A Quote by Ashleigh Banfield
Very few people are fortunate enough to walk through countries like Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia, and I had seen them all. I had spoken to many on the street.
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Like Afghanistan before it, Iraq is only one theater in a regional war. We were attacked by a network of terrorist organizations supported by several countries, of whom the most important were Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Saudi Arabia.
If you want peace and well-being to be in place in the Middle East and you want terrorism to be uprooted, then there's no path other than the presence of the Islamic Republic of Iran, you saw that in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen that the power that was able to help the people of Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen in the face of terrorist groups was the Islamic Republic of Iran.
We are certainly seeing a greater diversification of origin... it used to be that the best trained terrorist cyber facilitators were living in Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, or Western Europe. These days, we are seeing increasing numbers of such individuals from North Africa and what I like to term "Greater Syria" - Lebanon, the Palestinian territories, Jordan, and Syria itself.
New security architecture is being laid down in the Northern Middle East, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, in which pro-Iranian governments are consolidating their grip on the territory and they're backed by Russia, to a large degree. And this has caused great grief and consternation in Saudi Arabia and amongst many of the United States' allies, Israel, the Gulf countries, Turkey, because they see this new architecture of security and Iranian influence and Russian influence as something that's very bad for them.
The Islamic Revolution of Iran has been killing Americans, hundreds of Americans, for 35 years in Iraq and Lebanon and Saudi Arabia.
For the West, they wanted to undermine the Syrian positions. For the petrodollar countries like Saudi Arabia, they're thinking undermining Syria will undermine Iran on sectarian basis.
If I look at the really important questions in [Middle East] region, I see Iran, where there is a strong desire for a freer society and where people are repressed by a small group of ayatollahs. I see Syria, where we can see a similar desire of the people to be free. These two countries fund Hezbollah and other terrorist organizations and are hurting our efforts in Afghanistan and have been extremely harmful in Iraq. Then I also see large, important countries such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia.
We are engaging in the diplomatic efforts that are required within Iraq among the Shia, the Sunni and the Kurd, among friends, like Egypt, and Turkey and Saudi Arabia, but also enemies like Iran and Syria. They have to have buy-in into that process.
We must apply the same standards to countries such as Saudi Arabia, Israel and Egypt that we apply to Iran, Russia and Syria.
We're going to take out seven countries in 5 years, starting with Iraq, and then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and, finishing off, Iran.
I've been to Egypt, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait for brief visits at conferences, and they are very interesting countries.
I would recommend any American who wants to understand where the government is going in the next four years of George W. Bush presidency to get a copy of her confirmation hearings before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. It's a road map, and it's pretty frightening testimony. Their definition of where democracy should go in the Middle East doesn't include Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan; it only includes Iraq, Iran, and Syria.
It is still worth talking to Iran to see if there is a way through and to prevent the huge rivalry between Saudi and Iran turning into another version of the Iran-Iraq war. That is what all countries that have influence have to be thinking about.
The name Muhammad is the most common name in the world. In all the countries around the world - Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Turkey, Syria, Lebanon - there are more Muhammads than anything else.
It's very simple ; once the Western countries stop supporting those terrorists and making pressure on their puppet countries and client states like Saudi Arabia and Turkey and others, you'll have no problem in Syria. It will be solved easily.
If production does not increase in Iraq in an exponential way between now and 2015, we have a very big problem, even if Saudi Arabia meets its obligations. The figures are very simple, you do not need to be an expert. It is enough to know how to do a subtraction. China will grow very quickly, India also, and even Saudi Arabia projections of the 3 Mb/day will not be enough to meet the rise of Chinese demand.
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