The Devil You Think You Know

Ten days ago, in Damascus, I sat down with a Syrian official I’ve known for years and asked the question on everyone’s mind. What’s with the jihadists crossing Syria’s border into Iraq? There is no way anyone can control a long border like that, he said, sounding the official line. Then he dropped a bombshell. Of 1,200 suspected suicide bombers arrested by Syrian authorities since the beginning of the war in 2003, 85 percent have been Saudis.

Eighty-five percent? This can’t be good. Saudi Arabia sits on 25 percent of the world’s proven oil reserves. It is the only producer with enough spare capacity to stabilize oil markets during crises. So what if these jihadists crossing from Syria into Iraq decide, sooner or later, to take their war back home, perhaps by attacking the kingdom’s oil infrastructure in the same way the Iraqi resistance is doing in Iraq? That’s a scenario that keeps Washington awake at night.