irjones, I read something recently, a book review I think, that expressed views to the effect that the cauldron of islamic extremism is saudi arabia, partly due to the pact that the saudi royals made with the wahabis in order to quell severe internal dissent in Saudi Arabia at that time, and to continue to eliminate any dissenting elements.
The wahabis are a bit like the saudi version of the taliban and part of the pact seems to enable and finance the export of this wahabi extremism as part of the broader goal of converting the entire world to islam by any means.
The many saudi suicide bombers merely point to the success of indoctrination by these people within Saudi Arabia, and the number of them in Iraq points to the orgainised and well financed campaign directed by the wahabis in Saudi Arabia, to get them to Iraq in large numbers.
The spread on democracy or any sort in Iraq is something that these wahabis deeply deplore as it runs counter to what seems to be the wahabi plan of spreading islamic rule over the whole world over time. the wahabis obviously see that a succesful democracy of any sort in Iraq will not be in their best interests.
Personally, I am of the view that members of the Saudi royal family see this as a good business opportunity with a quite good risk/reward, following along the model of the Roman Catholic Church.
The huge and growing islamic population of the world offers a mass of lucrative business opportunities, and whoever sets the policies and controls the money all moslems are supposed to donate each year to islamic charities, can reap huge profits over time.
For a saudi royal family worried about what they are going to do after the oil revenues slow down or stop, this would seem like a dream come true.
The revenue from islamic banking and halal product sales grow year by year, and the ones who are in control of the certification process for issuing or denying the issue of the halal certificate will control the gateway to an increasingly lucrative market.
Now, also, if you can keep a constant low level terror program going throughout the western countries and transform that into a tempreary-peace-for-mafia protection-payout scheme, the money will really flow from west to middle east in a way that will dwarf current oil revenues.
Overall, it seem like a good business plan that has quite a good risk-reward profile. Terrorists are cheap to grow and deploy, and as long as you can keep yourself safe and get someone else to do the dying for allah, not much risk at all.
The way to neutralise this is to target the leaders of the movement, probably quite high up in the saudi power structure, so that the risk to them persoannly becomes quite high. Then this plan will likely stop, ior be re-directed so as to keep thmselves safe.
