For the last 24 hours or so, I've been arguing on Plastic regarding alleged lies of the administration re: WMD in Iraq. I'm shocked at how small people are thinking on this. First of all, a negative can't be proven, so really, unless we seriously examine motivations for these supposed lies, this is a lot of wasted effort on the part of the media. I can't help but think this is about getting retribution for the impeachment of Bill Clinton, and that this is blinding the left to the actual machinations at work.
Part of what kicked off my suspicion that there's something else going on here was a report I heard on Marketplace the other night. In this piece (which is mostly about copper being stolen from the electrical infrastructure in Iraq), it was claimed that "U.S. Officials say underground Ba'athist militias and Wahabbists are sabotaging the power lines to rile the people and turn them against the Americans." Catch that? We are claiming that the Wahabbists are sabotaging stuff in Iraq. I find that very interesting[1], and I suspect this is not the last time we'll hear this.
If our real goal is Saudi Arabia, it is one that we would have to pursue secretly. The Saudis have more control over us, due to their being a large part of our Current Accouunt Deficit, than anyone likes to admit. Somehow, we need to kill the Wahabi movement in Saudi Arabia. To do this might involve a revolution in Saudi Arabia, and the U.S. economy simply can't afford that kind of a spike in oil prices. If oil topped out over $40 a gallon this fall, you can forget any positive GDP action for the second half.
If, however, we have an assured supply coming out of Iraq, an Iraq permitted to sell all the oil it wants with no U.N. sanctions in the way, we're in a much better position to endanger the oil supply coming from the Saudis. Somehow, we have to engineer a situation where we will be the saviors of the Saudi royals while successfully putting down the Wahabbist revolution forever. This means we have to foment revolution over there, but to make sure it fails in a big way.
We have freed up a lot of America haters by deposing Saddam. These people need a cause and a leader. I suspect they will find one among the Wahabbis, and perhaps there will then be enough of them to attempt a coup, conveniently putting us in the position mentioned above.
I guarantee that the Bushies have not fogotten the nationality of 11 out of 19 of the hijackers. I do think, however, that they are playing this down. There's a reason for all of this. There has to be. I will also guarantee this is not the last you'll hear of the Wahabbis.
[1] I'm unable to find a text link to this statement. I think this is because the key words, Ba'ath and Wahab have multiple spellings that may or may not involve apostrophes. Usually, I'm quite proficient and googling up what I need.
Sorry but I just have a hard time believing that Iraq is part of some grand scheme to over throw the house of Saud.
Additionally the US has a VERY long history of supporting despotic regimes for just as long as it serves our current interests. And as you point out theprice of oil is crucial to the current economic situation, thus it isn't in administrations best interests to do anything to destablize Saudi Arabia.