Baker's Saudi Ties Cloud ISG Report

Go to the web site of Baker Botts -- that's a 700-lawyer, 167-year-old law firm that happens to share a moniker with James Baker, one of its senior partners -- and search for the firm's lawyers that specialize in Middle Eastern issues, and there he is, James Baker III.

(I'll be talking a lot about Baker, Israel and the Arabs in this post, but no, I don't think this photo caught him midway in a Nazi salute.)

Poke around the site and you find lots of interesting stuff. One of the notable Baker Botts clients: Prince Salman bin Abdul Aziz of Saudi Arabia. The firm maintains offices in Riyadh and Dubai. It represented Saudi Arabia when the relatives of 9/11 victims sued the country (Michael Savage has more on this).

Does this five minutes of on-line investigation help explain this, from Saudi Arabia's lawyer, the chair of the ISG:

"The United States cannot achieve its goals in the Middle East unless it deals directly with the Arab-Israeli conflict and regional instability. [Among other things, that means ] a commitment to a two-state solution for Israel and Palestine."

Baker has so strong a commitment to helping his Arab clients with their Israel problem, in fact, that he's keen on pursuing the idea ... without Israel. (From the Washington Times via Yoni:

WASHINGTON - According to Thursday's issue of the conservative Washington Times' Insight magazine, the White House was looking into proposal by former Secretary of State James Baker to hold a Middle East peace conference without Israel.

As reported by the magazine, officials said the conference would be promoted as a forum to discuss Iraq's future, but actually focus on Arab demands for Israel to withdraw from territories captured in the 1967 war.

A source in the US government was quoted in the report as saying, "As Baker sees this, the conference would provide a unique opportunity for the US to strike a deal without Jewish pressure. This has become the hottest proposal examined by the foreign policy people over the last month."

Oil is thicker than blood. Baker Botts is at its core an oil law firm. Baker is at his core an oil lawyer. A lot of oil lawyers put business aside and stand by Israel on moral or political grounds, despite the fact that those who hold the oil are largely anti-Semitic Islamic dictatorships that secretly (or not so secretly) nod their heads every time Ahmadinejad talks about Zionism.

But is the same true of Baker? Does he care more about Saudi Arabia, Dubai and other oil clients than Israel?

The proof is in the recommendations of the ISG, which many of us see as a willingness to sell out the only democracy, the only true American friend, in the middle east, in the name of appeasing Islamofascists who will not be appeased. If Israel were gone, do you think for a minute they wouldn't still be coming after us?

After all, if Israel were gone, where do you think the Jews would go? Riyadh? Dubai? Berlin? I don't think so.

Related Tags: Baker, Iraq study group, Israel, Baker Botts, Saudi Arabia