The White House is simply not going to be able to get away with the same old secrecy. The furor over the Administration’s recent insistence on redacting 28 pages of a 9/11 report related to the Saudis has made that clear enough. The Saudi question has finally given opportunistic Democrats a chance to get to the President’s political right on fighting terror.
We are not indifferent to the worry that destabilizing the regime in Saudi Arabia could lead to its replacement by one far more hostile to U.S. interests. But if Saudi foot-dragging these last two years has taught us anything, it’s that the divided royal family in Riyadh will never be able to muster the resolve to assist on terror without more or less constant U.S. pressure.