gandalf: Jesus. When you go over the top, you really go over the top! You don’t feel that occupying Saudi would have created the world’s biggest shitstorm in the Arab world? I mentioned Mecca and Medina for an extremely good reason: This is the epicenter of the Muslim world. Just imagine US troops patrolling during the Hajj in places like Mecca, Medina and Mina. Approx 2MM pilgrims descend there, from countries all over the world and you would have soldiers from The Great Satan trying to keep order.
And, make no mistake, you’d get your wish to have al-Qaeda come out and fight. The problem is that you would galvanize tens of thousands of previously moderate Arabs as well, and from 150+ countries throughout the world.
Iraq was a secular state, and Saddam was viewed with suspicion by many of his Arab neighbors, especially those that had already been invaded by or had been to war with Iraq. Not debating the reasons behind invading Iraq, simply saying that as far as triggering a response goes, invading Saudi Arabia would have created a much larger mess with far bigger shockwaves and not just in the Arab world. I would imagine Russia and China would have gone batshit, as would Iran, and all with the perfectly legitimate claim that we hijacked Saudi for the oil.
I do agree that we need to focus on al-Qaeda, but I think there might be a better way than knee dropping Saudi Arabia. Something needs to be done with Saudi, and Egypt, but I don’t think this is it.
