OTHER COMMENTARY / EXCERPTS : Marching to Protect a Sweet Deal

The news is very good, and the fulcrum of it is Saudi Arabia. Its decision to swing with U.S. policy is absolutely crucial, and the reverberations of this fissure in the all-Arab family could affect Mideast politics for the next generation.

But when the appropriate moment comes, say when Hussein is hanging by his heels like Mussolini, our diplomats should be prepared to say to the Saudis something on the order of: Now look, Your Majesty, we bailed you out of a no-win situation. But for the United States, you and your court might be sitting in Monaco today. Now we don’t want to take over your country, but we don’t want, either, to become your subjects. And that means that we have to look upon your oil as the whole world is slowly coming to look upon pollution. That the source of it is in Detroit or in Chernobyl isn’t the point. It is the point that the impact of what happens in Detroit or in Chernobyl can affect Manitoba and Norway.

So, as a sign of the permanent solidarity between the great people of Saudi Arabia and the great people of the United States of America, we will now execute this agreement binding the price of Saudi Arabian oil to the price of oil at Galveston, Tex.