From: George Sherwood 

On Fri, 30 Mar 2007 15:58:28 +0100, Adam wrote:
>>
>> http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1605010,00.html
>>
>> "It's tempting to dismiss Abdullah's summit rhetoric as playing to the
>> gallery, but the Washington Post reports that Abdullah has also
>> cancelled his attendance at a White House state dinner planned in his
>> honor next month. It wasn't so long ago that Bush and Abdullah were
>> practically love birds, holding hands as they walked past news cameras
>> during Abdullah's last visit to the U.S. in 2005. For better or worse,
>> they may increasingly be going their separate ways."
>>
>>
> Nah it's a much deeper re-alignment going on. To make it into some
> personal thing per se is to lose the significance.
>
> I think it could be the start (after many false dawns) of the Arabs
> realizing the truth in the "stand together or hang separately" dictum.

Wouldn't they have to stop killing themselves first?  I don't see that
happening no matter what the US does in Iraq.

>
> From what I can gather the Arab nations (as individual nations) have
> realized that the US doesn't really give a monkey's about them & that
> shedloads of oil, 100'es of millions of Arabs & a huge area of land from
> the Indian to the Atlantic count for nought in US public opinion & thus
> policy.
>
> They have realized that they're getting a steadily more powerful Iran on
> one side & IsraeAmerica on't'other & that it's about time they at the
> very least started an EU style process if not a NATO one.

Never going to happen.  Way too many competing interests not even counting
the Shia/Sunni thing.  This isn't the first time you have proposed this and
I still haven't seen anything to lead me in this direction.  IMHO, the
thing going on with Saudi now is trying to figure out what is going on in
Iraq.  It is almost an Islamic civil war.  In my mind we are much closer to
that then we are to the pan-Islam that you are talking about.  If the US is
not an illegal occupier in Iraq then you have nothing more then Muslims
killing Muslims and no one is ready to admit this yet.

>
> My guess is that they are deeply cheesed off at being told what to do
> (normally in the negative) in their own region by the US (e.g. don't
> send money to the PA, don't help Sunni in Iraq, don't interfere in
> another Arab state (i.e. Lebanon) except under Western (US-Franco) terms
> etc).

They can already do whatever they want.  I don't see the money pouring into
the PA.  You have claimed that it was going to happen many times and the
bills are still going unpaid.


George

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