The world is lousy with Arab princes. And if we could have got Osama bin Laden, and saved at some point down the road 3,000 American lives, a few less Arab princes would have been OK in my book.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
Were there peace and justice in the Middle East, the Arabs would no more need their tinhorn dictators than they would their corpulent princes.
The idea that Arabia is best run by Arabs is no more palatable to Western leaders today than it was to Napoleon or Churchill.
The absence of Saddam is a huge weight off the Arab world.
Certain it is that their power increased always in an exact proportion to the weakness of the Caliphate, and, without doubt, in some of the most distracted periods of the Arabian rule, the Hebrew Princes rose into some degree of local and temporary importance.
There's enough of a willingness in the West to do sympathetic movies about Arab roles.
What holds an Arab leader in power is a mixture of violence and prestige. Both President Assad and King Hussein were felt to have defended Arab interests against the world. That, in the end, is more important than what they wear on their head.
The most striking thing is that even before Osama bin Laden was killed, he seemed largely irrelevant to the Arab Spring.
There's a good lesson for policymakers: It's not the presence of the U.S. that is a problem for many people in the Arab region; it's the type of presence we bring.
Common sense would tell you that the idea that Saudi Arabia was paying for bin Laden's expenses while he was living in Abbottabad is simply risible. Bin Laden's principal goal was the overthrow of the Saudi royal family as a result of which his Saudi citizenship was revoked as far back as 1994.
You couldn't have done this without killing an Arab prince.