Countdown

More troublemaking from our Saudi allies:

Increasing numbers of Saudi Arabian Islamists are crossing the border into Iraq in preparation for a jihad, or holy war, against US and UK forces, security and Islamist sources have warned.

A senior western counter-terrorism official on Monday said the presence of foreign fighters in Iraq was “extremely worrying”.

A statement purportedly from al-Qaeda was broadcast on Monday by the Arab satellite television channel al-Arabiya. It claimed the al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and the leader of the Afghanistan’s ousted Taliban regime Mullah Mohammed Omar were still alive. But it also asserted that recent attacks on US forces in Iraq were the work of jihadis.

We don’t need their bases anymore, and it won’t be too much longer (probably months, not years) before we’re not so reliant on their oil — then we’ll have a fair shot at dealing with the primary sponsors of Islamic terror.

But will the Arabists in the State Department ever understand?