Jeremy Bradshaw
Special to NewsMax.com
Wednesday, March 31, 2004

LONDON – The bombing of Madrid has provided a cruel reminder of the power of the al-Qaida’s network to inflict mass murder. Yet the real target of Osama bin Laden’s terrorism is the regime of Saudi Arabia. The Saudi-born bin Laden long ago made clear he had a master plan to take over the desert kingdom and its vast oil reserves.

Back in 1996 bin Laden issued his first jihad – declaration of war – against “America occupying the land of the two holy places [Mecca and Medina]. There is no more important duty than pushing the American enemy out of the holy land. A new caliphate is necessary to unite all Muslims.”

The attack on Madrid was like the attack on the Twin Towers, designed to invite U.S. retaliation that would stoke up radical Islamic opinion against the Americans in the Middle East, and to make him a hero in the “Arab street,” especially in Saudi Arabia and Iraq (on which bin Laden also has power-grabbing designs).

It is a strategy that has every good chance of succeeding. Why?

Saudi-U.S. Relations Deteriorate

The Americans like to describe the Saudi regime as a valued ally. Yet, the Saudis frequently behave as if they were enemies of the U.S. For instance, they refused to allow their air bases to be used for strikes on Afghanistan and Iraq. They offered only limited help in tracking down the cash of the 9/11 terrorists – despite the fact that 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudi citizens.

Around the world Saudi money is financing a highly intolerant strain of Islam, Wahhabism, while the U.S.-led war against Iraq was waged with the clear aim of promoting democracy and liberalism, two ideas conspicuously at odds with the autocratic system in Saudi Arabia.

Some advisers to the Bush administration have warned that the Saudi regime is not a suitable ally for the administration. A briefing paper presented to the Pentagon’s Defense Policy Board in July 2002 condemned Saudi Arabia as an enemy of the United States – “the kernel of evil, the prime mover, the most dangerous opponent” in the Middle East.

“The Saudis are active at every level of the terror chain,” it warned, “from planners to financiers, from cadre to foot-soldier, from ideologist to cheerleader.” The paper urged the White House to give the House of Saud an ultimatum: Stop supporting terrorism or face a seizure of your oilfields and your assets in the United States.

The administration played down the report and dismissed it as a discussion document.

Yet the tensions in Saudi-American relations have been growing worse for some time. Weeks before 9/11, the de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia, crown Prince Abdullah, had denounced in an anguished letter American indifference to the Palestinians and had hinted that the time was approaching where the two countries ought to rethink their relationship.

After 9/11, a gaping hole emerged at the heart of this alliance – as bin Laden had succeeded in highlighting the obvious contradictions in the Saudi-American alliance.

Many American politicians had felt uncomfortable about the United States' alliance with an autocratic and socially backward regime. Their unease grew with revelations that the the wife of the Saudi ambassador to Washington was channeling money to extremist groups under cover of “charity” and the Saudi ambassador to London, a part-time poet, was discovered to have written an ode to a suicide bomber.

Internal Crisis

Bin Laden’s strategy has been successful in not only undermining American support for the regime, it has also inflamed anti-Americanism inside the desert kingdom. The attack on the Twin Towers was met with street celebrations in the capital, Riyadh, and other cities.

According to one recent poll, 87 percent of Saudis have anti-American views. To quote one Saudi who was polled: “Our people very much hate the U.S. The number one reason is that it supports Israel with no limits … now we hear that all Saudis in America will be fingerprinted.”

In May 2003, al-Qaida expressed Saudi anti-Americanism by bombing two expatriate compounds in Riyadh. Al-Qaida’s actions have systematically served to destabilize a regime already suffering from huge economic and social pressures.

Rising demographic trends and collapsing oil prices, have led to spiraling budget deficits. Each year, the kingdom has grown poorer as the population expands faster than the economy. Whereas in 1980 Saudi Arabia was one of the wealthiest countries, by 2003 the kingdom had twice the population living off the same income (in real terms).

Although the largest exporter of oil in the world, it earns no more from oil that the U.S. spends on cigarettes each year. Salaries alone account for 60 percent of the state budget, and domestic debt is bigger than GDP.

Currently, thanks to rising oil prices, Saudi Arabia’s finances are improving – but the underlying fact remains: The country is overdependent on oil, and its economy is unable to grow fast enough to accommodate its rising population. The country needs 6 percent annual growth to keep unemployment (believed to be 20 percent) in check, rather than the 1.5 percent growth its experienced on average each year since 1980.

If the country is to prosper – and a revolution is to be avoided – the Saudi government must implement radical reforms. On the economic front it needs to implement with more urgency a program of privatization to attract back much of the $700 billion that has been ferreted abroad by wealthy Saudis. It must promote foreign investment, introduce taxes to broaden the revenue base of the government and overhaul its legal system, which is over-reliant on its 700 judges.

Its social policies need to be changed. No longer can half the population be excluded from the labor force. The cost of excluding female labor is immense. Simply allowing women to drive could save the kingdom the 1 percent it spends on imported chauffeurs. And the taboo against birth control needs to be dismantled, if the population growth is to be sustainable.

The kingdom’s education system is chaotic and backward. Yet it is the key to any program designed to reduce dependence on foreign workers or diversifying the economy away from its dependence on oil. The Saudis have 5 million students – some eight times more than in 1970. Its rote-learning methods are based on a discredited Egyptian model of teaching that kills intellectual curiosity. Instead, the emphasis is on instilling patriotic and religious values.

Of the 120,000 students who graduated from Saudi universities in the period 1995-2000, only 10,000 studied technical subjects. They account for only 2 percent of the total number of Saudis entering the job market.

The result is that employers prefer to employ foreign graduates who have more practical skills and qualifications – as well as better motivation.

Real Friends

“When you don’t have a free democratic system, where the street is represented in the halls of the legislature and in the executive branches of those governments, then they have to be more concerned by the passions of the street. And so, in addition to sort of criticizing us from time to time…you’d better start taking a look at in the mirror.”
– Colin Powell, November 2001, addressing Arab governments

If the Americans are serious about promoting democracy in Iraq, how can they avoid doing so in Saudi Arabia? If the U.S. is to be a real friend of Saudi Arabia it ought to encourage far greater reforms than those currently contemplated for the Saudis.

Time is running out. A state based on a tribal network and patronage and corruption as a way of life is unlikely to survive long.

In a region where all the major Arab countries have toppled their monarchies (with the exception of the small Persian Gulf states), the odds on the Sauds surviving long are not good.

In the end the real threat might not be bin Laden himself – he and his al-Qaida movement could serve to be a catalyst. Rather the threat could come from an alliance of the disenfranchised Saudi middle class, a discontented educated class and sympathizers in the armed forces allied with radical Islamists.

Their success will be assured if the Americans stop supporting the House of Saud.

Editor's note: