Rand Paul: Saudi Arabia is Number One at Spreading Terror, by The American Conservative.

Senator Rand Paul took sharp aim at Saudi Arabia in his keynote speech at The American Conservative’s fifth annual foreign policy conference Thursday, in particular blaming the Kingdom for the destruction of Yemen, for spreading extremist ideology across the globe, and for the grisly murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. …

Riyadh, he noted, has spent $100 billion exporting extreme Wahabbist Islam to places as far away as Indonesia and funding madrassas that teach hatred in nations like Pakistan and India.

“So if you ask me who’s the worst at spreading hatred and trying to engender terrorism around the world, it’s Saudi Arabia hands down,” Paul said. “And if you say which people is probably more likely to come to Western ways and more likely to train with us and like the West, it’s probably Iran.”

Iran and  Saudi Arabia are at loggerheads, one Shiite and one Sunni. Both spread Islamic fundamentalism. Yet the US sides with Saudi, and has done for several decades now — presumably because the Saudis in return insist on being paid in US dollars for their oil, which creates demand for the US dollar as the international trading currency. This effectively gives the US free stuff, because they print the currency and foreigners have to give real goods and services to obtain it. One cost to the US however is that the increased demand for US dollars ensures that their currency is perpetually overpriced — which reduced US exports and gutted US manufacturers.

Culturally, if it wasn’t for the Mullahs in charge, Iran would be much more harmonious with Western values.

hat-tip Stephen Neil