Veteran Saudi Power Player Prince #Bandar Works To Build Support to Topple Assad - WSJ.com
▻http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323423804579024452583045962.html
Curieux quand même que l’article évoque l’effet boomerang du « contra-gate » sans évoquer celui du financement des Ben Laden contre l’URSS en Afghanistan.
(Lire aussi la terreur des #Jordaniens)
Not everyone in the Obama administration is comfortable with the new U.S. partnership with the Saudis on Syria. Some officials said they fear it carries the same risk of spinning out of control as an earlier project in which Prince Bandar was involved—the 1980s #CIA program of secretly financing the Contras in Nicaragua against a leftist government. The covert program led to criminal convictions for U.S. operatives and international rebukes.
“This has the potential to go badly,” one former official said, citing the risk weapons will end up in the hands of violent anti-Western Islamists.
(...)
A generation ago, Prince Bandar, in a role foreshadowing his current one on behalf of Syrian opposition, helped the CIA arm the Afghan rebels who were resisting occupation by Soviet troops.
Arab diplomats said that in meeting with Russian officials this summer, the prince delivered the same message he gave the Soviets 25 years ago: that the kingdom had plenty of money and was committed to using it to prevail.
Incidemment,
Earlier this year it [the CIA] also began making salary payments to members of the Western-backed Free Syrian Army.
