Ambassador Turki: Mr. Cheney, we in the Saudi Royal Family are extremely concerned with the prospect of a Shiite government in Iraq.  Surely, this will only strengthen Iran.

Cheney: Don't worry Turki, we've got a plan.

Ambassador Turki: You have a plan?

Cheney: Sure we do.  We're going to take Iran out.

Ambassador Turki:  What?!?  How are you going to do that?  You people are nuts!

Cheney: Oh please.  Wake up, Turki.  Sure, invading Iran would be "crazy" if we were doing it in connection with Iraq or as part of a neocon scheme to take over the Middle East.  But we're not!

Ambassador Turki: What do you mean?

Cheney: Read the papers.  Iran is getting nukes.  All we need to do is push the Security Counsel for sanctions.  If they say 'no,' then we bomb Iran because the UN is full of wimps.  If they 'yes,' we wait a month for sanctions to fail, then bomb Iran because we've 'exhausted all diplomatic options.'  As long as Ahmadinejad keeps talking, it's just a matter of time.

Ambassador Turki: You people are nuts.  I quit.

Cheney: Can someone get Bandar back in here?  We need a Saudi who can play ball.

Steve,

So this mostly just personal power politics or are there underlying policy differences that fuel the power battles?

What does this shifting in power amongst Saudi senior officials do for the power and influence of particular senior US national security officials and influential outsiders (Baker, etc)?

Unrelated what has happened to the Sec of State? She has been invisible.

Turki-al-Faisal plays perhaps the key role in he "Ghost Wars" as he turned the Saudi intelligence service into a professonal and potentn force. To follow up on Irishkg's question Turki was very very close to the Pakistani ISI and helped fund the more militant fighters in Afghanistan. It seems hard to believe that he was actually blinded sided. So does Bandar or the King disagree with Turki over policy?

Daniel A. Greenbaum

highly irritated by Bandar's "immaturity, unprofessionalism, and self-indulgent political games

It's refreshing to see this said straight out. It's what some of those who have followed the man's antics, like me, have often felt. I have new respect for Turki, and even a bit of new hope for Saudi Arabia. Not that I haven't enjoyed learning about Bandar's performance art, expert at duplicity, triplicity, quadruplicity, role playing international man of mystery ala 1960's cinema....the appearances on Larry King's shows that I have seen have been highlights in particular because then one can interpret for oneself--Larry, of course, has always just let him play. In the end, it was always hard not to conclude that Bandar was not interested in pursuing Saudi Arabia's best interests, but merely his own.

Surely the important news was the fact that Turki publicly confirmed strong Saudi opposition to US withdrawal from Iraq and support for the current (Shia dominated) government as the best approach to defending Sunnis from ethnic cleansing (while a staffer of his threatened to fund the Baathist and jihadi insurgents if the US did pull out but was sacked after doing so publicly).

This at a time when Lebanon is about to form a new national unity government with much larger Shia representation (and effective veto), plus probably fresh elections, following the biggest demonstration in Lebanese history, thus greatly undermining Saudi influence throughout the region and at a time when other factions are permitting or encouraging senior clerics to openly call for Saudi support of jihadis in Iraq.

I would guess it is connected with the preparations for a shift in the governing coalition in Iraq to isolate the Sadrists, bring in Sunnis and thus set the scene for a much stronger national unity government that can suppress both the Shia death squads and the Sunni mass murderers.

Saudi encouragement for the Sunni leaders to join would be critical.

Perhaps I'm wrong but other explanations for the flurry of meetings between Cheney and the Saudis and Bush and SCIRI look quite fanciful given all the other pointers to such a realignment.

BTW I don't think the comment at the end of the last link above about potential opposition from Sistani makes any sense at all. It is more likely that he would be behind it.

In other related developments note that demands for prompt withdrawal have been marginalized by "bipartisan incoherence" since the Baker Commission report highlighted the disasterous consequences and mainstream debate is now between "staying the course" as actually advocated by Baker (while pretending otherwise), and a strong critique from McCain and neocons advocating a more vigorous course, including more troops.

As I predicted before the elections the push for expanded armed forces has already begun, so Democrats will soon be confronted with voting on whether to leave the armed forces overstretched or give up the carping.

Also as predicted, proposals to insist on Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank are encountering very little opposition since the Israelis used up their political capital in Lebanon.

Thank you, Mr. Dent and other contributors. Very interesting.

To me, by definition, colonialists' words must be viewed as code. Due to the fraudulent justification for the U.S. invasion of Iraq, the most likely and probable motive was colonialist in character and based on a natural resource: oil. I find it interesting now that the "goal" for the U.S. occupation of Iraq is to ensure national stability in Iraq, the lack thereof being due entirely to the U.S. invasion and occupation itself. If concern about the people of Iraq were the original premise, the U.S. would have troops now in Darfur. Concern for the people of Iraq fails to pass the straight face test.

However, the U.S. cannot reveal its actual goals and motivations for invading Iraq due to its prior obfuscation. Like a husband making an excuse up to explain his whereabouts while cheating on his wife, the U.S. must now "live the lie." Nor can the U.S. reveal to U.S. citizens its actual goal and end game for Iraq for the same reason: its end game in 2006 is not dissimilar to its end game in 2002 except now the end game itself appears unattainable due to the ongoing consequences of the invasion and occupation itself. Like Dr. Frankenstein, the monster he created has now begun to have thoughts of its own.

In my opinion, so long as commentators and the U.S. political elite stubborn choose to "forget" and to avoid any reference to the fraudulent nature of the invasion in the first place, discussion of a "way out" is so methodically skewed as to be useless. This would only be of academic interest except that lots and lots of people are dying in Iraq and will continue to die in Iraq in a great part due to the total lack of honesty displayed in what passes for "thoughtful and sober discussion" of this disaster.

The real world is not a Risk game with plastic armies. As scientist Gregory Bateson said, the map is not the territory.

Thanks.

Yep, yep and double yep.

Unrelated what has happened to the Sec of State? She has been invisible.

Condi tore her panties long ago with Cheney and Rummy and they both ripped them clean off her when Israel continued bombing Lebanaon for those 2 soldiers. Condi, did not understand the ME strategy of the global oil raiders so she has been squelched. Her original mentor was Scowcroft who brought her into the National Security circle, But he washed his hands of her when she started spouting that "mushroom cloud" meme and allowed Rummy and Cheney to put Colin's cajones in a vise.

Condi has been official neutered and no longer can play ball especially since the folks in the ME do not believe in listening to women in the FIRST place. She has officially become a cheerleader and the Big Boys are calling the plays....she is benched...Stephen Hadley has her job now.