Fahd of Arabia and Ronald Reagan
Twenty Years Ago

"The Saudi King will look like a fool if he comes
[to Washington]... They'll pat him on the head...and
send him off empty-handed... At most he'll get more
promises a few arms, and meaningless gestures.
Fahd's coming here is a serious blunder. It's not
dignified, I don't know how his advisers justify it."
- Middle East International - 1985

"The City [of Washington has]...become the
political Mecca for Arab leaders making their
pilgrimage to the seat of the empire to be dined
(but not wined), pampered, and ceremoniously
given just about everything except justice, hope,
and a future they can live with."

MIDDLEEAST.ORG - MER - Washington - 26 April:   Twenty years ago now, in 1985, things were already not going so well in the Middle
East. The Israelis were buildings settlements everywhere, even after having promised at Camp David years before to 'freeze' them all for
good.   Lebanon had been invaded by Israel and the U.S., Beirut sieged, American warships firing on an Arab country for the first time in
history, American Marines blown up en mass in an Arab capital as never before.
      The polarization and radicalization which was to eventually lead to 9/11 and the Clash of Civilizations was already underway; the era of hostages and suicide bombers had begun.
      That was the atmosphere in which the Saudi King came to Washington for a summit with Ronald Reagan in 1985. Many of those who
are today the leading Washington warrior Christian Zionist Neocons - Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, Wolfowitz, et. al. - were already in positions
of considerable power then. Yesterday the acting Saudi King, Crown Prince Abdullah (for King Fahd is still being kept artifically alive by teams of foreign doctors back in Riyadh), came to visit the current American President, George W. Bush, the man whose father was RR's Vice-President twenty years ago and who was to coin the term 'New World Order' just a few years later after Fahd's visit.
      At that time, two decades ago, the publisher of Mark Bruzonsky wrote the following column which was prominently published on the
back cover of MIDDLE EAST INTERNATIONAL in London. As a result the Saudis threw a fit, cancelled hundreds of MEI subscriptions,
and put even a firmer squeeze on the various publications and media outlets they subsidize or control, including The Washington
Report on Middle East Affairs which they had recently begun in Washington with some of their so-called 'Arabist' friends.
      As for Arab dignity, after meeting yesterday with Bush-Cheney-Rice to plot the next steps in the 'New World Order' crusade, the
Saudi Crown Prince was taken by his handlers and advisers to a local American diner where this man of the people had a photo op with
some common folk looking more foolish and more out-of-place than ever.

Email MER@MiddleEast.com with your comments

Middle East International 1985 "Letter From Washington" is at http://www.MiddleEast.org/archives/meifahad.jpg