Monday, July 30, 2007

Moderate Puzzle

While browsing idly through links at Antiwar.com I saw the headline that Israel's making the unprecedented step of backing U.S. arms sales to Saudi Arabia. Which I ordinarily wouldn’t care enough to post about, but this quote from Israel’s prime minister caught my eye:

"We understand the need of the United States to support the Arab moderate states and there is a need for a united front between the U.S. and us regarding Iran."

What? A united front between Israel and the US is vital regarding Iran: yeah, plausible, whatever. But when the hell did Saudi Arabia become a “moderate” state?

3 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

The enemy of my enemy and all that.

2:15 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

It pays both ways!

When Iran sits back down, and Saudi Arabia suddenly and really very surprisingly turns back from a moderate into an enemy state, look for Israel to cite all of those US-made weapons in Saudi Arabia as a reason they need even bigger arms giveaways to Israel.

3:12 AM  
Blogger Anne O'Neimaus said...

...when the hell did Saudi Arabia become a “moderate” state?

Since they haven't overthrown one of our pet dictators (the Shaw), and have continued to more-or-less deal with American Oil Companies...

In Kissinger-era "realpolitik" terms, I believe that "moderate" is not so much a measurement along the axis of religious or social extremism -vs- tolerance. Rather, it is nothing more than a measure of how much a government or group is opposed to whomever is applying the label.

It's yet another case of redefining the terms used in a statement, without explicitly notifying people that the term is being used in an unconventional way, so "the public" will be deliberately mislead.

1:00 PM  

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