Bash the Enemies, Support the "Friends"

So yesterday Secretary of State Rice decided that the only nations to blame for the inflammatory response to Danish cartoons depicting the prophet Mohammed were, amazingly enough, two nations near the top of the neocon hit list!

Secretary of State Rice was tougher. "I don't have any doubt that given the control of the Syrian government in Syria, given the control of the Iranian government, which, by the way, hasn't even hidden its hand in this, that Iran and Syria have gone out of their way to inflame sentiments and to use this to their own purposes," she said standing next to the new Israeli foreign minister, Tzipi Livni. "And the world ought to call them on it."

This is not to say that Iran and Syria aren't stoking the fires of this controversy. They very likely are. But I can't help noticing how selective a list of countries that is. No mention, for example, of Saudi Arabia, whose newspapers (all state-run) started running multiple articles condemning the cartoons right after the Hajj tragedy that killed hundreds of Muslims in their country (for which they were largely to blame for not providing security). Many rioters in Lebanon and Syria were waving Saudi flags, for example.

And Rice made no mention of Egypt, despite the fact that they jumped on the controversy very early, with Egypt breaking off diplomatic relations with Denmark as early as November, and making sure the international media paid attention to the issue.

But of course, THOSE countries are our "friends." Mm-hm.