Some thoughts for you all to consider from someone who was embedded with the Egyptian Army during the first Gulf War:
1. Egypt and Saudi Arabia have a lot in common in that the populaces of both states suffer under dictatorships that are supported in power largely by the U.S in exchange for support that we ask of those governments.
2. Most foreign fighters (some 40%) in Iraq are indeed Saudi, and I would expect a large number to come from Eqypt as well, though I am not aware of their open source percentage. Some 20% each come from Lybia and Algeria.
3. The Saudi's fear any growth of Shia power in particular and Iranian power in general and often play the U.S. has a hedge to protect them from this. This is due largely to the heavily oppressed Shia minority in NE Saudi Arabia that is the most motivated dissident group in Saudi Arabia, though there is a large Sunni dissidence as well.
4. This thread started off by stating how "Egypt" was running insurgent supporting information on TV, I suspect that "Egypt" i.e., the state of Egypt, was not running this at all, and the reason this was running was becuase it is very popular with a suppressed Egyptian populace.
5. The Saudi and Egyptian populaces fully recognize that they have no real hope of resolving their issues of poor governance at home until they can break the support of the U.S. in the region in general, and to their governments in particular. This is a critical point to understand. Young Saudi and Egyptian men see phase one to successful nationalist insurgency at home to be this breaking of U.S. support to two governments that have very little in common with the principles that the U.S. holds so dear.
6. When you see that the Saudi government is "cracking down on terrorsts" at home, you would be wise to consider that the people they are cracking down on are Saudi citizens who are rising up in a quest for self-determined governance, and that this tremendous "help" by our Saudi allies most likely translates to their populace as all the more why reason they must work harder to break U.S. support to this government.
7. Some of these Saudis follow an extreme wahabi brand of Islam, but most are moderates who want something even more extreme in this region of the world: self-determined democracy.
My point in all of this is that this often gets colored in just one way as it is presented to the American populace. We see ourselves as "the good guys" and therefore our allies are on the "good guy" team too. We are good guys, but as our leadership has stated, we are addicted to oil, and addicts make bad decisions. Just keep an open mind, and try to see these things though the perspectives of others as well.
To apply the concepts that I presented a few months ago in the paper on "Populace-Centric Engagement" the course I would offer is that we need to be much more tuned in to the needs, will and requirements of populaces like those of Egypt and Saudi Arabia; and take a much firmer line with their governments, using a full bag of carrots and sticks to put more effort to getting them to evolve their governments in ways that give their entire populaces more voice, and less effort on turning a blind eye to that in order to gain their support for GWOT related issues, or out of fear that they would somehow stop selling us oil.
Americans all wish that the Middle East would change how it views us. I suggest that the critical first step is changing how we view them. The Cold War lens we view them through gets a little cloudier every day.
Originally Posted by Bob's World
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