Trying to figure out the Arab mind is like trying to figure out how God came about. I can’t fathom either, although I know God just always was and is.

I read this New York Times piece and I honestly can’t tell who’s telling the truth and who isn’t.

During a high-level meeting in Riyadh in January, Saudi officials confronted a top American envoy with documents that seemed to suggest that Iraq’s prime minister could not be trusted.

One purported to be an early alert from the prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, to the radical Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr warning him to lie low during the coming American troop increase, which was aimed in part at Mr. Sadr’s militia. Another document purported to offer proof that Mr. Maliki was an agent of Iran.

The American envoy, Zalmay Khalilzad, immediately protested to King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, contending that the documents were forged. But, said administration officials who provided an account of the exchange, the Saudis remained skeptical, adding to the deep rift between America’s most powerful Sunni Arab ally, Saudi Arabia, and its Shiite-run neighbor, Iraq.

Now, Bush administration officials are voicing increasing anger at what they say has been Saudi Arabia’s counterproductive role in the Iraq war. They say that beyond regarding Mr. Maliki as an Iranian agent, the Saudis have offered financial support to Sunni groups in Iraq. Of an estimated 60 to 80 foreign fighters who enter Iraq each month, American military and intelligence officials say that nearly half are coming from Saudi Arabia and that the Saudis have not done enough to stem the flow.

One senior administration official says he has seen evidence that Saudi Arabia is providing financial support to opponents of Mr. Maliki. He declined to say whether that support was going to Sunni insurgents because, he said, “That would get into disagreements over who is an insurgent and who is not.”

The Saudis are Sunni and Maliki and the Iranians are Shiites.

We know Maliki was aligned with al Sadr and that al Sadr hides out in Iran when things get too hot for him in Iraq. We also know Maliki is trying to paint a rosy picture of any meetings between the U.S. and Iran that discuss the future of Iraq.

On the other hand we know the Saudis have said if we leave Iraq they will supply weapons and support to the minority Sunnis in that country. We also know the Al Qaeda terrorists who attacked our country on 9/11 were almost all Saudis, if not all Saudis.

When you start dickering with these Bedouin-type people, who are so very tribal in everything including the sect of their religion, you realize you are dealing with people who will lie right to your face and do it in a way you believe them.

They will smile to your face while picking your pocket or turning a knife in your back, so reading this story just tells me what I already knew: You can’t trust these people.

Lying and deception are a part of their cultures and they have been since the beginning of time.

If I were about to be killed I would not want either one to be on my side as he would just as likely kill me as the next guy.

I’ll take the Israeli. He has more integrity.

This is an interesting article, though, especially if you look at it as a people who will deceive the devil himself if they thought they could get away with it.

We simply can’t trust the Shiites or the Sunnis to give us the unvarnished truth that we would stake our lives on their word.