Tuesday, January 16, 2007
Saudi media has been doing a weird dance as of late. On the one hand, they support the US occupation of Iraq and refer to outside interferences in Iraq (but only in reference to Iran and Syria). Yet, the Saudi media has now become quite sympathetic to Saddam and his family. The requirement of their sectarian game dictate a change of attitude to Saddam: they now use him to rally Sunni public opinion. In an odd column in As-Safir on Monday, Nuhad Mashnuq (former Hariri adviser and recent speaker at WINEP--and a man with the principles of the least principled of men) even talked favorably about Saddam's war on Iran, and even sympathized with his invasion of Kuwait. He also wrote quite unflattering comments about the last Amir of Kuwait. House of Saud: a royally (not royal) dysfunctional family.