New Violence, Old Problem: The Saudis Fight Terror, but Not Those Who Wage It. (Hat tip: SA.)

Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the Saudi ambassador to Washington, published an extraordinary article Tuesday in Al Watan, a newspaper run by the descendants of King Faisal, in which he called the domestic Saudi effort against terrorism feeble.

The prince noted the long history of violent opposition to mainstream Islam arising on the Arabian peninsula from the time of the Prophet Muhammad through the 1920’s, when a band of religious zealots mutinied against King Abdel Aziz, Bandar’s grandfather and the founder of the kingdom, for being insufficiently devout.

“It has nothing to do with America or Israel or the Christians or Jews,” Prince Bandar wrote. “So let us stop these meaningless justifications for what those criminals are doing and let us stop blaming others while the problem comes from within us.”