Posted on 08/04/2002 4:58:44 PM PDT by sarcasm
While American journalists have focused on the possibility of the US invading Iraq, European media are worried about what may lie ahead for Saudi Arabia, the West's most prominent ally in the Arab world.
According to European political observers and Middle Eastern analysts, Saudi Arabia may be on the verge of collapse, which could place it at risk of falling into the hands of al-Qaeda. According to reports published in the British newspaper The Observer, al-Qaeda counts sympathizers not only among the general Saudi population but also within the House of Saud, the royal family itself. Here Prince Abdullah, the current regent and designer of the recently failed Saudi peace plan for Palestine, has locked horns with Defense Minister Prince Sultan, whose views for Saudi Arabia's future are markedly pro-Islam and very close to those of the radical Sunni Salafia movement.
As recently as last March, unrest in the Saudi kingdom was expressed in a series of street protests that started in the eastern part of the country and rapidly spread throughout the nation. Thousands of pro-Palestinian, anti-American protesters were brutally repressed by Saudi security forces.
Saudi Arabia is not only home to a fourth of the world's oil reserves, but is also the location of the sacred Islamic cities of Mecca and Medina. The country is no newcomer to religiously inspired popular uprisings. In 1979 a group of rebels, mostly Sunni but representing a wide spectrum of the Saudi population, seized the Grand Mosque in Mecca. The resulting stand-off between Saudi security forces and the rebels lasted three weeks and ended in a blood bath when the rebels were forced out of the mosque by a task force of Saudi troops, Jordanian militia, and French counterterrorism operatives. Sixty-three rebels survived the assault and were later publicly executed.
The rebels' requests, similar to those advanced during the latest protests, are simple yet unattainable: the expulsion of westerners, an end to corruption, and a return to Qu'ranic law. The realization of these demands would mark the end of the House of Saud as rulers of the country, since they rely so heavily on the West, especially the US, for economic and military survival.
Saudi Arabia has been a breeding ground for Sunni radicalism since 1902 when Ibn Saud captured Ryadh and set out on 30 years campaign to unify the Arabian peninsula. In 1932 ibn Saud, who perceived it as a threat to the new kingdom, expelled it from the country. Sunni radicalism returned to Saudi Arabia in the early sixties, when it managed to gain political relevance.
In the eighties, the Saudi ruling family instituted a grant program designed to facilitate the purchase of land by individual Saudis, hoping that such an economic boost might distract people from the lure of Sunni radicalism. Sunni radicalism, however, gained momentum again in 1991 in the aftermath of Operation Desert Storm. Salafi followers-a sect of Sunni radicalism that advocates both a pure Islam uncorrupted by western influences and the adoption of the Qur'an as the law of the land--criticized Saudi Arabian reliance on foreign forces and demanded a clean-up of political corruption, issues which the general public was already attuned to.
During the 1980s, the Saudi royals undertook another major effort to redirect political dissent: They financed thousands of their most politically challenging citizens, including Osama bin Laden, to wage jihad in Afghanistan against the Soviet Union, and after the Soviet defeat, against other infidels. Since the end of the cold war and the US war on Iraq, many of these Islamic warriors returned home to find that Westerners were not only still in their country, but that they exerted an increasing influence on affairs of state and on the Saudis' Islamic way of life.
Although Prince Salam, the Saudi interior minister, states that there aren't any al-Qaeda sleeper cells in his country, Saudi security forces recently foiled an al-Qaeda plot directed at downing an American military plane. The attempt, led by a Sudanese citizen, involved the use of air-to-surface missiles and would have included bombing western interests. British intelligence sources suggest that Saudis in the government who are opposed to Prince Abdullah have colluded with Islamic extremists linked with al-Qaeda to organize such bombings. In an attempt to deny the presence of such forces in the country, the Saudi government has accused a group of Britons, Belgians, and Canadians involved in a bootleg liquor operation, with organizing the attacks.
Although exiled first in Sudan and then in Afghanistan, bin Laden still wields enormous influence in Saudi Arabia. For example, during the war in Afghanistan, he trained many devout Saudi Muslims, who at the end of that war returned home to a hero's welcome.
European media believe that the House of Saud is experiencing an internal schism over how best to face the current challenges of growing Sunni radicalism and of pressure from the rest of the Arab world to distance itself from its American allies. On one side are Prince Abdullah and Interior Minister Prince Sultan, who favor a more western lifestyle; on the other side are those who want to prevent an Islamic overthrow of the royal family, and who see cozying up to the extremists as the best way to accomplish this.
One of this latter group is Prince al-Waleed bin Talal. Bin Talal holds most of his $20 billion of assets in US investments, such as Citigroup-of which he is the leading shareholder-and AOL Time Warner. Like bin Laden, bin Talal has financed the efforts of the mujaheddin, Islamic fundamentalists who went to Afghanistan to fight against the Soviet Union. In 1981, at height of the fight against the Soviet Union, he made a secret visit to mujaheddin's training camps in Peshawar. He made his last acknowledged donation of $5.4 million to the mujaheddin in April 1990. After the September 11 attack, bin Talal irked then-mayor Rudolph Giuliani when, while delivering a $10 million dollar donation to New York, bin Talal suggested that the US should consider its own global role in order to understand the genesis of the attack. Though he did not state this clearly, bin Talal hinted that the attack on the World Trade Center was inspired by the global social inequalities fostered by America's foreign policy.
If a Saudi like bin Talal, who holds most of his vast assets in US investments, harbors such feelings toward America, it should not be surprising if-for example, following a unilateral US attack on Iraq--the House of Saud may choose to side with Islamic radicals.
You: Are you sure? One could think that they were from Iraq and Afghanistan.
Me: I'm pretty sure I heard that right. I could be wrong but I don't think I am. In any event, Saudi Arabia is knee-deep in terrorist funding.
Set it off...
Well, I agree about the sand.
The Hejaz, I would return to the Hashemites. The oilfields should be internationalized.
...Saudi security forces recently foiled an al-Qaeda plot directed at downing an American military plane. The attempt, led by a Sudanese citizen, involved the use of air-to-surface missiles ...
During the 1980s, the Saudi royals undertook another major effort to redirect political dissent: They financed thousands of their most politically challenging citizens, including Osama bin Laden, to wage jihad in Afghanistan against the Soviet Union, and after the Soviet defeat, against other infidels.
The whole problem is the House of Saud. They are loonies and have nursed the very snakes that are now biting them and us.
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