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Saudi Arabia Is An ISIS That "Made It": "The West Wages War On One, And Shakes Hands With The Other"

Tyler Durden's picture




 

One interesting thing about Washington's strategy in the Middle East is the extent to which the US persists in its support of Saudi Arabia and steadfastly refuses to make meaningful strides towards reconciliation with Iran. 

It's not so much that anyone realistically expects Tehran to turn a corner on things like expanding press freedom or implementing judicial reform and everyone knows that regardless of how friendly Rouhani tries to be, the Ayatollah casts a long shadow. But at the risk of coming across as crass and/or short on nuance, Saudi Arabia still executes people in the streets with swords and promotes the same hardline ideology as that espoused by ISIS, al-Qaeda, and other Sunni extremists. Tehran and its Shiite crescent are the regional counterbalance to this and yet The House of Saud is welcomed with open arms at The White House, while Iran is forever branded a pariah state even as Riyadh and Doha funnel money to the very same militants who carry out attacks on Western targets. 

With that in mind, we present the following Op-Ed by Kamel Daoud, a columnist for Quotidien d’Oran, and the author of “The Meursault Investigation.” 

Originally published in The New York Times

Saudi Arabia, an ISIS That Has Made It

Black Daesh, white Daesh. The former slits throats, kills, stones, cuts off hands, destroys humanity’s common heritage and despises archaeology, women and non-Muslims. The latter is better dressed and neater but does the same things. The Islamic State; Saudi Arabia. In its struggle against terrorism, the West wages war on one, but shakes hands with the other. This is a mechanism of denial, and denial has a price: preserving the famous strategic alliance with Saudi Arabia at the risk of forgetting that the kingdom also relies on an alliance with a religious clergy that produces, legitimizes, spreads, preaches and defends Wahhabism, the ultra-puritanical form of Islam that Daesh feeds on.

Wahhabism, a messianic radicalism that arose in the 18th century, hopes to restore a fantasized caliphate centered on a desert, a sacred book, and two holy sites, Mecca and Medina. Born in massacre and blood, it manifests itself in a surreal relationship with women, a prohibition against non-Muslims treading on sacred territory, and ferocious religious laws. That translates into an obsessive hatred of imagery and representation and therefore art, but also of the body, nakedness and freedom. Saudi Arabia is a Daesh that has made it.

The West’s denial regarding Saudi Arabia is striking: It salutes the theocracy as its ally but pretends not to notice that it is the world’s chief ideological sponsor of Islamist culture. The younger generations of radicals in the so-called Arab world were not born jihadists. They were suckled in the bosom of Fatwa Valley, a kind of Islamist Vatican with a vast industry that produces theologians, religious laws, books, and aggressive editorial policies and media campaigns.

One might counter: Isn’t Saudi Arabia itself a possible target of Daesh? Yes, but to focus on that would be to overlook the strength of the ties between the reigning family and the clergy that accounts for its stability — and also, increasingly, for its precariousness. The Saudi royals are caught in a perfect trap: Weakened by succession laws that encourage turnover, they cling to ancestral ties between king and preacher. The Saudi clergy produces Islamism, which both threatens the country and gives legitimacy to the regime.

One has to live in the Muslim world to understand the immense transformative influence of religious television channels on society by accessing its weak links: households, women, rural areas. Islamist culture is widespread in many countries — Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Mali, Mauritania. There are thousands of Islamist newspapers and clergies that impose a unitary vision of the world, tradition and clothing on the public space, on the wording of the government’s laws and on the rituals of a society they deem to be contaminated.

It is worth reading certain Islamist newspapers to see their reactions to the attacks in Paris. The West is cast as a land of “infidels.” The attacks were the result of the onslaught against Islam. Muslims and Arabs have become the enemies of the secular and the Jews. The Palestinian question is invoked along with the rape of Iraq and the memory of colonial trauma, and packaged into a messianic discourse meant to seduce the masses. Such talk spreads in the social spaces below, while up above, political leaders send their condolences to France and denounce a crime against humanity. This totally schizophrenic situation parallels the West’s denial regarding Saudi Arabia.

All of which leaves one skeptical of Western democracies’ thunderous declarations regarding the necessity of fighting terrorism. Their war can only be myopic, for it targets the effect rather than the cause. Since ISIS is first and foremost a culture, not a militia, how do you prevent future generations from turning to jihadism when the influence of Fatwa Valley and its clerics and its culture and its immense editorial industry remains intact?

Is curing the disease therefore a simple matter? Hardly. Saudi Arabia remains an ally of the West in the many chess games playing out in the Middle East. It is preferred to Iran, that gray Daesh. And there’s the trap. Denial creates the illusion of equilibrium. Jihadism is denounced as the scourge of the century but no consideration is given to what created it or supports it. This may allow saving face, but not saving lives.

Daesh has a mother: the invasion of Iraq. But it also has a father: Saudi Arabia and its religious-industrial complex. Until that point is understood, battles may be won, but the war will be lost. Jihadists will be killed, only to be reborn again in future generations and raised on the same books.

The attacks in Paris have exposed this contradiction again, but as happened after 9/11, it risks being erased from our analyses and our consciences.

 

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Fri, 11/20/2015 - 21:09 | 6819934 Troy Ounce
Troy Ounce's picture

 

 

 

United States of Amnesia

Fri, 11/20/2015 - 21:10 | 6819940 Money Boo Boo
Money Boo Boo's picture

 

 

 

United States of Money Whores

Fri, 11/20/2015 - 21:25 | 6819968 22winmag
22winmag's picture

Just ask the RINOs and TEA PARTY fakes who will vote for the next war funding entension bill.

Fri, 11/20/2015 - 21:16 | 6819946 BullyBearish
BullyBearish's picture

I'm amazed everyday, and somewhat bewildered that amidst all of the carnage in the Middle East, Israel is an oasis of peace and stability while their leaders constantly tell us they are in danger of becoming extinct.

Fri, 11/20/2015 - 21:22 | 6819963 km4
km4's picture

thx @zerohedge I posted this article on a thread 6 hours ago 

Fri, 11/20/2015 - 21:40 | 6820004 km4
km4's picture

Of course the idiot defenders of Tyler who does not know what attribution means ;-)

Sat, 11/21/2015 - 06:18 | 6820713 Ofelas
Ofelas's picture

Our polititians are well aware of the root of radical Islam, but they prefer to sacrifice a some people here and many more there to keep the support of SA going. Should the House of Saud fall the Petrodollar will go too.

$ = world reserve curreny = ability to print unlimited amounts of money

$ = Petrodollar = Saudi Arabia

 

We are sacrificing the world to support paper money 

 

Sat, 11/21/2015 - 07:57 | 6820762 TruthHunter
TruthHunter's picture

Most people aren't aware that the House of Saud would never have made it without a British subsidy.

There was a major miscalculation, though. No one thought fabulous oil wealth might be beneath the sand.

Sat, 11/21/2015 - 11:31 | 6821138 Salah
Salah's picture

KSA came into existence because FDR met the warlord Abd Al-Aziz ibn Saud onboard the USS Quincy, Valentines Day 1945, in Suez Egypt on his way back from the Tehran Conference....and made one of the greatest business deals ever done.  

Fri, 11/20/2015 - 21:14 | 6819947 Johnny Horscaulk
Johnny Horscaulk's picture

Saudi sucks but ISIS is very largely the US and Israelis baby

http://original.antiwar.com/dan_sanchez/2015/10/05/seize-the-chaos/

http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/10/12/us-caught-faking-it-in-syria/

http://www.historycommons.org/context.jsp?item=western_support_for_islam...

Of course, Israel's role is always suppressed even as they coordinate airstrikes and bomb Lebanese militia fighting ISIS.

Lots of oil in them there Heights...

Sat, 11/21/2015 - 07:48 | 6820754 Misanthropus
Misanthropus's picture

ISIS is created by Israel? What? How deep is your head buried in conspirotard bullshit? And has it ever seen the light of day?

 

Fri, 11/20/2015 - 21:16 | 6819952 kill switch
kill switch's picture

 

It's just finally time to say it,,,the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA is a terrorist nation that will corporately kill us all and all commodities,,,, as we and the natural world are commodities and the constitution has been destroyed though judicial fiat..

 

Fri, 11/20/2015 - 21:18 | 6819954 Jim in MN
Jim in MN's picture

You know who else has a theocratic state nestled in there against the glistening Mediterranean? 

Hint: Religious state with nukes. 

Fri, 11/20/2015 - 23:40 | 6820296 TeaClipper
TeaClipper's picture

Texas?

(sarc on)

Fri, 11/20/2015 - 21:24 | 6819965 22winmag
22winmag's picture

Or as my moderate middle eastern acquaintences tell me: "Fight them in Afghanistan, help them in Syria, and the Pakistanis are just radical whackjobs."

Fri, 11/20/2015 - 21:24 | 6819966 SILVERGEDDON
SILVERGEDDON's picture

Meh, Saudis are terrorists, but they got a lot of money, and oil.

And, they mind their own business, for the most part, and only kill their own people.

Except for that Osama guy.

And, Al Quaida.

And, those 9 / 11 guys in the planes.

And, a whole lot of shit disturbing in the middle East.

And, that OPEC fiasco, starting in 1973 with the oil embargo.

Actually, they are a bunch of motherfucking pricks, too.

Who knew ?

Fri, 11/20/2015 - 21:47 | 6820020 bunnyswanson
bunnyswanson's picture

911 was an inside job.

Fri, 11/20/2015 - 22:07 | 6820079 kill switch
kill switch's picture

Thanks for the heads up....I had no idea 15 years ago

Fri, 11/20/2015 - 23:38 | 6820291 TeaClipper
TeaClipper's picture

SA funds religious schools teaching its particular brand of intolerant extremism all over the planet, that is hardly minding their own business/

Wake up man, you are asleep on the job

Fri, 11/20/2015 - 22:08 | 6819979 nmewn
nmewn's picture

Hey Obama! Is this like a strictly "religious test" or can anyone play in your sandbox? 

We can start with the word taqiyya and then "move on" to kitman.

/////

I've got a theory on anonymous ObamaBot junkers would you like to hear it? ;-)

Fri, 11/20/2015 - 22:23 | 6820128 kill switch
kill switch's picture

nmewn,

ZH

Has been infiltrated

Fri, 11/20/2015 - 22:55 | 6820198 nmewn
nmewn's picture

Well, it's still all opinion oriented (a public forum) some are just to paranoid to comment in the anonymous format, apparently after signing in and junking or upvoting.

Very odd ;-)

Fri, 11/20/2015 - 23:27 | 6820270 kill switch
kill switch's picture

Very odd

 

 

 

Yes

Fri, 11/20/2015 - 21:31 | 6819984 Yen Cross
Yen Cross's picture

   Is that a bolt of Jewish / Lightning I see in the background?

Fri, 11/20/2015 - 21:34 | 6819988 jomama
jomama's picture

Who is buying all this illegal ISIS oil again? http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/1.672599

Fri, 11/20/2015 - 23:08 | 6820227 nmewn
nmewn's picture

Ummm, the Kurds are (and have been) fighting ISIS...and Turkey. So if the point is "the jooos dammit!" the ME has many shifting sands of all colors & religions & purposes.

Just make sure you're up to the task at hand, you could end up on the wrong side everything ;-)

Fri, 11/20/2015 - 21:40 | 6819996 Sorry_about_Dresden
Sorry_about_Dresden's picture

I have to ask the obvious question of:

Where is Ayman al-Zawahiri?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Hamid_Mir_interviewing_Osama_bin_Lade...

This guy was with Osama right after 911 and the NSA can't find this guy?????? Really??????

The fact this guy is still walking around, in a nation that recieves billions of dollars in US military aid, really makes me question every part of American, exceptional, foreign policy.

Does this fact bother anyone else?

 

Fri, 11/20/2015 - 22:14 | 6820071 nmewn
nmewn's picture

Wahhabism is "the real deal" isn't it?

/////

Not the real deal? ;-)

Fri, 11/20/2015 - 21:42 | 6820006 ThrowAwayYourTV
ThrowAwayYourTV's picture

The only nation that I worry about in this world is Saudi Arabia.

I once went to Afghanistan and the only reason I went was because the guy that did the job that I had to do was thrown into jail in Saudi Arabia for having a picture of a girl in a bikini on his laptop.

These people are phycho's and the worst of the worst.

Without oil they would just be someone who nobody had anything to do with.

Sat, 11/21/2015 - 08:49 | 6820813 Your guess is a...
Your guess is as good as mine's picture

"was thrown into jail in Saudi Arabia for having a picture of a girl in a bikini on his laptop"

 

LOL! What a ridiculous idea.

Fri, 11/20/2015 - 22:05 | 6820010 Demdere
Demdere's picture

But .... he sputtered.  How about the Wahabi equivalents in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv? Don't they get an honorable mention.  Even better, they did it with a political ideology, much more difficult than with religion, to believe something really crazy requires it to claim to be millenia old.

We are not giving credit where it is due.  I insist, the Israeli Jewish cabal is fully as bad as any Saudi Wahabist !

https://thinkpatriot.wordpress.com/2015/10/24/lebowski-enlightenment-a/

Fri, 11/20/2015 - 21:49 | 6820028 SharkBit
SharkBit's picture

Well blow me down. Down with SA.  Let them eat shit.

Sat, 11/21/2015 - 00:42 | 6820429 Eirik Magnus Larssen
Eirik Magnus Larssen's picture

If only some here in the West would as well.

Sat, 11/21/2015 - 07:59 | 6820763 Benjamin123
Benjamin123's picture

Its always a black and white thing with you.

Fri, 11/20/2015 - 23:00 | 6820211 Grandad Grumps
Grandad Grumps's picture

The elitists/demons are toast. People are waking up and God is helping.

Fri, 11/20/2015 - 23:01 | 6820214 Amused2Death
Amused2Death's picture

The house of Saud does not exist without the support of their wahabi imams, so they have to look the other way as their clergy preach hatred and intolerance.  I don't think the world can ignore the Sauds any longer, if you want to uproot radical islam, you have to cut the snake's head inside Saudi Arabia.  The problem is, anytime a western power starts make noise about Saudi, they go out and pour billions into their economies to buy the politicians' silence.  At some point though, the politicians, and corporations who benefit from oil money, will have had enough. 

Fri, 11/20/2015 - 23:33 | 6820281 nmewn
nmewn's picture

"The problem is, anytime a western power starts make noise about Saudi, they go out and pour billions into their economies to buy the politicians' silence."

lol...no shit.

They WILL NOT accept Syrian refugees themselves yet will fund 200 mosques for Syrian refugees in...Germany.

http://diversitymachtfrei.blogspot.com/2015/09/saudi-arabia-accepts-no-s...

Thank you Nigel Farage for pointing that out, Obama, you're up ;-)

Sat, 11/21/2015 - 00:55 | 6820459 milking institute
milking institute's picture

RT has a brilliant commentary on the current russian/saudi/isis situation. i thought Vlad had a grand plan from the start and this just confirms my suspicions,so for all of you that are counting on 20$ oil here's some food for thought....     https://www.rt.com/op-edge/320878-saudia-arabia-russia-politics/

Fri, 11/20/2015 - 23:28 | 6820272 Niall Of The Ni...
Niall Of The Nine Hostages's picture

The House of Saud are the embodiment of pure evil the Elders of Zion are said to be in our rulers' disinformation campaigns.

That's why our rulers get on so famously with the House of Saud. 

Sat, 11/21/2015 - 03:07 | 6820605 Tic tock
Tic tock's picture

Aside from the argument over whether religious-fanatics have the right to national self-determination, most of these 'theatres-of-conflict' remain well-armed - ISIS has enough weapons to engage a national army, someone should have noticed. If well-funded intelligence agencies and things like the UN cannot monitor the flow of weapons, then what hope do they have of managing 'extremist tendancies'?  I mean, we can complain about Religion - but it's not going away. Anyway, isn't the Saudi oil-price dump the only thing keeping govt.s' vaguely solvent ?

Sat, 11/21/2015 - 13:10 | 6821398 David Wooten
David Wooten's picture

"...isn't the Saudi oil-price dump the only thing keeping govt.s' vaguely solvent ?"

Certainly not now, if it ever was. The oil glut will pop the shale bubble and trigger a wave of bankruptcies.

Sat, 11/21/2015 - 12:17 | 6821262 I Write Code
I Write Code's picture

Black Daesh White Daesh?  Pretty much the same Daesh, SA or elements thereof were probably the direct founders of ISIS and continue to support it.

Sun, 11/22/2015 - 14:36 | 6824860 Gohigher
Gohigher's picture

Southpark ?

\sarc

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