Goodbye Bandar, Hello Turki

Today's New York Times http://nytimes.com/2005/07/21/international/middleeast/21bandar.html?pagewanted=all reports on the changing of the guard at the Saudi Embassy.  The article does not do justice to the backstory--how these two Saudi officials are implicated with the United States in the rise of Al Qaeda and of Osama Bin Laden.  To raise these issues at this time might seem unseemly in the context of the many parties in Washington honoring Ambassadors Bandar and Turki. The story is a complex web of intrigue and strategic blunder.  It is the tale of how U.S. policy in the last phase of the Cold War relied on the Saudi connection, Pakistan, and militant Islam to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan.  Fortunately, Steve Coll's Pulitzer Prize winning book, Ghost Wars, is a masterful account that tells us all we need to know.  I interviewed Coll for Conversations in March 2005 http://globetrotter.berkeley.edu/people5/Coll/coll-con0.html Read the interview and then the book. Also see the Conversations with History Research Gallery on Militancy and Moderation in Islam http://globetrotter.berkeley.edu/PubEd/research/islam.html especially the interview with Ahmed Rashid at http://globetrotter.berkeley.edu/people2/Rashid/rashid-con0.html