"Most dramatically, and perhaps least noticed, is the violence inside Saudi Arabia itself"
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“Most dramatically, and perhaps least noticed” is a quiet indictment disguised as scene-setting. Scheuer isn’t just pointing to a problem; he’s calling out the audience - policymakers, media, and a public trained to see Saudi Arabia as a stable petro-ally - for missing what he implies is the central story. The phrase “least noticed” lands like a rebuke: if violence is “inside” the kingdom, then the usual Western narrative of Saudi stability is either lazy or willfully maintained.
His intent is also corrective. In the post-9/11 ecosystem where attention fixated on external threats and foreign battlefields, Scheuer pushes the lens inward, toward domestic fracture: sectarian tension, jihadist insurgency, political repression, and the churn created when a state tries to manage modernity through tight control and religious legitimacy. “Violence” is left usefully unspecific, allowing it to cover terrorism, state coercion, and the reciprocal radicalization that can happen when dissent has no safe outlet.
Context matters because Scheuer speaks as a public servant with an intelligence background; the line reads like a warning from someone frustrated by strategic misallocation. If violence is “inside Saudi Arabia,” then the kingdom isn’t just a partner but a pressure vessel. That subtext quietly threatens the assumptions underpinning US energy security, counterterror alliances, and regional planning: instability in Riyadh doesn’t stay domestic. It metastasizes into policy crises everywhere Washington pretends are separate.
His intent is also corrective. In the post-9/11 ecosystem where attention fixated on external threats and foreign battlefields, Scheuer pushes the lens inward, toward domestic fracture: sectarian tension, jihadist insurgency, political repression, and the churn created when a state tries to manage modernity through tight control and religious legitimacy. “Violence” is left usefully unspecific, allowing it to cover terrorism, state coercion, and the reciprocal radicalization that can happen when dissent has no safe outlet.
Context matters because Scheuer speaks as a public servant with an intelligence background; the line reads like a warning from someone frustrated by strategic misallocation. If violence is “inside Saudi Arabia,” then the kingdom isn’t just a partner but a pressure vessel. That subtext quietly threatens the assumptions underpinning US energy security, counterterror alliances, and regional planning: instability in Riyadh doesn’t stay domestic. It metastasizes into policy crises everywhere Washington pretends are separate.
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| Topic | Human Rights |
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