PRESS RELEASE
Will Germany Take the Point for the West To Get Serious about the Saudis?
Jan. 8, 2016 (EIRNS)—The German weekly Die Zeit Online is running a full campaign for German measures against Saudi Arabia. A Jan. 5 article headlined, "It Has to Hurt," called for a five-point program against the Saudis, including sanctions, with the recommendation that Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier’s diplomacy was not enough. On the same day they ran a column by terror expert Guido Steinberg, senior associate for the Middle East and Africa at the government-financed think tank, German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP); the article which is also on the SWP website; in Handelsblatt, and the Berlin Tagesanzeiger.
Die Zeit headlined the article, "The West Needs Saudi Arabia" but the kicker reads, "to fight al-Qaeda and Islamic State, but that shouldn’t stop Germany from insisting the Saudis stop exporting Wahhabism." Steinberg writes, "the ideology of IS is largely identical with that of Wahhabism."
A Jan. 6 Die Zeit article on the Saudi ruler was headlined, "The King Is Overstrung," and on Jan. 7th, an article warns that the Saudi-created tensions are undermining President Hassen Rouhani within Iran, including what that means for a Syrian peace process.
In December, Germany’s foreign intelligence agency BND issued a press release on its report that was highly critical of the Saudi ruling family. According to press reports, the release was authorized by Chancellor Merkel’s office, much to the consternation of the Foreign Ministry. A year ago, in January 2015, a former high-ranking BND leader met with an EIR representative the publications european headquarters in Wiesbaden after receiving material on the Jan. 7, 2015 press conference by Congressman Walter Jones and former Sen. Bob Graham on forcing the declassification of the 28 pages of the 2002 Joint Congressional Inquiry into 9/11; earlier that day, Islamic terrorists had attacked the Charlie Hebdo office in Paris.
Although nothing came directly of the EIR offer to establish contact with them in Washington, it is clear that institutional circles in Germany are much more closely following the strategic analysis and proposals of LaRouche associates. Nonetheless, till now, the mainstream media have taken no notice of the campaign in Congress to declassify the 28 pages, and what that means for breaking the London-U.S. axis behind the Saudis.
