sábado, noviembre 27, 2004

SEGÚN EL LIBRO American Secret War, de George Friedman (fundador de StratFor), la razón de la guerra de Iraq no tenía que ver con Saddam, sino con los saudíes, verdadero epicentro del Islamofascismo. Frank Devine habla de ello en The Australian:
Although the US believed Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction, the WMDs were ultimately "a cover for a much deeper game".

[...] [In the 1990s,] al-Qa'ida ("the Base" in English) pressed its grand design for an Islamist world federation, a new Caliphate, which would ultimately match, if not dominate, other superpowers. Global terrorism would be the means. Al-Qa'ida's opening moves - attacks on American embassies and other establishments abroad - were aimed, in Friedman's opinion, less at damaging the US than provoking it to a reckless assault on Islam. ...

The passive US response to its early pinprick attacks emboldened and frustrated al-Qa'ida. The jihadists, Friedman writes, "needed to strike a blow that would be devastating, [breaching] the threshold between what was tolerable and intolerable for the US". Their initiative was the September 11, 2001, attack on New York and Washington, which shocked and disoriented the Americans. ...

The invasion and speedy subjugation of Afghanistan staggered the jihadists. But the US, having succeeded only in dispersing al-Qa'ida and the Taliban, rather than eliminating them, believed it needed to strike another heavy blow.

By then it had identified the jihadist campaign as "a Saudi problem". Most of the September 11 suicide attackers had been Saudis. Bin Laden was a Saudi. Saudi money trails were everywhere. An invasion of Saudi Arabia presented the tactical problem of waging war against a country of vast area and the strategic one of disrupting the world's oil supplies.

The Americans had established and then strengthened a military presence in countries surrounding Saudi Arabia - Yemen, Oman, Qatar, Bahrain and Kuwait. Invasion of Iraq would complete the encirclement.
(via Professor Bainbridge)