Meet Saudi Arabia's latest monstrous contribution to world history: the Islamist Sunni caliphate of Iraq and the Levant [ISIS], conquerors of Mosul and Tikrit - and Raqqa in Syria - and possibly Baghdad. From Aleppo in northern Syria almost to the Iraqi-Iranian border, the jihadists of ISIS and sundry other groupuscules paid by the Saudi Wahhabis - and by Kuwaiti oligarchs - now rule thousands of square miles. Apart from Saudi Arabia's role in this catastrophe, what other stories are to be hidden from us in the coming days and weeks? While the Americans support the wretched Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and his elected Shia government in Iraq, the same Americans still demand the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad of Syria and his regime, even though both leaders are now brothers-in-arms against the victors of Mosul and Tikrit. We all know of the deep concern" of Washington and London at the territorial victories of the Islamists. No one, however, will feel as much of this "deep concern" as Shia Iran and Assad of Syria and Maliki of Iraq, who must regard the news from Mosul and Tikrit as a political and military disaster. Just when Syrian military forces were winning the war for Assad, tens of thousands of Iraqi-based militants may now turn on the Damascus government. No one will care now how many hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have been slaughtered since 2003 because of the fantasies of Bush and Blair. Saudi Arabia will continue to be treated as a friendly "moderate" in the Arab world, even though ... millions of its dollars are arming those same fighters.
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