RIYADH -- You won't find the newly published "Hatred's Kingdom" in any Saudi bookshop, but it is in such demand among high officials that the government has brought out a reprint of its own. Its author is Dore Gold, a hardline Israeli spokesman. According to him, the "hatred" in question is rooted in that austere brand of Islamic orthodoxy, Wahhabism, to which Saudi Arabia officially subscribes, and which found its most horrific, world-shaking expression in the atrocity of 9/11.
The book has further fueled the Saudi obsession with playing "who is next?" -- a popular Arab guessing game in which the object is to guess what government conservative hawks in the Bush administration will choose next for "reform" or "regime change" in their drive to "reshape" the Middle East.
Syria and Iran are more probable candidates. But the Saudis see very good reasons why they might be targeted, too. One is oil -- and the United States' inexorable thrust toward military and political ascendancy in the Persian Gulf region. Another is religiosity -- those Christian fundamentalist tendencies within the Bush administration.
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