I found this recently. There's some interesting thoughts in it. It's from a panel discussion put together by Rolling Stone. I actually bought the magazine to read the Ray Charles tribute. I finally picked it up and found this. I think the discussion dates back to mid-June. The full text can be found online
here.
The Rolling Stone Panel: (i edited some of their credentials for space)
- Gen. Anthony Zinni Commander in chief of Centcom, 1997-2000; special envoy to the Middle East
- Gen. Wesley Clark Supreme allied commander, Europe, 1997-2000
- Sen. Joseph Biden Ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee
- Thomas P.M. Barnett Strategic adviser to the Defense Department, 2001-2003; faculty member of U.S. Naval War College
- Sir Jeremy Greenstock British diplomat in Dubai and Saudi Arabia, 1969-2004
- Youssef Ibrahim Managing director of the Dubai-based Strategic Energy Investment Group; former Middle Eastern correspondent for The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal
- Bob Kerrey Senator from Nebraska, 1988-2000
- Chas Freeman U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia, 1989-1992; assistant secretary of defense, 1993-1994
- Fouad Ajami Director of Middle Eastern Studies at Johns Hopkins Univ
- Rand Beers Counterterrorism advisor to President Bush, 2002-2003
Some interesting excerpts:
We went into Iraq thinking it was a secular state, but the political rhetoric among Shiite and Sunni leaders has intensified. Is religion taking the place of politics?
Fouad Ajami: I supported the war in part because Iraq had in it the roots of secular culture, which I believed positioned it well to adopt a representative government. What I never imagined was how quickly the Sunni Arabs -- who relied on the secret police to control the country under Saddam -- would fall back on the mosques as their weapon of control. More surprising was that the Shiites -- the oppressed underclass who represent sixty percent of the population -- have also begun to use Islam as a political tool. It connects them, the dispossessed, to the united Muslim world at large.
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Is the concern that as the religious tenor among Iraqis intensifies, they will begin to identify their struggle as part of the larger conflict of Islam vs. the West?
Gen. Anthony Zinni: This is a key point. Everybody I know in this part of the world says you cannot let this become a religious war. You can't let this become Islam vs. the West. I fear that's what it's become. We're viewed as modern crusaders. We have our own mad mullahs in America -- the Jerry Falwells, the Pat Robertsons -- who criticize Islam. They are heard much louder over there than they are here.
Youssef Ibrahim: It's worse than that. Bush himself is seen to be a mad mullah. The president has repeatedly asserted that God is on our side in Iraq, that he's consulting with a "higher" father. The zealotry even infects the military. General William Boykin recently said, "My God is much bigger than their Allah" -- this was all over the Arab media. He was never fired or reprimanded for making that statement. Prisoners have given accounts of being forced to thank Jesus and denounce Islam. The perception in the Gulf, where I live, is that this administration is vehemently anti-Muslim. Like it or not, we are in a war with 2.1 billion Muslims.
Interesting thoughts on how Iraqi troubles could spill over into the Saudi oil fields.
What about our oil concerns? We often hear that a prime reason we went into Iraq was to get access to its oil as our ties to Saudi Arabia falter.
Chas Freeman: Yet the oil system is extremely vulnerable to shock. There's a rule in the Middle East that you don't need these fancy seismic studies to locate oil reserves -- if you find the Shiites, there's usually oil. There are more than 1 million Shiites in the eastern province of Saudi Arabia, which is where the oil is. They've suffered persecution by the religious majority in Saudi Arabia, and they're vulnerable to spillover from the anti-American struggle in Iraq. The global nightmare is that there would be terrorist action among Saudi Shiites directed at the oil pipelines, ports and refineries. For Americans, that would mean four or more dollars per gallon of gas.
Youssef Ibrahim: The sixty-year relationship we've had with Saudi Arabia is on the verge of collapse. How many times have we asked them to please, please open the spigots so we can bring prices down? There's a new 900-pound gorilla coming called China. In ten years, it's going to be the largest consumer of oil in the world, which means that the people who produce oil are no longer kissing America's ass -- they're beginning to kiss China's ass.
I love this exchange. Joe Biden has cojones. I'd love to hear the rest of that conversation.
Surely the Abu Ghraib prison scandal didn't help. Should Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld or other Bush officials resign?
Rand Beers: The Navy has a custom -- if a ship runs aground, the captain is relieved regardless of who is responsible. That's how Abu Ghraib should be handled.
Sen. Joseph Biden: I was in the Oval Office the other day, and the president asked me what I would do about resignations. I said, "Look, Mr. President, would I keep Rumsfeld? Absolutely not." And I turned to Vice President Cheney, who was there, and I said, "Mr. Vice President, I wouldn't keep you if it weren't constitutionally required." I turned back to the president and said, "Mr. President, Dick Cheney and Don Rumsfeld are bright guys, really patriotic, but they've been dead wrong on every major piece of advice they've given you. That's why I'd get rid of them, Mr. President -- not just Abu Ghraib." They said nothing. Just sat like big old bullfrogs on a log and looked at me.
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