Saudi Arabia: A Successful Anomaly (So Far)
By Hume Horan
Editor's note: The following article appeared in the September issue of The American Enterprise. Eric Cox's movie column will return next week.
Of all the strange forms of nationhood that fill the world today, none stands out like Saudi Arabia. It is the only country named after a family--the Sauds, who have ruled in the Peninsula since the eighteenth century. In a world of competing ideologies, it is the only state that abjures them all, in favor of its version of Sunni Islam. And as for a constitution? The Saudis would reply, "Ours is the Koran, a constitution granted by God himself that will stand not just the test of time, but eternity."
Outside viewers, even critics, might agree that Saudi Arabia seems, up to now, a successful anomaly. In a particularly conflict-prone region of the world, it has survived intact the destabilizing inrush of untold wealth and the challenge of various contemporary ideologies. Communism, Baathism, Arab nationalism--all have come and gone. But today, Saudi Arabia, which controls two thirds of the world's oil resources, is threatened from within. It is challenged by jihadist Islam, the movement that includes al-Qaeda. Accordingly, a serious question for American leaders is: How much help can we expect from Saudi Arabia against a common threat which is, however, Muslim?
For much of the last century, U.S.-Saudi relations were mostly of interest to specialists. In the 1930s, American oil explorers and developers--no cross-cultural specialists they--nevertheless got the United States off on the right foot with a strange people in a strange land. In World War II, U.S. Army mapping experts charted the best air route across the peninsula to our forces in China-Burma-India. More recently, U.S. arabists during and after the Cold War tried to deal with the turbulence caused by Jamal Abdul Nasser and Arab nationalism.
When I arrived in the Kingdom in early 1972 as deputy chief of mission of the U.S. embassy in Jiddah, FDR's and King Abdul Aziz's 1945 meeting aboard the USS Quincy seemed almost a current affair, not history. The country was deeply conservative, but in a way that at the time seemed authentic and almost frictionless. Foreign diplomats and businessmen could live as Westerners in their compounds and enjoy folkloric forays into the town and countryside. The Saudi chief of police warned us, "I know the unspeakable things that go on in your Western compounds, but just keep them there--or I'll be forced to step in."
By the time I left Saudi Arabia in July 1977, Jidda had become a city of cranes. They defined the urban landscape, as the U.S. Corps of Engineers went about its job of terraforming Jidda, Riyadh, and other cities. Saudi Arabia was the new El Dorado, the new Seven Cities of Cibola. Oil prices had more than quadrupled after the 1973 Arab-Israeli War and the Arab oil boycott. Jidda was awash with money and foreign dignitaries of every description. The battle for hotel space was as savage as that for contracts.
To the Saudis, the future looked bright. Their bugbear, Nasser, had died in 1972, and the disruptive force of Arab nationalism was dieseling out after the humiliation of the 1976 Arab-Israeli war. My Saudi friends were self-congratulatory, even smug, that the true faith had--no surprise--bested "godless, atheistic communism." In so many words, friends would ask: How could an ideology produced by a German Jew (Karl Marx) or another by some Arab Christian (Baath Party founder Michel Aflak) hold its own against the true essence of God's revelation? Nor did they believe Saudi society needed lessons in democracy from the morally ambiguous West. Saudis enjoyed the best of all democracies, i.e., "Islamic democracy," where all citizens' views could be given a hearing through each of their personal links to power that remained functional and enduring in Saudi society. My friends were sure it was no accident that God had revealed his Koran to an Arabian in Arabia, and afterwards had blessed the Kingdom with such economic and social justification. Saudi Arabia's per capita income was close to rivaling that of the United States.
In those days, many of my Saudi friends saw the Kingdom as a theodicy, "an end of history." Some were astonished that I, who had extensive knowledge of and clearly some empathy for their culture, did not become a Muslim. The minister of defense, Prince Sultan, passed word that if I converted, he would give my son, born in 1975, Saudi citizenship. (I thanked the prince for his generous offer, but explained that I--however misguidedly--could not part with the faith of my fathers.)
The Saudis were not altogether mistaken in their self-congratulation. Their ideology had in fact stood the test of time and current challenges far better than the imported varieties. Their political system also--for those willing to look below the surface--had shown remarkable resilience. A good Foreign Ministry friend once explained that Westerners were wrong in supposing that there were no political parties in Saudi Arabia. There was a single, all-powerful party, one that operated far, far better than Nasser's comic-opera "Arab Socialist Union" or the "sclerotic communism of the USSR." That party was the royal family. It could count on the active loyalty--ensured by powerful blood ties, not ideology--of 10,000 princes easily. "Call them cadres if you wish." These princely ties extended throughout Saudi society through alliances with numerous notable and quasi-royal families. And all were further knit together by the knowledge that they sat atop the greatest source of geologic wealth ever vouchsafed to mankind--and by knowing that, should they fall out amongst themselves, their envious neighbors, especially Jordan, would snap up the pieces. "The result," I was told, "is a super-conductive network of command and control without parallel in the Arab world." I tended to agree. A mildly frank observation by a U.S. embassy officer about one of the royals elicited a warning within hours from the minister of the interior to the effect that the individual had better watch his tongue or leave the Kingdom.
Saudi rulers could also be wisely forbearing. "Not like that animal Saddam." King Faisal had publicly restored to favor a prominent dissident intellectual, after years of imprisonment. And during those years, Faisal had continued to pay the man's salary to his family--thus linking control with forbearance. My friend compared Faisal's style with that of the Caliph Muawiyah, who said, "If even a hair links me to another, should he pull, I will give, but when he ceases to pull, I will draw him in."
The extremists' seizure of the Mosque of Mecca in 1979, however, might have warned the Saudi government of problems inherent in making Islam a formal pillar of the state. But when the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in the same year, the Saudis pushed ahead even more vigorously with their Islamic "public diplomacy." They stuck with what in their eyes was a winner.
In 1987, when I returned to Saudi Arabia as chief of mission, the Saudi government was proud to stand at the head of an anti-communist crusade for the liberation of Afghanistan, fueled by Saudi (and American) money and more than a few Saudi volunteers. I recall a visit to Riyadh in which then-CIA Director William Casey presented King Fahd with a shiny, detailed Kalashnikov. Its stock featured a brass plaque explaining that the weapon had been taken from the body of a Russian officer. Mr. Casey might as well have been giving the keys to the Kingdom of God itself. The king rose, flourished the weapon, and struck a martial pose. The last Soviet forces left Afghanistan in early 1989. The Kingdom could rightly share in the triumph.
Just two years later, in 1991, the U.S. military operations "Desert Shield" and "Desert Storm" again gave Saudis reason to see themselves as uniquely favored by God. We had (of course) dispatched a mighty army to rescue the Kingdom from the threat of the tyrant Saddam Hussein and "atheistic Iraqi Baathism." Our military officers in Arabia observed at the time that our sacrifices were received by the Saudis as no less than their due.
By the 1990s, however, internal pressures on the regime grew. Saudi Arabia's population had begun to double every 17 years--to the delight of Crown Prince Abdullah. But these additions to the work force had neither marketable skills nor any significant work ethic. At the embassy, our best recruiting efforts yielded only one Saudi employee: the ambassador's driver. Per capita incomes slumped toward the $5,000 range.
Social friction and class divisions were rising. The homogeneity of Saudi public life was waning. Young Saudis could sometimes access the Internet. It was becoming widely known that Prince Sultan alone may have had five palaces in Riyadh. Millions of young men--isolated from any normal contact with women--seethed with boredom and sexual frustration. Tapes of "Baywatch" and plain pornography were exceedingly popular. Saudi wives, often mured up in nasty, concrete-block bungalows, collectively suffered from depression and other mental health problems. The tragedies of some American women married to Saudi nationals gave the embassy occasional but instructive insights into the pathology of Saudi folkways. The U.S. was rarely of help to these women.
Until quite recently, criticism of Saudi Arabia was deflected by American apologists who would refer to "Saudi exceptionalism." Isn't Saudi Arabia undemocratic? No, say the Saudis, Crown Prince Abdullah and other senior princes meet with all manner of citizens and seek their views! Doesn't it lack a constitution? Deny religious freedom to other faiths? Have a weak human rights record? No matter, Saudis would say. In the Koran, God Himself had dictated to Muhammad--in Arabic--the only and final word concerning other religions, human rights, and every aspect of man's life on earth. How could one speak in the same breath of some UNESCO statement and God's own infallible dispensation?
U.S. discussions with Saudi officials at the highest levels often dealt with security, military sales, the latest U.S. "peace initiative," economic cooperation, and sometimes intelligence exchanges. But in the back of the Saudi king's mind was always the belief that, so long as the Kingdom remained helpful to the U.S. through its strategic cooperation in oil production and pricing (20 percent of U.S. oil imports come from Saudi Arabia) and purchasing billions of dollars of U.S. military equipment and training, he could deflect our requests on domestically sensitive issues (such as kidnapped American children) to an always-later time. The record has shown the Saudis to be right. They, in effect, cooperated with the United States against the common threat of communism and left-wing radicalism; in exchange, the United States did not often contest how the Saudi government went about its business at home.
In the twenty-first century, however, Saudi Arabia and the United States are forced to confront a new common enemy: Islamic radicalism. The Saudis were at first slow in recognizing jihadist Islam as a threat. For years they practiced denial. Their reaction to the June 1996 Khobar Towers attack, in which 19 American soldiers were killed, was to delay, obfuscate, and deny. So was their first reaction to 9/11: It's inconceivable that 15 of the 19 hijackers might have been Saudis!
More recent events, however, such as the professionally executed quadruple bombings in Riyadh in May 2003 and the suicide bombing of a security forces building in April last year--not to mention attacks on Western workers--are changing the regime's attitude. Concerning the May 2003 attacks, Crown Prince Abdullah declared "there is no place for terror" in his country, and vowed to "destroy" the group responsible for these attacks. Another Saudi official called the bombings "a declaration of war against Saudi Arabia." This January, toward the end of the current month of pilgrimage, Saudi Arabia's grand mufti, Shaikh Abdul Aziz Al al-Shaikh also denounced terrorism. But the May attack on Al Khobar, with its 22 deaths, and the murder of Paul Johnson showed the Saudi Arabian government and the U.S. that the threat from Islamic terror was still active.
What can we say about the Saudi Arabian government's ongoing response? Saudi Intelligence cooperation on foreign and Arab issues will be nothing new. For decades that has been a key element in our strategic partnership. But the Saudi government always preferred to shield domestic developments, particularly those that involved the ruling family, from prying foreign eyes. If they let the United States follow the big money trail, where might that trail lead? It would assuredly lead to some Saudis of high degree, who for various reasons gave money to al-Qaeda. The contributors might have done so out of habit, like buying a ticket to the policemen's ball. Or they might have done so to buy protection, or because they actually supported al-Qaeda's mission. For sure, some Saudis, like many other Arabs, felt a certain schadenfreude over 9/11.
There are three reasons why the Saudi government is likely to stop stonewalling with regard to terrorist financing and other common actions against the jihadists. First, the direct threat to the royal family itself from al-Qaeda, and jihadist Islam in general, is now clear and direct. Second, the U.S. interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq have made it equally clear that terrorism is one issue for which Uncle Sam will not take no for an answer. Third, one gets the impression that the entrée of the Saudi ambassador in Washington is no longer what it was in the days of Bush 41. The Saudi Arabian government's June decision to place charitable fund-giving under central control may help cauterize some of this suspect donor activity.
Saudi cooperation on matters of security interest to us is feasible--especially if that cooperation proceeds "with muffled oars," minimizing the public visibility of a Saudi policy shift. But we will have to keep up steady pressure on the Saudis and show uncommon consistency of purpose at all levels of our government. The President himself must be tough and persistent. Years of U.S. deference to the royal family have made the Saudis uncommonly resistant to requests by ambassadors and the Department of State. U.S. Congressmen would often arrive in Arabia full of righteous criticisms at these "anachronistic sheikhs," only to emerge noticeably subdued after an audience in the overwhelming, fairy-tale palace of the king.
It's possible that the Saudi government will work with us in the fight against international jihadist Islam, while becoming a more overtly repressive police state that rules not on the basis of Arab traditions or social covenant, but via a formidable, ruthless, authoritarian cadre. There will be gestures toward reform--Crown Prince Abdullah's cabinet of 1995 looked good in the shop window to foreign observers: 14 Ph.D.s among 17 non-royal cabinet members! Those foreign-trained Ph.D.s, however, have no power base and are bound to the regime by their personal interests. That power will remain, for the near future, in the same practiced hands that it has for decades. And when today's senior-most princes finally give way to successors, we can expect the domestic policies and practices of the past--apart from a window dressing of democratization--not to change much. Neither should one look for change from the almost universal Arab disposition to "mitosis." The Saudi Royal Family, Inc. has its factions, i.e., the powerful, full-brother "Sudairy Seven" princes have little love for their half-brother, Crown Prince Abdullah, who has reformist tendencies and possesses popular authenticity. Nonetheless, the royal family has shown a unique ability in the Arab World to avoid division--and hence to avoid being overthrown either from without or within.
It may well be that the Saudis will continue to find utility in their policies of the past 40 years--that is, to cooperate with the United States on common strategic and security concerns while keeping the U.S. at arm's length on a wide range of American "druthers." This would include many domestic social, political, and religious issues, where the Saudi position will remain contrary to what the United States is pledged to stand for.
Such a government would resemble some of its despotic neighbors. Will we continue to show forbearance to Saudi Arabia's domestic policies because of its oil and, now, its importance to us in the battle against Osama bin Laden and jihadist Islam? It will be interesting to see how the United States reacts if Saudi Arabia pursues a governing style at home similar to Hafez al-Asad's Syria.
Hume Horan served as U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Ivory Coast, and Cameroon/Equatorial Guinea, and recently as a senior counselor to the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq. He passed away on July 22, 2004.
