Deadly US Ignorance

Speaking recently with an American journalist in Riyadh, it was clear how determined he was to talk about Saudi jihadis in Syria.

He was obsessed with the al-Qaida affiliated Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, especially its Saudi youth members, and he cryptically alluded to Saudi “support” for these jihadis. How, in his estimation, can these two contradictory acts take place? On the one hand, the state opposes al-Qaida, but conversely it supports al-Qaida fighters in Syria. This cursory understanding from a man who works for the U.S. media is representative of a wide spectrum of the prevailing mood in the U.S. and other nations regarding this issue; it is even representative of views of “elite” media and cultural figures such as Fareed Zakaria, who recently unsheathed his sword against Saudi Arabia in a blatantly ignorant article.

I said to the journalist: It is contradictory in your understanding of matters and that of the Western media.

Saudi Arabia is clearly against the Assad regime, as well as al-Qaida groups in Syria. As to why Saudi Arabia is against Bashar, that is because he himself placed his regime in a hostile relationship with Saudi Arabia and to Arab stability by thawing his relations with Iran.

And as to why Saudi Arabia is against ISIS, Nusra Front and their al-Qaida affiliates, this is the question of someone who does not realize the ferocity with which nations have waged (and are still waging) war against al-Qaida for more than a decade. And the primary target for al-Qaida’s operations and proselytizing discourse is Saudi Arabia.

Take as an example the story of the “combustible” young Saudi Ahmad al-Shaya, who sneaked into Iraq years ago and carried out the attack on the Jordanian embassy in Baghdad, which killed and wounded around 60. After miraculously surviving a missile hit, Saudi Arabia took him back and gave him care after an appeal from his family. Then suddenly he went off to Syria and joined al-Qaida; these days he brashly attacks Saudi Arabia in his writings, focusing all his hatred upon it. This incident, by itself, is sufficient to make Saudi Arabia equally hate al-Qaida and the Assad regime, and with it the Lebanese and Iraqi gangs.

There is a peculiar determination in the Western media to demonize Saudi Arabia. Worse than that, there is an astonishing level of ignorance and blatant gossip about Saudi Arabia, in a complete glossing over or absence of facts of which anyone who bothered to take five minutes to do a Google search would be aware.

Yes, Saudis are limited in that they don’t move in Western circles where they could offer explanations or defend themselves; supporters of Iran and Assad are more active in doing this than Saudis. This may be true, but it does not warrant such ignorance about our lives among the Western media and elite. This is not a harmless kind of ignorance, but a deadly kind: The frightening deterioration going on in Syria now is in part due to the Obama administration’s ignorance. It has been a truly brashly ignorant administration, and is representative of the dangers of blatant ignorance!