I will start by telling you of a large and politically important class of Saudi Arabian people. They are never mentioned and to most Americans completely unknown. Although the Kingdom is a monarchy, it is not a dictatorship as frequently portrayed. The King and his brothers who actually function as King listen to this group with keen attention. They have political input. They have goals and aspirations that are in conflict with the radical fundamentalists. They are however, religious and consider their national obligation to not only protect the Holy places in Medina and Mecca, but do so with pride.
This business class is now undergoing severe stress. Decisions are being made. Do we throw away our progress or do we somehow harness the explosion of religious fervor to more productive goals. This business class is a direct threat to the complacent Euros because everything the build is new. They have no old debts to labor unions and no need to maintain old worn out factories. They have an unlimited supply of labor just across the Gulf in India and Pakistan. When Iraq is stabilized, they have another friendly market and who knows how the quantum jump in industrialization and trade will come.
Increasingly, the older men who actually formed this group are turning day to day control over to younger men, men who are now in their mid thirties/forties who are very well educated. They are the product of American Colleges and universities. Their education varies from business types to scientists, engineers and physicians.
I consider this group to be the business class. They own and operate vast commercial enterprises that operate not only in the Kingdom but in the area of world trade as well. They operate hotels, Domino’s Pizza, flower shops, petro chemical manufacturing plants, steel fabrication plants extremely large agricultural enterprises including wheat, vegetable and dairy farms. They manufacture air conditioners and float glass. They along with associates in Bahrain and the UAE have very considerable aluminum production, extruding, fabricating and finishing abilities.
You will recall that Mayor Guilliani refused a $10 million donation from a Saudi businessman. In todays blood sport of out of context sound bites, the mayor had no other choice. The guy was slaughtered by the press. He is one of the world’s most successful businessmen. He is one of the largest, perhaps the largest shareholder of Citibank. That is, perhaps the largest American bank at the time has a Saudi as one of it’s largest stock holders. If you review the history, It is not the Royal family buying assets with government funds, it is a shrewd businessman plying his trade.
Also, this business class working with their counterparts in Bahrain, Quatar, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates formed the Gulf Cooperation Council to trade among themselves as we do in the USA across state boundaries. The container port in the UAE free trade port dominates the container trade and is within the top 3 ports in the world. These are capitalists who are multiplying the capital from the oil resource to build a business and financial engine of great proportions.
The Bin Ladin construction organization is an old and respected member of this business class. Osama chose to abandon the business life and to side with the fundamentalists. To succeed he must not only incite the conservative middle ground, but he must abandon his own family and destroy the Royals who are trying to juggle the completely opposing ideas of the two factions.
To close, these educated Arabs are sons of Arabs who are perhaps the purest capitalists in the world. They rejected not only communism but the cancerous European socialism. The oil is a national resource but the revenues were used to develop national infrastructure and private businesses. Lots of money was squandered in starting businesses and industrial facilities that failed, but the owners were not denied loans, they were allowed to succeed or fail on their own merit. There was an industrial policy that was democratic and that painfully worked on a merit system.
A free Iraq will help this business class by expanding their markets. The wonders of Jubail and Yanbu will undoubtedly be repeated in Bashra. The GCC will grow and become a direct threat to Europe. The complacent Euros will have the fight of their lives. It will be new plants and no unions vs old plants and unions. Chemical feed stock for the Euros will cost them more than the Arabs. There will be no contest. Europe will lose.
W chose to side with the future and the Arabs in the Gulf rather than the past and the old men of Europe.
I wonder how a President Palin would deal with these capitalist Gulf Arabs.