LETTER TO THE EDITOR: U.S. turned blind eye too long

OPINION:

With allies like Saudi Arabia and Turkey, who needs enemies (“Islamic State ’not contained’ as Paris attacks show,” Web, Nov. 14)? We ignored Riyadh’s promotion of Wahhabism and tolerated its playing of the destructive sectarian card against the ’apostate’ Shiites. The merciless attacks on Shiite worshippers by Sunni Wahhabis occur with sickening regularity in Iraq and Pakistan, and lately in Saudi Arabia, Yemen and Kuwait.

Saudi Arabia and Turkey were even allowed to facilitate the emergence of the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq. Hence our policy of first removing Syrian President Bashar Assad, and only later doing something about the Islamic State and the many jihadists among the ’moderate’ insurgents. Somehow, Syria’s secular state structures were to be retained. Let’s hope events in Paris have done away with such a nonsensical policy.

YUGO KOVACH

Dorset, England