Friendship and the House of Saud

By Jeff Jacoby
The Boston Globe
November 18, 2001

    To hear Prince Bandar tell it, Saudi Arabia is devoted to the 
United States.

    "Our role," the Saudi ambassador said in a CNN interview some 
weeks ago, "is to stand solid and shoulder-to-shoulder with our 
friends, the people of the United States.... In 1990, when we 
needed your help, you came through for us.  And it's our turn now 
to stand up with you."

    That's the official line, the one the Saudis have spent a 
fortune promoting over the years.  It is a theme the media 
routinely echo.  "No Arab nation," Newsweek declared just two weeks 
ago, "has been as reliable a friend to America over such a long 
period of time as Saudi Arabia."

    Is it true?

    When terrorists slaughtered thousands of civilians in a horrific
attack on Sept. 11, our friends the Saudis reacted with -- silence.  
Other governments welled up with shock, grief, and fury.  Riyadh 
said nothing.

    As it became clear that most of those who carried out the 
atrocities were citizens of Saudi Arabia and that the mastermind 
behind them was a member of a leading Saudi family, one might have 
expected the Saudis to express great anguish and heartache.  
One might have thought they would be anxious to cooperate closely 
with the United States in rooting out those responsible for the 
devastation.

    But there were no words of anguish, and there was little 
cooperation. The US investigation had barely begun when Riyadh 
arranged a private jet to fly scores of its citizens -- including 
members of the bin Laden clan -- out of the United States.  This 
meant, of course, that the FBI could not interview people who might 
have had valuable information about the hijackers.

    That was only the beginning of the Saudis' unhelpfulness.  
When Washington asked for background information on the Sept. 11 
terrorists, the Saudis stonewalled.  While 94 airlines agreed to 
identify passengers on planes flying to the United States, Saudi 
Arabian Airlines refused.  A month after the attacks, The New York 
Times reported that "Saudi Arabia has so far refused to freeze the 
assets of Osama bin Laden and his associates."  Of particular 
concern was Riyadh's unwillingness to shut down the Islamic 
"charities" that are Al Qaeda's lifeline.

    As American war plans took shape, the Saudis barred the use of 
their military bases for attacks against the Taliban.  Britain's 
Tony Blair set off on a Mideast tour to build support for the war 
effort, but was denied entry to Saudi Arabia.  And just days after 
the US bombardment of Afghanistan began, the Saudi interior minister 
denounced it.  "This is killing innocent people," Prince Nayef 
scolded.  "We are not at all happy with the situation."

    These are our friends?

    For years the United States has had an arrangement with Saudi 
Arabia's rulers: They would sell us oil and we would pretend not to 
notice that they were intolerant dictators who crushed dissent at 
home while nurturing some of the world's most most violent fanatics 
abroad.  But now we are at war with those fanatics and the old 
bargain cannot continue.

    It is time to face the truth about our Saudi "friends:" Their 
money, their diplomacy, their politics, and above all their Wahhabi 
strain of Islam -- extremist, intolerant, aggressive, and poisonously 
anti-Western -- made Sept. 11 possible.  The Taliban and Al Qaeda 
represent not perversions of Wahhabism but its full flowering.  
That is why they had the support of so many Saudis -- and why the 
blood of the victims is on Saudi hands.

    For years, the House of Saud has had it both ways, posing as a 
friend of America while spending lavishly to advance America-hating 
Islamist extremism around the world.  When forced to choose between 
the two, they have generally kept faith with the extremists. In 1996, 
for example, Saudi authorities derailed the US investigation into 
the Khobar Towers terrorist bombing in Dharahn, which killed 19 
American soldiers and maimed 372.  The FBI was not allowed to 
examine the evidence or question suspects.  When a US grand jury 
this year indicted 13 Saudis for the bombing, Riyadh refused to 
extradite them.

    This is not how friends should behave.  And absorbing such 
insults is not how a superpower should behave.

    For years Washington has allowed Riyadh to dictate the terms of 
the US-Saudi relationship.  Because the Saudis demanded that Saddam 
Hussein not be toppled, the Gulf War was aborted before victory had 
been achieved. But because Saddam wasn't destroyed, Saudi Arabia 
required continuing protection, so thousands of US troops remained 
inside its borders.  That occupation by "infidel" Americans, in turn, 
fueled the rage of Osama bin Laden -- who used Saudi money and 
Saudi recruits to build up his army of terrorists and plot the 
murder of Americans.  Our obsequiousness has cost us dearly.

    Saudi Arabia and the United States, as Crown Prince Abdullah 
himself said last month, have come to a crossroads.  Perhaps it is 
time they went their separate ways.

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(Jeff Jacoby is a columnist for The Boston Globe.  
To receive his columns by e-mail, send a note with your name and 
e-mail address to columns@earthlink.net ).