Is international opinion on Saudi Arabia finally shifting? For years, one of the great embarrassments and contradictions of Western diplomacy has been the intimacy of the West's relationship with the House of Saud.
Of course, both Britain and America have some responsibility for installing and then maintaining the Saudi royal family in their position. Were it not for this circumstance, in addition to the world's largest oil reserves, the people we now call the Saudi royal family would be neither richer nor any more famous than any other group of goat-herders in the region.
For decades now, the Saudi royal family has been a continuing embarrassment for the civilized world. Their brand of extreme Wahhabi Islam is not only -- against some very stiff competition -- one of the worst interpretations of the Islamic faith.
It is the basis of a religious and judicial system that they have not been content to keep within their borders, but rather regard as such a success that they have sponsored it around the world, while promoting violence abroad to keep it from exploding at home. [Gatestone Institute] Read more
