Crapshoot in Saudi Arabia

George W. Bush, who wants to talk about oil prices, is spending the day with King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, who wants to talk about pulverizing Iran.

Four months ago, when our President asked his Mideast friend for help, the price of crude was $91 a barrel. Yesterday it closed at $127. But the White House National Security Adviser says, "There are limits to how much that production can be ramped up without enormous investments of dollars and enormous investments of time."

Translation: The Saudis won't do much to help their lame-duck friend lower American gas prices between now and November unless they are spooked by the prospect of a President Obama. In 2004, they boosted Bush's reelection chances with a production surge.

On the Iranian front, the White House announced that Saudi Arabia will join the 70-nation Global Initiative to Combat Nuclear Terrorism and the 85-nation Proliferation Security Initiative, and the U.S. will " work with" the Saudis to help protect their energy resources and develop "civilian nuclear power" to be used in medicine, industry and power generation.

Translation: The Saudis get vague promises of help with nuclear weapons if Iran pushes on with efforts to get them.

As always, the dice are loaded against us in the Mideast crapshoot, no matter what we do. When the Democrats take power next year, they will have to figure out a new way to play the game.

The Mother of All Mideast Scandals

Huge bribes, arms deals and threats of terrorism are the elements of an unfolding plot centering on the good friend of both Presidents Bush, Prince Bandar bin Sultan of Saudi Arabia.

Testimony in a London court yesterday led a judge to comment that former Prime Minister Tony Blair appeared to have "rolled over" for Bandar "just as if a gun had been held to the head" of the government.

The Saudi Prince was accused of threatening to hold back information on terrorists and suicide bombers that would lead to the loss of "British lives on British streets" if Blair's investigators kept looking into charges that he took $2 billion of bribes in arms deals with the British company BAE. They stopped.

Now those charges as well as Bandar's strong-arming to suppress them are being heard in a British high court, and there are ongoing probes here as well.

Last summer, BAE disclosed that the US Justice Department is looking into the company's possible violations of corruption laws in arms sales to Saudi Arabia and this week, in a class-action suit brought by stockholders, a federal judge restrained Prince Bandar from transferring out of the country proceeds from his real estate deals, including the legendary Hearst Mansion, which he has put up for sale at $165 million.

As his country's ambassador in Washington, Bandar was so close to both Bushes that, immediately after 9/11, with air space closed to private flights, he was able to fly his family and friends home and, until recently, he was the key player in the Saudi game of publicly supporting US efforts against terrorism while allowing Saudi troublemakers to join Al Qaeda in Iraq to attack our troops.

Now, the story of the Playboy Prince's intrigues is beginning to unravel and, in coming months, may make Mideast conspiracy movies such as "Syriana" look like "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs."

"Can't Anybody Here Play This Game?"

The immortal words of Casey Stengel come to mind for the Bush Administration’s latest moves in the Middle East. Casey’s incompetent Mets were only losing baseball games. This bunch is playing with our country’s future.

The most recent tragi-comedy of errors is reported in today’s New York Times:

“The Bush administration is preparing to ask Congress to approve an arms sale package for Saudi Arabia and its neighbors that is expected to total $20 billion over the next decade at a time when some United States officials contend that the Saudis are playing a counterproductive role in Iraq.”

Counterproductive is a euphemism for exporting radicals to car bomb our troops there while King Abdullah tells Arab heads of state that Americans in Iraq are “an illegal foreign occupation.”

Next week, Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice and Defense Secretary Robert Gates will go to Saudi Arabia to ask the Saudis, please, to “make clear to Sunnis engaged in violence in Iraq that such actions are ‘killing your future.’”

At the same time, to allay the fears of our most reliable ally, the Bush team is promising to increase military aid to Israel to $30.4 billion over the next decade. There is nothing like a little arms race to promote stability in a trigger-happy region.

There may be some devilishly clever, subtle master strategy in all this but, based on past performance, they might do well to consider Casey Stengel’s advice for managing tough situations: “The secret is to keep the guys who hate you away from the guys who are undecided.”

Killers in Iraq: The Saudi Connection

Almost half of the insurgents American troops are fighting in Iraq came from our staunch ally, Saudi Arabia.

According to U.S. military figures just published in the Los Angeles Times, “About 45 percent of all foreign militants targeting U.S. troops and Iraqi civilians and security forces are from Saudi Arabia; 15 percent are from Syria and Lebanon; and 10 percent are from North Africa.”

The Saudi government knows that and says it is doing everything possible to prevent Sunni extremists from migrating to the killing fields of Iraq. But is it?

The signals are getting decidedly mixed. Until recently, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, who was ambassador to Washington until 2005, had Bush and Cheney eating out of his hand. But then last month, his uncle, King Abdullah told Arab heads of state that Americans in Iraq were “an illegal foreign occupation.”

“Saudi frustration,” the New York Times reported this weekend, “has mounted over the past four years, as the situation in Iraq has deteriorated. King Abdullah was angry that the Bush administration ignored his advice against de-Baathification and the disbanding of the Iraqi military.”

Now questions arise: How hard are the Saudis trying to stem the tide of their Sunni jihadists into Iraq? To what extent is exporting troublemakers in their domestic interest and part of an unspoken policy? How much pressure are they putting on the Bush Administration to stay in Iraq by threatening to support Sunni fighters against Iran-backed Shiites if we leave? Behind it all, how much of American policy is driven by placating the Saudis to ensure the continuing flow of their oil to which we are addicted?

In the Middle East, keeping up with your friends can be as exhausting as fighting your enemies. Pakistan is another example. Stay tuned.