Friday, February 17, 2006
What Al Gore might have said about Iran in Jeddah
According to press accounts, Gore was tough on Iran:
On Iran, Gore complained of "endemic hyper-corruption" among Tehran's religious and political elite and asked Arabs to take a stand against Iran's nuclear program.
Iran says its program is for peaceful purposes but the United States and other Western countries suspect Tehran is trying to develop nuclear weapons.
"Is it only for the West to say this is dangerous?" Gore asked. "We should have more people in this region saying this is dangerous."
Al Gore knows a lot about the Saudis and Iran, and might have said a lot more.
On June 25, 1996, terrorists exploded a fuel truck outside Building 131 in the Khobar Towers complex in Khobar, Saudi Arabia, killing 19 American servicemen and wounding 372 Americans and Saudis. We now know that the perpetrators were Hezbollah, virtually a covert agency of the government of Iran, probably acting in concert with al Qaeda.1
The Clinton administration quite famously did exactly nothing to retaliate for this act of war, largely because it couldn't figure out whether the bombers were from Iran or al Qaeda. Apparently it was very important that the punishment fit the crime. Our failure to retaliate for Khobar unquestionably reinforced the perception in both Tehran and Afghanistan that the United States was a paper tiger.
We did not know who, specifically, bombed Khobar because the Saudis covered up the results of their investigation. From Against All Enemies
, by John Kerry advisor and former Clinton administration official Richard Clarke: Within days, the Saudi authorities had arrested four men, obtained their confessions, and executed them. Despite U.S. appeals to hold up the executions so that an American investigation could be completed, the Saudis decapitated the four. The Saudis provided scant details about who they were or why they had acted. (p. 113)
The Saudis knew within days, if not hours, that Iran was behind the Khobar Towers attack, but they were terribly afraid that if the United States had concrete evidence of Iran's culpability it would insist on launching a retaliatory attack from Saudi soil. Not only would that inflame the already tense relations between Saudi Arabia and Iran, but it might ignite Saudi Arabia's already restive Shiite population. This was trouble the Saudis did not need, so they refused to share what they knew with the Clinton administration for more than three years after the attack. (See Kenneth Pollack, The Persian Puzzle
, for much more.)According to Clarke, Al Gore was particularly angry about the refusal of the Saudis to come clean:
The White House pressure on the Saudis to cooperate in the investigation continue over three years, with letters from the President and demarches by National Security Advisors Lake and Berger. Vice President Gore demonstrated his famous temper in one such meeting, pounding on the table and asking a Saudi prince what sort of country hid the identify of people who had killed American military personnel stationed in that country defending it and its royal family. (p. 118)
Apparently, the sort of country that would pay money to hear Al Gore give a speech attacking American policy in the Persian Gulf.
______________________________
1. See the 911 Commission report at p. 60 and the sources cited therein. The Hezbollah - Al Qaeda alliance at Khobar is widely believed by experts who have not staked their reputations on the assumption that the Sunni extremists in al Qaeda's leadership would never cooperate with the Shia mullahs of Iran.
6 Comments:
By 
Gordon Smith, at
Fri Feb 17, 10:39:00 AM:
Y'all are so good at scrutinizing former politicans. It's a shame you don't turn that inquiring eye on Cheney's misdeeds, Bush's misdeeds, DeLay's misdeeds, etc.
I'm sure you'll get around to it once the Clinton adminstration has been out of office long enough. You're clearly more into the Clinton/Gore bashing right now. I'll look forward to your critiques of the Bush administration's corruption and hyprocrisy in 6 or 7 years...
By 
, at
Fri Feb 17, 01:41:00 PM:
Apparently it was very important that the punishment fit the crime.
But who to punish? In one sentence, you suggest al Quida, in another Iran. The two are not, and never have been, synonymous in any way.
The Keyboard Kammandos (tm The Poor Man) get irked that Clinton didn't go around blowing "Stuff" up. Of course, they also deride the one time he did blow stuff up, said stuff being where bi Laden (remember him?) had been 5 minutes before.
By Dawnfire82, at
Fri Feb 17, 01:50:00 PM:
I'd scrutinize their misdeeds... if I thought that they had committed any that piss me off. Just because you think they have committed misdeeds does not mean that they have, and does not mean that others think that they have.
But since you're the obvious expert on the topic (you're always harping on the administration and how bad they are; you must know SOMETHING that we don't, right?) Why don't you educate us? Send me proof of corruption and hypocrasy and we'll see whether these (rather common) accusations deserve my attention.
Dawnfire82@yahoo.com
BTW, I missed your reply to my lengthy comment on "One More on Gore." After I spent like 30 minutes on that refutation, I was hoping for *something.* You can just pass it on to the above address as well.
Thanks!
Sarcastic Wit 2nd Grade, Dawnfire, Champion of Logical Analysis
By Dawnfire82, at
Fri Feb 17, 01:57:00 PM:
Oh yeah, I forgot to make a small comment on the actual post.
Iran and Al-Qaeda have worked together in the past, most notably on the Khobar Towers thing. They do still work together too, but not on such a grand scale. Al Qaeda's a hot potatoe nowadays.
By TigerHawk, at
Fri Feb 17, 02:43:00 PM:
Anonymous - I'm actually not big on second-guessing these things, but if you read Clarke's book, which is absurdly pro-Clinton administration, you get the distinct feeling that even he thought that the administration was demanding too high a burden of proof. The anti-terror guys within the administration figured it was Hez, at least, from the get-go, but the CIA would hear nothing of it. Turned out the CIA was, er, wrong.
By Pyrthroes, at
Fri Feb 17, 02:47:00 PM:
The Saudi Wahabists have been playing this game of finance-and-facilitate Islamic terrorists since at least the Fall of Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlevi. Their bigoted sectarian dogmatism admits to no reciprocation-- vile anti-Semtic, anti-Western, anti-everything streams forth from a parasitic culture pledging nihilism on all fronts.
Nothing will change. But "reciprocation" works both ways (pun intended). Do an Eisenhower vs. Mao Ts'e-tung (1953): Simply inform the claptrap Mullah-cracy infesting the proud House of Saud that they personally will be held accountable for any WMD attack on any nation, anywhere, beginning tomorrow. This will, among other things, take the form of turning Mecca and Medina into boiling cesspools of radioactive waste for the next 10,000 years. And by the way, this accords with the Will of Allah-- because, by definition, nothing ever is against the Will of He who is "merciful, compassionate", even when it comes to chain-saw massacres of innocent non-cambatants.
And ah, yes: Cartoons. Why aren't dozens --hundreds-- more being mass-publicized every day? The more perjorative the better! How about an exquisitely drafted depiction of the Birth of the Prophet-- Allah in squatting position as He defecates Mohammed? We could think of many more, all quite mild in comparison to what the crafty Imams, wily Mullahs, deem appropriate to disseminate with nary a thought to repercussions.
The definition of a bully is one who can dish it out, but just can't take it. Let the Saudis and their ilk revert to craven rats, once any serious threat affects their own corrupt, self-indulgent support systems. Maybe we could bundle Carter, Clinton, Gore, Kerry and many another like cigars proffered by a wooden Indian, and hand 'em over for ritual beheading by enlightened exemplars of the Dar el Harb.
