Coddling the Saudis

National Post ^ | December 13 2002

[knighthawk]

It is well known that Saudi Arabia squanders much of its petro-wealth spreading Islamist propaganda worldwide, even here in Canada. Al-Qaeda gets much of its funding from Saudi Arabia. And it was recently revealed that the wife of Prince Bandar bin Sultan, Riyadh's ambassador to the United States, indirectly financed two of the 9/11 hijackers. What is less known is that the desert kingdom brutalizes foreigners inside its borders. Western oilfield and medical workers who fall victim to terror attacks in Saudi Arabia are routinely arrested and tortured until they confess to planting the very bombs that maimed them. Canadian biochemist Bill Sampson awaits beheading in a Saudi prison on just such a trumped-up charge.

The Saudis' motivation is obvious enough: The 7,000 princes of the Saudi royal family love their "decadent" Western lifestyles -- the private jets, yachts, pleasure palaces, racehorses and shopping trips to London and Manhattan. But the country's religious leaders, who double as judges, are adherents of an austere, jihadist form of fundamentalist Islam known as Wahhabism -- the sect followed by Osama bin Laden and much of the Saudi population. To buy the imams' indulgence and quell the population, the princes spend vast sums exporting the sect's message (and some of its most vehement adherents) through an international network of 1,100 mosques and Muslims schools. When homegrown militants bomb foreign workers in an effort to drive the infidels from Islam's holy peninsula, the princes have the police blame the workers rather than admit the problem is local.

Yet Western leaders rarely take Saudi Arabia to task for any of this. Though the foreign intelligence specialists at the Rand Corporation call the kingdom the "prime mover" of terrorism in the Middle East, Western governments ignore, or even deny, the Saudi role. Indeed, George W. Bush, the U.S. President, has even entertained the de facto Saudi ruler, Prince Abdullah, on his Crawford, Texas, ranch.

The West's thirst for Saudi oil is an obvious factor here, but it is not the only one. There is also the huge volume of cash the sheikhs spend each year buying influence in Western capitals. As Middle East expert Daniel Pipes reported on these pages Wednesday, the Saudis have made a steady practice of treating powerful Washington insiders to lucrative consulting contracts, and installing them as heads of their own private charitable foundations. They wine and dine those who speak well of them, underwrite five-star junkets to Arabia, and spread their message through both grassroots Arab community groups and high-priced PR firms.

Thus does a country best thought of as an honorary member of the Axis of Evil get preferential treatment. For instance, dozens of bin Laden relatives were whisked out of the United States in the 72 hours following 9/11, most without first being questioned by the FBI. And Wednesday, the CBC's Fifth Estate reported that a Canadian who had been tortured by the Saudis was saved from that country by Canadian diplomats, but has been cautioned by the Foreign Affairs Department not to make the details of his mistreatment or rescue public. The need to not embarrass Saudi Arabia seems to be everyone's top concern.

Confronting the Saudis with aggressive threats and sanctions may not be the answer in the short term: Taking care of Saddam comes first. But rolling over completely in the face of their despicable behaviour is not in the West's interests either. Lives are at stake, and it would be an unpardonable tragedy if apparently innocent Westerners such as Bill Sampson were executed simply because our governments cannot find the stomach to demand certain minimum standards from our supposed ally.

[knighthawk]

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