(Ahlul Bayt News Agency) - We talked with Webster Griffin Tarpley, author, journalist and lecturer from Washington who considers the Egyptian revolution and other colored revolutions as US-sponsored events to weaken Saudi Arabia. He reveals startling information about the CIA and al-Qaeda and summarizes the 'divide and conquer' strategy of the US in the Middle East. Following is a transcript of the interview.
Q: I'd like to start by talking about the regional and broader aspects of this. When a reporter asked the MP who made the allegations about Riyadh of what the goals of the Saudi regime were, that MP said Riyadh's intention is to weaken ties with countries like Iran and Turkey and to strengthen the so-called Persian Gulf block, which consists of countries like Kuwait, Bahrain and Oman.
What do you think about those kinds of claims and the goals that it is suspected that Riyadh is following by recruiting these terrorists, as is being alleged?
Webster Griffin Tarpley: Well, I think we have to start from the premise that the Saudi royal family is very afraid and they've been afraid of course for decades, but more recently they're very afraid because they've seen the Mubarak government brought down by a US-sponsored colored revolution run by Samantha Powell and Michael McDowell here from the National Security Council in the White House and they're horrified by that.
So you could say that Saudi Arabia is in play and that's the big strategic factor at the present time. At the beginning of June we had a very interesting op-ed here in the Washington Post by Prince Turki al-Faisal saying that if the US blocks the creation of a Palestinian state at the UN General Assembly in September there would be disastrous consequences for US Saudi relations.
And I take it that you look at Prince Bandar -- his trip to Pakistan and China -- Saudi Arabia is trying to find security solutions, which do not involve the US because they can see that the US is fomenting the troubles in Yemen; that the US has fomented the troubles in Bahrain -- both of those are means to destabilize the kingdom.
But if we look a little bit beyond this, if Bandar is a realist, Bandar once said he'd go to the right of Bin Laden, he'd go to the left of Gaddafi; he would kiss Saddam Hussein to survive. If President Ahmadinejad is a realist, isn't there some way to put an end to the eternal squabbling between Iran and Saudi Arabia from which only the US, the British and the Israelis benefit?
I'm afraid we have to hold onto the fact that the CIA runs al-Qaeda; they created it. That does no change -- Saudi Arabia does not own it. And in particular al-Qaeda in Iraq is a CIA creation. We should also remember that Wikileaks is also a CIA limited hangout operation; it's very convenient for them to publish these things by Hilary Clinton -- who knows if they're genuine, who knows why they came out at the present time.
But isn't there room for some kind of a shift in the alliance pattern in the region given the fact that the Saudis are so unhappy with their subjugation to the US?
Q: I'm going to quote Leon Panetta, he said the reason American troops are in Iraq is because, in his words, “on 9/11 the US got attacked and our first responsibility (he says) is to protect those that are defending our country.” Now, what does he mean by that and who are these forces defending America from?
Webster Griffin Tarpley: This statement of course has been widely mocked and ridiculed because it goes back to the big lie propaganda of Bush Cheney and the Neo-cons and I believe he's had to take that back. The reality right now is despite whatever Saudi Arabia wants, the American people want the troops out; we are sick of war in this country and Obama is giving the Americans more war.
We've now got six wars: Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Libya, Somalia, Yemen and you can even count a cyber war and that gets up to seven in addition to these color revolutions -- I don't see these authentic in any way shape or form -- a lot of people in Egypt are coming to the conclusion that they thought they had a revolution and they have one big nothing.
In Bahrain...interesting to see that one...The Khalifa family in Bahrain had issued an ultimatum to the US saying we will not let you use this naval base for your fifth fleet in order to attack Iran. So this was another reason to make Bahrain into a bone of contention between the Saudis and the Iranians.
The entire approach of the Obama administration when they came in was an attempt to create a Sunni Arab block, with the Israelis taking part, against a rejection front of Iranian- Syria-Hezbollah block and to try to dominate the Middle East by playing one block against the other.
At the end of his time in office Mubarak began to see that the only beneficiary between the conflict between Egypt and Iran was indeed the US, the British and the Israelis and I think that awareness has started to spread.
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