Ayoon Wa Azan (Another Reason to Support the King’s Policy

Last week, Haaretz quoted Dennis Ross, former coordinator of the Middle East peace process, as saying that King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz told him in a meeting in April 2009 that Saudi Arabia would obtain a nuclear weapon should Iran obtain one. For years now, I have been calling on capable Arab nations to seek to acquire nuclear weapons, because the proliferation of WMDs in the Middle East would prompt the United States to seek to remove such weapons from the region, and thus, we would be rid of Israel and Iran’s arsenals at once. Saudi Arabia can purchase one or even ten nuclear reactors from anywhere it chooses, and can at any time procure nuclear bombs from Pakistan. For one thing, Saudi Arabia is the country of the Two Holy Mosques, and it is the duty of a Muslim country like Pakistan to protect Mecca and Medina from the arsenals of Israel and Iran. Dennis Ross’s account of King Abdullah gave me another reason to support the King’s policy. Indeed, he is a reformist of the first order, and I wish that he had become king when he was sixty, for example, because he would have had perhaps conjured a miracle by accelerating the pace of reforms. While I personally wish to see Saudi women achieve real equality with men, I realize that this may not be the desire of a majority of the people of Saudi Arabia. With regard to the simplest aspects of reform, such as women driving, I know that if a referendum is to be held, then a majority would vote against it. So while I want women to be able to drive freely, I am democratic by virtue of my residence in London, and therefore defer to the opinion of the majority in this respect. Before I continue, I want to say that I have no personal interests with King Abdullah, except the fact that he had jokingly promised me that, should he win the prize on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, then he would go ‘fifty fifty’ with me. Last year, I had another reason to support the King’s policy, when he infuriated Israel, the neocons and the same old lobby because the Saudi People did not take part in the Arab spring uprisings, prompting some in the circles mentioned above to say that revolution will inevitably come to Saudi Arabia. But all I say to this is “In your dreams”. Last week, I read in a Likudnik website that the Obama administration bombed Libya until it was subdued, and is gearing up to do the same in Syria, but will not do anything of the sort in Bahrain because Saudi Arabia does not want that. First of all, the Obama administration never bombed Libya, instead letting NATO, specifically Britain and France, do the job. Second, the Obama administration is not gearing up to bomb Syria and will not do so in the future, because Syria does not have significant oil reserves like Libya. Third, Bahrain is nothing like either Libya or Syria. In Libya, there was a half crazy dictator that almost destroyed an entire country after four decades of terrorism at home and abroad, and the people there rose up to demand their right to lead a dignified life. In Syria, the people also revolted to demand democracy. In both Libya and Syria, thousands of victims were killed. However, in Bahrain, there were very few casualties, and the opposition resorted to violence, to which the authorities responded after the first few days with tear gas - against Molotov cocktails in the hands of the opposition supporters. More importantly, the leadership of the opposition in Bahrain, specifically the Supreme Leader Isa Qasim and the head of Al-Wefaq Ali Salman, want to establish an Iranian-style regime, or velayat-e faqih [clerical rule], to completely do away with democracy. Anyone who says otherwise is a liar, and my proof is the public Iranian incitement in all the media, and the speeches of Isa Qasim as well as his daily declarations of allegiance to Iran. Saudi Arabia rushed to save Bahrain and will do so again and again if need be, and perhaps the Saudi stance has the secondary benefit of infuriating the Likudniks, especially if Saudi Arabia were to acquire a nuclear weapon.   Dar al Hayat .