Posted on 04/09/2002 8:06:23 AM PDT by Stand Watch Listen
YES: Saudi rulers are unreliable partners at best and, at worst, actual threats to U.S. security in the region.
By Milton R. Copulos
Recent press reports suggesting that the Saudi government wants the U.S. troops stationed there withdrawn sparked a flurry of anguished commentary in Washington policy circles. Various experts were quick to hold forth on the strategic importance of our "alliance" with the Saudis and how essential the bases would be in the event of any military action against Iraq. They argued that U.S. interests in the region would be harmed irreparably should such a withdrawal take place. It was all very impressive. And it was all nonsense.
First of all, the notion that Saudi Arabia is an ally is a fiction. In fact, the desert kingdom is the only nation in the Persian Gulf region that has not signed a military-cooperation agreement with the United States. Remember that an ally is by definition committed to come to your defense if you are attacked. But it is not just the lack of a treaty that brings the notion of an alliance with the Saudis into question. Through the years, they have demonstrated by word and deed just where their true sentiments lie.
The Saudis were the principal source of financing for the Taliban, as well as the religious schools (madrassas) that teach their pernicious ideology.
In 1996, when the attack on the Khobar Towers barracks resulted in the deaths of 19 U.S. service members, the Saudi government failed to cooperate with American investigators attempting to identify and capture the perpetrators.
After Sept. 11, the Saudis refused to freeze assets of organizations and individuals in their country suspected of financing al-Qaeda, arguing that they had no legal authority to do so ? an absurd assertion in a feudal monarchy.
The Saudis also have been less than forthcoming in providing information about Saudi citizens with ties to al-Qaeda or other terrorist groups. The importance of such information cannot be overestimated: As many as 25,000 Saudis may be involved in terrorist groups of various stripes.
Indeed, in a Sept. 17 interview in the official Saudi daily Okaz, Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal asserted that it was Arabs and Muslims living in the West who faced the real danger from terrorism. In that same interview he also noted that the Saudi Embassy in Washington had retained counsel to defend any Saudi citizens arrested in connection with terrorist activities. But it is more than the Saudis' lack of cooperation in the fight against terrorism that calls into question the value of their bases. There is a practical consideration as well: the limitations the Saudi government have placed on our use of its bases.
Saudi Defense Minister Prince Sultan Abdul Aziz told Okaz, "We will not accept the presence on our country of a single soldier at war with Muslims or Arabs." In keeping with this statement, the Saudis also have refused to permit strikes against Iraq to originate on their soil.
Although it is true that we have invested billions of dollars in modernizing and upgrading the facilities in Saudi Arabia, the utility of this investment is limited if we do not also have full freedom of action.
There are three good reasons to move our bases elsewhere. First, at the most recent Arab League meeting the Saudis made it clear that they would not allow bases on their territory to be used in a war against Iraq. In an emergency involving Iraq we could not be sure if the facilities could be used at all. Second, given the overt hostility of the Saudi population, a renewed American presence might only serve to destabilize the Royal Family's already shaky position. Third, given the dominant role Saudis play in the al-Qaeda leadership, our bases there would be extremely vulnerable to sabotage by terrorists.
There are those who argue that we simply have no alternative, that the Saudi bases would be essential in the event of any large-scale military action in the region. This line of reasoning ignores the fact that we already have many alternative locations from which to launch military actions in and around the Persian Gulf.
Indeed, the U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet is headquartered on a base in Juffair, Bahrain. The U.S. Air Force uses a site on an air base about 20 miles south of Manama and another airstrip about five miles north of that city.
The Army has prepositioned artillery, tanks and armored fighting vehicles at Camp Doha in Kuwait, and the Air Force has use of Ali Salem and Ahmed Al Jaber air bases. The Air Force also uses al-Seeb Air Base in Oman for refueling.
The largest U.S. base and arms depot outside the United States currently is under construction in Qatar, and an undisclosed number of troops and airplanes already are stationed there. Yemen also has offered use of its port at Aden to refuel U.S. warships. The Navy had used Aden as a refueling site until the attack on the USS Cole in October 2000.
Perhaps most important are the bases in Turkey. Incirlik Air Base, in the southern part of Turkey near Adana, saw heavy use during the Persian Gulf War for strikes against Iraq and currently is home to 50 U.S. F-15 and F-16 fighters patrolling the no-fly zone. Incirlik's location near Iraq places it in easy range for strikes against that country. Turkey also has modern air bases at Diyarbakir and Malatya, as well as large airports at Istanbul and Ankara that could be used for military purposes.
Unlike Saudi Arabia, Turkey has been a stalwart ally in the current action in Afghanistan, even agreeing to provide some of its special-forces troops to fight alongside ours. As a NATO member, it is committed to mutual defense and has demonstrated through both word and deed its willingness to live up to this obligation.
Clearly, there are numerous alternatives to the Saudi bases. While their loss might be inconvenient and require shifting some equipment and personnel, it would not constitute a strategic disaster. Moreover, if it is true that the majority of Saudis do not want us there, it may be in the best interests of both nations for us to withdraw. An unwanted presence can serve only to breed further animosity.
But there is a more fundamental question in regard to our relations with Saudi Arabia: How vigorously should we pursue military cooperation with a nation that embodies the antithesis of our values and culture?
It is important to understand that the underpinnings of both Saudi society and the legitimacy of the royal family are in adherence to the teachings of the Wahhabi sect of Islam. Sometimes referred to as "Islamic Calvinists," the Wahhabi follow an extremely narrow and repressive interpretation of Islamic teaching that relies solely on a literal reading of the Koran. Indeed, Abd al-Aziz bin Saud, founder of the modern Saudi state, rose to power largely through use of groups of ferocious, radical Wahhabist fighters known as the Ikhwan (Brotherhood) Movement.
Like the Taliban, wherever the Ikhwan gained power, they ruthlessly enforced their views on others through intimidation, beatings and even executions. Interestingly, they were known for desecrating shrines to prominent Muslim figures, much in the way the Taliban destroyed the centuries-old statues of Buddha in Afghanistan (see "Monuments of Destruction," April 23, 2001). Although Abd al-Aziz destroyed the Ikhwan once its purpose was served, its spirit lives on in the desert kingdom.
An incident during a tragic fire at a Saudi girl's school in early March illustrates the continued impact of Wahhabism on daily life, as well as the cultural chasm that exists between that country and the United States. More than 70 girls, all between 13 and 17 years of age, had removed their traditional full-length robes or black abayas upon entering their classroom. When the fire struck, members of the mutawa, the Saudi religious police, refused to allow firemen to rescue the girls because it was "sinful to approach them." According to press reports, some of the girls even were prevented from fleeing to safety. In the end, 15 died and another 52 were injured.
Moreover, it is not just Saudis who can fall victim to these religious extremists. According to the most recent State Department report on human rights, the religious police continue to intimidate, abuse and detain foreigners. In January 2001, 16 Filipino Christians were arrested in Saudi Arabia during a raid on a prayer service. In November of that same year, the religious police broke up another Christian service, seizing Bibles, musical instruments and other documents related to Christian activities.
The religious police are not the only government agency that savages the human rights of the Saudi people. According to the State Department, "[Saudi] security forces continued to abuse detainees and prisoners, arbitrarily arrest and detain persons and facilitate incommunicado detention; in addition there were allegations that security forces committed torture." The report also noted that these things had occurred with the acquiescence of the Saudi government.
The State Department report further notes that "The government infringes on citizens' privacy rights. The government prohibits or restricts freedom of speech, the press, assembly, association, religion and movement. Criticism of the government is prohibited under a 1965 law and a 1982 policy statement."
The restrictions on freedom of the press, however, do not prevent Saudi organs from publishing the most hateful, inflammatory and anti-Western propaganda possible.
Of course, there is law and then there is law. As the report makes clear: "In general, members of the royal family and other powerful families are not subject to the same rule of law as ordinary citizens. For example, judges do not have the power to issue a warrant summoning any member of the royal family."
This fact more than any other calls into question our continued alliance with the Saudi rulers. We have seen privileged elites overthrown by their oppressed citizens more than once. Can we be sure that the 7,000 Saudi royals with their profligate lifestyles will not fall victim to the same fate? Witness what happened in Iran in the late 1970s.
If the United States is only adding fuel to the fire of revolution, this is the time to leave.
Copulos served as a cabinet-level adviser on energy issues to the White House from 1980-1992 and is president of the National Defense Council Foundation, a private, nonprofit research and educational institution based in Alexandria, Va.
NO: Our military investments on Saudi soil would be needed in a second round with Saddam Hussein.
By Edward S. Walker
Is there any validity to the allegations of some pundits and former U.S. officials that the Saudis cannot be trusted to host our bases, personnel and equipment? Or is it true that Wahhabi Islam creates an unreliable environment for our troops? Political agendas and ideologies in both countries have generated a barrage of rumor and speculation, much of it uninformed, about the state of U.S. relations with this long-standing ally.
Many critics also happen to be active proponents of taking decisive, immediate and, if necessary, unilateral action against Saddam Hussein, regardless of the costs. Saudi Arabia is chastised for its reluctance to support an attack on Iraq, and at the same time these critics claim its support is unnecessary. They suggest that Saudi Arabia is unreliable despite its long history of support and cooperation with the United States. Certainly, something seems to be wrong with the logic of these critics.
The military relationship between Saudi Arabia and the United States dates back to the 1945 meeting between President Franklin D. Roosevelt and the founder of the Saudi state, King Abd al-Aziz bin Saud. Until 1990 that relationship was almost exclusively limited to the sale of U.S. arms and the training necessary to use them. Our military presence numbered in the hundreds, not the thousands, and was made up of trainers and noncombatants, with the exception of some refueling aircraft and the AWACS (Airborne Warning and Control Systems) early-warning and command aircraft, which were Saudi-owned but jointly manned. We had a significant but strictly advisory role in training the Saudi national guard, which was Crown Prince Abdullah's special responsibility. U.S. contractors performed the training, not the serving military. A visible, active U.S. military presence was almost nonexistent. Saudi sensitivities to any foreign military presence were well-understood and accommodated. And nobody complained. After all, Saudi Arabia was the world's largest customer of the U.S. defense industries that employed thousands of Americans and strengthened the U.S. economy.
During this pre-1990 period, security in the Persian Gulf was provided by a limited naval presence operating out of Bahrain and through occasional tours by a U.S.-carrier battle group out of the U.S. Pacific Command. At that time, the Suez Canal still was not open to nuclear-powered warships. Even during the period of U.S. protection of reflagged Kuwaiti tankers during the latter half of the 1980s, while I was chargé d'affaires in our embassy in Riyadh, the United States did not require a buildup of its forces in Saudi Arabia.
During this period the Saudis did authorize certain special-operations elements to use their naval facilities, and U.S.-manned AWACS and refuelers were operational. But even this activity largely was hidden from public view.
This is not to say that the period between 1945 and 1990 was a quiet one. Multiple Arab-Israeli wars, the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, the Iran-Iraq war and internal threats in Saudi Arabia, such as the takeover of the Great Mosque in Mecca by Islamic radicals, repeatedly shattered the peace and threatened U.S. and Saudi interests in the region. Yet our military met our requirements without swagger or advertisement and without embarrassing our hosts.
At that time, most Americans who were aware of our relationship with the kingdom understood that we were in Saudi Arabia by invitation, not by right. Yes, we provided Saudi Arabia a degree of insurance against external threat, but we were confident that in return the Saudis would help stabilize the price of oil at a moderate level. That compact was broken only once — the 1973 OPEC (Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries) oil embargo. Since then, Saudi Arabia has responded to multiple U.S. requests to expand oil production to moderate the price.
Many Americans do not understand the critical role that Saudi Arabia plays in the question of oil pricing. We tend to talk about oil supplies and energy independence, both of which obscure the main point. Oil supply is dictated by worldwide demand and production. Supply sets the price. It is high prices that can have an adverse impact on the U.S. economy. Only Saudi Arabia, with an estimated one-quarter of the world's oil reserves, has the quickly deliverable excess capacity to impact both supply and price.
In fact, the price of oil was one of the key triggers of Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in 1990. Iraq had just come out of the Iran-Iraq War and was desperate for cash to make up its wartime losses in arms, infrastructure and revenues. Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates, in particular, were more concerned with maintaining market share than in high prices and therefore were pumping beyond their OPEC quotas. Saudi Arabia was acting within OPEC guidelines to make up for post-wartime increases of Iraqi production. These factors, combined with Iraqi nationalism, which always had claimed Kuwait as part of Iraq, and Saddam Hussein's conviction that the United States would not and perhaps could not respond, led to his seizure of Kuwait and the ensuing Persian Gulf War.
Within weeks, the United States went from virtually no visible military presence in Saudi Arabia to more than 50,000 troops and massed equipment. Traditions sacred to Saudi conservative culture were violated on a daily basis. Women in the U.S. military were very visible and were engaged in activities such as driving that were, and still are, prohibited to Saudi women. The war was relatively short, but the impact was lasting.
The bill for the war, a major portion of which we submitted to the Saudis, was a serious blow to the Saudi economy. In the face of belt-tightening, Saudi civilians began to question their support of the U.S. economy through arms sales and wholesale purchase of infrastructure. Sales began to flag. One key component of the relationship, the Saudi market for U.S. goods and services, was undermined.
At the same time, the Saudis expected that their military relationship with the United States would go back to something like it had been before 1990. And while U.S. troops were pulled out, more than 5,000 stayed. U.S. air operations over southern Iraq continued in a highly visible way. The war also spawned the CNN phenomenon, and satellite dishes that had been prohibited to Saudis — apart from a few princes — became commonplace. As a practical matter it became much harder to hide the U.S. military role in Saudi Arabia. The U.S. attitude also changed.
Most Americans believed we had fought to save the Saudis. That was a major part of the George H.W. Bush administration's political justification for the U.S. engagement. A cynic might argue that our engagement had little to do with Saudi Arabia and a lot to do with maintaining stability in oil prices and, thus, the health of the U.S. economy, which was under severe pressure. Whether cynical or not, most Americans prefer to think of U.S. intervention as a selfless defense of Saudi sovereignty and expect endless gratitude in return.
This feel-good explanation of U.S. motivation in the gulf war has led to tension in the relationship. If the Saudis expected things to go back to the prewar situation of an invisible U.S. presence in their country the United States expected unquestioning cooperation from a grateful Saudi Arabia.
Neither expectation was or is realistic. After the gulf war, U.S. planners recognized that Saddam Hussein continued to pose a threat. The United States had been caught short by Saddam's invasion of Kuwait. We had nothing on the ground and virtually nothing in the air. Had Saddam's tanks continued, there was every expectation that he could have swallowed critical oil-producing areas in Saudi Arabia. He would have controlled almost all of the world's excess oil-production capacity and could have manipulated the world price of oil at will.
As prudent preparation for a future crisis, U.S. military planners built up a permanent military presence in the region. We began to build a military footprint in a number of Persian Gulf states based on prepositioned equipment and land-based military aircraft. While some critics question our reliance on the conservative Wahhabi Saudi state, they seem to forget that today our government benefits from a greatly expanded military presence in the region, including bases for special operations, aircraft and prepositioned equipment in the equally conservative Wahhabi Qatar.
Despite the environment that could have led to severe tension in our relations with the Persian-Gulf states, in virtually every case this structural buildup has gone smoothly. It is a logical and prudent effort on our part and is generally understood and supported by the ruling families in the region. Arab governments have had a harder time explaining this cooperative relationship to local populations, however, who see it as support for the United States rather than an element of self-defense.
There is a sizable gap — and one that is growing — between regional perceptions of our involvement in the region and our own. We are seen as dogged supporters not just of Israel but of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's questionable tactics in his fight against the Palestinians. Arab opinion leaders see our support of more than 12 years of economic sanctions against Iraq as having hurt the Iraqi people while strengthening Saddam. These are the messages people in the region get in daily doses from dozens of Arabic satellite TV stations, including al-Jazeera (see "Live From Qatar: It's Jihad Television," March 4).
Even with these pressures on the governments of the region, our position could be sustained, but only if we are prepared to understand the strain caused by our high-profile presence. Keeping the spotlight off of U.S.-Saudi military cooperation is prudent and necessary if we want to gain Saudi support. Those seeking to embarrass the Saudi regime or the Bush administration for whatever political motive will undercut seriously the very cooperation needed to continue to protect our interests in the region, particularly if we are going to take on Saddam for a second round.
As a ringing declaration of U.S. hubris, unilateralism is an exciting concept — except that it could cost American lives. Going it alone against Saddam increases significantly the risk to our men and women in uniform. Without the full array of airstrips, battlefield-management tools and refueling and resupply capabilities that our friends in the region have provided in the past and could provide in the future, our forces will be at much greater risk.
Some argue that we should withdraw our presence completely, that it causes internal stress in Saudi Arabia and that it is an unnecessary irritant in our relations. That is a debate that well may be worth having — after Saddam is gone and a stable government has replaced him. For now, we are lucky to have a significant military presence in the region and to continue receiving the quiet support of friends such as Saudi Arabia.
Walker, currently president of the Middle East Institute, was assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs from 1999 to May 2001 and deputy chief of mission in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, from 1984-88.
1) Was it 17 or 19 or all of 19 hijackers were funded and/or from Saudi Arabia?
2) If I flip a coin 99 times and it comes up heads 99 times,
the optimist will bet on tails.
The realist KNOWS it is a two headed coin.
We should turn the whole place into one big US base.
ML/NJ
Maybe we should work harder and sooner to find an alternative source, rather than oil.
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