What if...

Submitted by Bob Levin (United States), Jul 5, 2007 at 10:17

What if the politicians in the West, specifically Bush and Blair, aren't clueless? What if, after 9/11 and the realization that our intelligence services had failed miserably, that there weren't any deep sources of information in the Muslim world, that they tried to build, essentially from scratch the kind of network that yielded good high level information? How would they do this? What would it look like as they find people willing to talk, people susceptible to bribes, to even find the right people to approach?

I think it would look like appeasement and cluelessness--because you have to get close enough to these people to find the weak links. I'm not saying that the Pipes hypothesis is wrong, I'm saying that the same data that leads to one conclusion also leads to another. Haven't the Saudis been doing the same technique for years, building ties to the state department, funding Carter and hiring James Baker? Doesn't that look, to the Wahabists, like capitulation to the West?

Really, I'm just throwing out the question, I don't know the answer. I just figure you have to at least consider the Harvard grads at Foggy Bottom got into Harvard for a reason. It might be a stretch, I acknowledge that.

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