Now it looks like this good-fence-makes-good-neighbor idea is spreading across the world. Arab media reports claim that Saudi King Abdullah is planning a long fence, perhaps the mother of all fences, along his country's long, some say too long, border with Iraq. The fence will consist of electric wires, berms, trenches, bricks, perhaps even crotch-cupping rappers and other assorted things that might annoy and deter incoming traffic. A veritable Arabian Maginot Line. Of course the Iraqis can bypass that by swinging wide across Belgium, always the soft....crotch, or underbelly if you will, of its neighborhood (What else is under a belly?).
 
King Abdullah, whatever one thinks of the regime that he heads, is a simple but level-headed and intelligent man- he has what is called bedu or badiya smarts. He is not quite the modern day Claudius, Plato and Ataturk all wrapped in one the way the sycophants in the Saudi-owned media make him out to be these days. But that is ok, Arab media in general is full of sychophants kissing their rulers'...err....noses.
Now if this calm elderly monarch is so worried about Iraq, if the reports of this Saudi fence are true, that has ominous implications for the future of Iraq and the region. It means the Saudis, and other Arab oil states, the moneybags and real powers in this post-nationalist and quasi-fundamentalist Arab World, are ready to give up on their northern neighbor. If the reports are true, which is a big 'if'.

Some time back Kuwait was also thinking of a fence along the Iraqi border, but that was when Saddam, formerly admired across the region as Abu Uday, was still in power. That was before Stormin' Norman whipped Swaggering Saddam but let him keep just enough armor and helicopters to crush the Shi'a rebellion. Now, with the uncertainty of the terror and counter-terror campaign across Iraq, perhaps that fence idea will be revived.

Still, wall or no wall, Saudi Arabia, and other Arab states are not giving up on Iraq. Hints in knowledgeable Gulf newspapers tell us that the Saudis are working the Sunni tribal connections in Iraq. Abdullah Bishara, a former Secretary General of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and, perhaps as important, once a vice principal of my old high school, has hinted strongly to this effect in an article in the Kuwaiti daily tabloid Alsiyassah (Sept 9, 2006). What this means is not quite clear, whether it involves transfer of money, or just passing the word to keep things quiet, defuse the truck bombs, send the eager boys back home, let them forsake the expected perks of martyrdom in favor of the pleasures of matrimony, and accept the democratic path introduced by the American ally.

Still, the idea of opting for a wall would have been unthinkable two years ago. A wall, or a static defense line cannot in itself keep away determined invaders, as Les Francaises discovered at least once and the Iraqis discovered at least three times. The Saudi worry could be more one of refugees in case Iraq either moves to a full scale civil war or breaks up into several states, some of whom maybe turn out to be nasty neighbors.

Then there is the other fence/wall, the one we have been screaming about for years, before we started planning our own and got quiet about it. The nascent Israeli wall across the West Bank, part of which is already finished.

Of course the Chinese started this whole dependence of walls when they built their own many centuries ago, perhaps with an eye to the future explosion of American and European middle class tourism....with the yuan kept at such a low exchange rate, shyly shadowing the dollar at an annoyingly fixed distance.
                                                                                   Cheers