Our friends the Saudis

The moment of truth has arrived for the House of Saud. The corrupt and near-bankrupt Wahhabi family that owns most of the Arabian peninsula can’t have it both ways any more.

It can’t claim to be an ally of the United States while providing ideology, sanctuary and money to the world’s most dangerous terrorists.

Everyone knows it now. Everyone except the State Department and the White House, which act like they have something to hide by continuing to refuse to release 28 pages of a congressional inquiry implicating the Saudis in 9/11. The Saudis and their Wahhabi cousins in Qatar are frantically pumping money into Washington lobbies, PR firms and think tanks for spin control.

But a handful of intrepid journalists are now connecting the dots after years of investigations.

A few federal officials in the know are breaking their silence.

Lawmakers who wouldn’t be bought by Saudi petrodollars are dredging up the facts in hearings. Senator Jon Kyl took the first historic step in late June. Then Senators Arlen Specter and Susan Collins followed with a second hearing in July. More are on the way.

The new evidence is turning the nation’s leading financial press against the Saudis. “Let’s start with two uncontested facts. The first is that Saudi Arabia is the ‘epicenter’ of funding for terrorism in general and al Qaeda in particular,” said the Wall Street Journal in a powerful recent editorial. “The other disturbing fact is that two years after 9/11 the Saudis still have not done all they need to do to stop the flow of Saudi money to the world-wide terror network.”