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Tuesday, Feb 9, 2010
The left and the right have both crudely demonized the desert kingdom. But the ascension of King Abdullah gives the U.S. a chance to solidify relations with this flawed but key ally.
Aug 5, 2005 | The late King Fahd of Saudi Arabia, who died on Aug. 1, should have been nicknamed "King Blowback." Along with his ideological soul mate, Ronald Reagan, who shared his long twilight, Fahd played a key, if inadvertent, role in nurturing Islamist extremism. Together, Reagan and Fahd -- one using proxy armies and arms, the other petrodollars -- launched a worldwide crusade against what they saw as the radical specters of communism and Khomeinism. To fight this battle, they gave massive support to Sunni Muslim fundamentalists as well as Saddam Hussein's Stalinist Baath Party. The rash decisions taken by the two leaders are in large part responsible for the crisis the world faces today.
The good news is that Fahd's successor, King Abdullah, is a far more cautious man, not given to his half-brother's dangerous adventurism. His ascension -- in fact, he has held power for a long time -- gives the United States an opportunity to improve relations with Saudi Arabia. As America faces the long, daunting task of recovering from George W. Bush's catastrophic foreign-policy blunders, solidifying relations with this key, if problematic, ally is high on the list of priorities.
The devout Abdullah ("the servant of God"), who has the smile and goatee of a genial beatnik, has been in de facto control of the kingdom since 1995, when Fahd ("the panther") had a debilitating stroke. He has now formally become king. Abdullah has reigned during difficult times and has responded with a mixture of caution and flexibility. This past spring, he held popular elections for municipal councils, among the first Saudi steps toward representative institutions. The elections were carefully circumscribed, with only half the seats on the councils filled through the polls, the other half being appointed by the central government. But neither were the elections meaningless. Muslim political activists, dubbing themselves the "Golden List," used grass-roots campaign techniques and networking to do very well in the elections. Optimists hope the victory will allow the religious faction to blow off some steam.
With regard to the problem of al-Qaida and terrorism within the kingdom, Abdullah has deployed both the stick and the carrot. While high-level support for al-Qaida was never as widespread as Westerners sometimes imagined, such support does exist and needs to be confronted. As Peter Bergen has pointed out, Abdullah's military and intelligence forces have aggressively moved against militants, killing 90 of them in pitched battles, and arresting 800 more, over the past two years. But he has also launched an active program to win over the Saudi public. Saudi television shows explicit images of the grisly results of terrorist attacks. Senior clerics of the Wahhabi branch of Islam, the de facto state religion known for its strict Puritanism, have been persuaded to condemn in no uncertain terms all acts of terrorism against innocents, including the Sept. 11 attacks. Some 2,000 Saudi clerics, out of 100,000, were temporarily removed from their positions for being too militant and only allowed to return after schooling to retrain them. Saudi religious officials, Bergen says, have gone on Internet chat sites to argue with the militants on Islamic grounds, a technique that has been shown to have some success.
Abdullah has been bolder on foreign policy than on domestic. In spring 2002 he sent an envoy to President George W. Bush with some tough words. Something would have to be done about the Sharon government's treatment of the Palestinians if the region were to avoid a big blow-up that would endanger the U.S.-Saudi relationship.
The then-crown prince put forward a comprehensive peace plan with Israel that offered it full recognition and relations, a plan adopted by the entire Arab League. The plan, which called for Israeli withdrawal to pre-1967 borders and the establishment of a Palestinian state, was never taken seriously by the expansionist government of Ariel Sharon in Israel, nor by the stridently pro-Israeli politicians in Washington. Within the context of Arab politics, it was an audacious step, and no one who knows that world can doubt its entire sincerity.
Abdullah also had his envoy tell Bush that he believed Iraq was an "arms control," not a "war on terrorism" issue, and should be resolved legally. Unlike Fahd, who was persuaded to welcome 500,000 foreign troops into his kingdom for the Gulf War of 1990-91, and who later allowed an unpopular long-term U.S. military presence, Abdullah was signaling that he would not join the younger Bush's crusade. The hawks in Washington responded by smearing the cautious and moderate Abdullah as a coddler of terrorism. (In July, the campaign against Abdullah and Saudi Arabia hit an apex -- or nadir -- when a Rand Corp. analyst, at neocon strategist Richard Perle's invitation, gave a presentation to the influential Defense Policy Board in which he called on the United States to invade Saudi Arabia and seize its oil fields. After a diplomatic flap ensued, U.S. officials distanced themselves from the presentation.)
That Saudi Arabia is an absolute monarchy, with a poor human rights record and an inexplicable determination to stop women from driving or voting, is indisputable -- and a fair basis for criticism. But many myths persist about the kingdom. Often Saudis are hated for being rich (ironically suffering this fate with Americans). While the top tier of princes is made up of billionaires, few of them can compete with the leading American CEOs. As for the Saudis in general, the kingdom's estimated per capita income in 2004 was only $12,000 a year. That of Spain is about $23,000. Moreover, such a figure is artificial in an oil economy, since the petroleum income fluctuates a good deal (in 2000 the per person income was $8,000 a year). And, of course, it is not divided up equally, as the figure implies. In fact, if the government attempted simply to distribute so much money to individuals, it would cause enormous inflation and eat up the value of the money. There is plenty of poverty in Saudi Arabia.
With regard to foreign policy, though, you might think that an Arab leader who courageously sought a comprehensive peace in the Middle East for both Israelis and Palestinians, who opposed the disastrous Iraq war, and who helps keep the U.S. economy afloat by recycling vast petrodollars into investments in this country would inspire at least mixed feelings among the American left.
Instead, Saudi Arabia has been pilloried by figures such as Michael Moore, whose film "Fahrenheit 9/11" crudely demonizes the kingdom as part of its simple-minded effort to paint George W. Bush as a pawn of Big Oil. In the film, Moore ominously points out that dozens of Saudis, including members of the bin Laden family, departed the United States on Sept. 13 and 14, 2001, after the terror attacks. But there was nothing shady about the Saudis leaving when they did. Plane flights were allowed again on Sept. 13, and many people flew then. The Saudis certainly had reason to be afraid. Some 30 Saudis were interviewed by the FBI before they left, and all the flights were approved by the bureau, according to the 9/11 Commission report.
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