded - perhaps reasonably - that Saudi intervention in Iraq might be a bad thing, and that we should therefore let the Saudis hold us hostage by staying.

The Bush family has very close ties to the Saudi rulers, and such collaboration would not be the first time they tried to help each other out. There is no way to know precisely what was discussed in the Abdullah-Cheney meeting, but we should certainly be suspicious of sudden, secret meetings with Middle Eastern monarchs regarding Iraq, especially when the Bush Administration, Iraq, and oil are involved.

A BUZZFLASH NEWS ANALYSIS

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