NP? Muslim allies Saudi Arabia and Pakistan break ranks with US over bombing

[Doug Millison]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,574890,00.html

Muslim allies break ranks with US

Muslim allies Saudi Arabia and Pakistan break ranks with US over bombing

Matthew Engel in Washington
Tuesday October 16, 2001
The Guardian


Relations between the US and two of its core allies in the war against
terrorism, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, approached crisis point yesterday
after the Saudi interior minister, Prince Naif, attacked the assault on
Afghanistan while Pakistan pressed Washington to ensure that its bombing
campaign would be short-lived.

In the latest and most public of a series of disagreements that have
evidently taken the US by surprise in the five weeks since the September 11
attacks, Prince Naif told the official Saudi Press Agency that the kingdom
wanted the US to flush out the terrorists without bombing. "This is killing
innocent people. The situation does not please us at all." [...]

In the most extreme language to emerge from Tehran since September 11,
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader of Iran, said that the US air
strikes were "dragging the world into a war".  [...]

David Wurmser, director of Middle East studies at the American Enterprise
Institute in Washington, said yesterday: "The US's entire foreign policy
structure in the region has been anchored in the strategic relationship
with Saudi Arabia. If everything we're hearing is true, then we're facing a
total meltdown.

"The whole war as currently conceived would have to be reconsidered,
because Pakistan won't hold if Saudi support starts collapsing.

"You can't really separate Bin Laden from the Saudi establishment," Mr
Wurmser said. "There are conflicting forces there, and part of the
establishment has been working with the Bin Laden faction to embarrass the
other half." [...]



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