Remember 9/11

So Hillary Clinton thinks the U.S. will have to extend its defense umbrella to the impoverished, democratic, liberal autocracies of the Middle East if Iran succeeds in obtaining a nuclear bomb. Which got me thinking:

Just to recap: On September 11, 2001, 15 Saudis, one Egyptian, one Lebanese and two citizens of the United Arab Emirates crashed hijacked airliners into American targets, murdering close to 3,000 people. All 19 were Sunni Muslims, followers of a puritanical strain of Islam developed in Saudi Arabia and Egypt. The ideology of jihad that lures recruits from the suburbs of London to the hinterlands of Waziristan is promulgated by Sunni Imams and financed overwhelmingly (if indirectly) by the Persian Gulf monarchies we're presently clamoring to reassure.

The two architects of 9/11 and the masterminds of the global jihadist movement - Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri - are Saudi and Egyptian, respectively. The captured "enemy combatants" in Guantanamo Bay hail from Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Syria and even Australia. There is not a single Iranian among them. Nor have there been any Iranians implicated in the recent terrorist plots uncovered in Europe and the U.S.

In short, the global jihad that so directly threatens the American homeland and American interests around the world is not an outgrowth of Iranian-sponsored radicalism, but Saudi-sponsored Sunni fundamentalism. And one of the principle (though by no means exclusive) rallying cries behind this jihad is American support for the illiberal autocracies of the Gulf and, more broadly, American interference in the Middle East.

But maybe I'm missing something.

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Photo credit: AP Photos