Asia Times - Asia's most trusted news source for the Middle East: "If the rulers of Saudi Arabia held out any hope that the post-September 11, 2001, demonization of their kingdom was finally waning, then someone in Riyadh should pick up a copy of An End to Evil, a recently published neo-conservative roadmap for 'winning' the 'war on terror'. In it, David Frum, an ex-speechwriter for President George W Bush (and inventor of the term 'axis of evil'), and Richard Perle, the eminence grise of the neo-con fraternity, suggest that the United States should bring Saudi Arabia to heel by threatening to support independence for the country's Eastern Province or Al Hasa (also known as Ash Sharqiyah), where much of Saudi Arabia's minority Shi'ite population and, coincidentally, most of its oil is situated.
While the continuing turmoil in Iraq might inhibit lesser souls even to consider tinkering with the map of the world's most important oil producer, Frum and Perle are made of sterner stuff. Lamenting the discrimination suffered by Saudi Arabia's Shi'ites at the hands of the Sunni elite, whose power base lies in Najd and Hijaz in the center and west of the Arabian Peninsula, they deduce that 'it is not bigotry alone that explains these Saudi actions, but also their fear that the Shi'ites might someday seek independence for the Eastern Province - and its oil'. If this fear were somehow brought to fruition it 'would obviously be a catastrophic outcome for the Saudi state. But it might be a very good outcome for the US.' "
While the continuing turmoil in Iraq might inhibit lesser souls even to consider tinkering with the map of the world's most important oil producer, Frum and Perle are made of sterner stuff. Lamenting the discrimination suffered by Saudi Arabia's Shi'ites at the hands of the Sunni elite, whose power base lies in Najd and Hijaz in the center and west of the Arabian Peninsula, they deduce that 'it is not bigotry alone that explains these Saudi actions, but also their fear that the Shi'ites might someday seek independence for the Eastern Province - and its oil'. If this fear were somehow brought to fruition it 'would obviously be a catastrophic outcome for the Saudi state. But it might be a very good outcome for the US.' "
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