Tuesday, February 24, 2009

NIC Report: "... leadership in the Middle East is passing to Saudi Arabia ... a loss to Egypt..."

A National Intelligence Council report, (Dec. '08) here
The experts convened to draft the study agreed Egypt is no longer the undisputed leader of the Arab world as it had been in previous decades, and that the torch of regional leadership is being passed to Saudi Arabia. However, the report indicates the Saudi regime is loath to accept that role, largely because of implications of the growing threat Iran poses the Arab world.

"Mubarak is getting older and no longer has the energy to provide the leadership he once did," the report states. "No one in the government, including his son or Omar Suleiman, the chief of the Egyptian External Intelligence Service, has replaced him in regional relations."

2 comments:

mo said...

eh? Did this not already happen sometime around '91 and isn't "the torch" now leaving Saudi hands?

Or am I missing something?

G, M, Z, or B said...

wlak what torch ... looks more like a match