How effective has the Saudi government been in tackling Islamism at home? Two of its strategies are effective and one less so.
Prince Naif has implemented a strategy of securitization. I went to Saudi Arabia in June, 2005, and found the number of
policemen on the street striking. A militarization of daily life has taken place, and it is proving to be an effective strategy. Over
the past two years, Saudi security services have caught and arrested terrorists.
The Saudi establishment has also been effective at outreach to the outer edges of the Islamist spectrum. They have won back,
not members of splinter groups, but some of their sympathizers. They have regained control over some segments of the
Islamist spectrum.
Less effective has been the Saudi Royal Family's efforts to use religious discourse to combat radical Islamists. The Saudi Royal
Family has not won the cooperation of the Wahhabi establishment. A core group of the Wahhabi establishment may be
receptive to the Royal Family's message, but the broad base of the religious establishment is ambivalent when it comes to
combating the discourse of Islamism in public.
Alyami: It is important to judge people by what they do, as opposed to what they say. The Saudi Royal Family,
especially Prince Naif, worked hard to dismiss a reformist minister of education and to replace him with Abdullah bin Salih
Obeid, the former head of the World Muslim League. [2] Obeid is among the most hard-line Wahhabis in the country. And he
runs the education system in Saudi Arabia today! How can they be confronting these extremists when they place one of the
most reactionary men in charge of educational reform?
Given a choice between religious extremists and reformers, the Saudi Royal Family will imprison the reformers and give amnesty
to the extremists. Abdullah has done this three times in the last two years. He put Matruk al-Faleh, Turki al-Hammad, Ali
al-Domani, and hundreds of other reformers in prison, stopped them from leaving the country, or cut off their media access.
The government, then, gave amnesty to people incarcerated for inciting murder or conspiracy to murder. Anybody who says
the Saudi Royal Family is stupid is himself stupid. The Saudi leaders are clever; they are desert foxes. What they do and what
they say are very different things.
Lippman: To some extent I agree. It is always possible to pick out issues such as the appointment of Obeid as Minister
of Education. From the time of King Faisal, who ruled from 1964 to 1975, it has always been three steps forward and 2.8 or 3.2
steps back. A statesman like Ghazi al-Gosaibi serves as Minister of Labor, and every day he kicks open doors for women and
others who were previously disenfranchised from working. Saudi Arabia is not a static society. Domestic tendencies and trends
are felt in different ways. While there is no system in place for such trends to be reflected in the ballot box, society is changing
in other ways. There are too many educated women coming into the work force and into society now for it to remain static.
Saudi Arabia now is certainly different from what it was when I first visited it thirty years ago.
Henderson: Surely, Tom, we cannot confuse openings for women and the appointment of a certifiable Wahhabi
education minister three years after 9-11. Especially when almost all analysts and officials agree that the obscurantist nature of
the Saudi education system contributed to the attacks.
Lippman: You are absolutely correct about the negative impact of the education appointment, especially since the
Ministry now controls both girls' and boys' education.
Hamzawy: Simon Henderson is correct that there are different trends within the Royal Family. The religious
establishment is a key player and is wealthy. It cannot be controlled, even by the Royal Family. The religious establishment
controls three vital spheres of Saudi society: education, preaching, and the judiciary. It is not a monolith, though. Within the
religious establishment, there are different tendencies. A core group is receptive to the wishes of the King. Another group has
been less receptive. This group was associated throughout the 1980s and 1990s with the socalled Sahwa Islamiya (Islamic
Awakening), which still adheres to an Islamist discourse, even if they were less militant than Al-Qa'ida.
There are two general groups of reformers on the Saudi scene, and both are relatively small. The first are the socalled "liberals"
such as Matruk al-Faleh and Ali al-Domani, as well as some university professors, and civil society, human rights, and women
activists. The second are the "liberal" or "moderate" Islamists. Again, these groups are not monolithic. There are degrees of
convergence and divergence within the reform camp.
Another force is small but a threat to national security: the splinter groups of Islamists operating across the kingdom.
The power balance among these groups is the best way to gauge how effective the government is in terms of ideology and
reform.
MEQ: How does this play out with regard to education?
Hamzawy: While Wahhabism is the defining reality of Saudi Arabia, it is important to look for gray zones. The
question is whether there are moderate trends within the Wahhabi establishment and whether these can lead to reform. There is
not always forward progress.
There has been less moderation in the last year. Between 2001 and 2003, there was greater moderation within the educational
system and universities. There were fewer attempts to ban professors and fewer restrictions than there are now. In the last year,
and especially the last few months, there has been a shift back to less moderation.
MEQ: Why?
Hamzawy: I asked this same question of Saudi intellectuals in June and July, 2005, when I was in the Kingdom. They
enunciated two basic reasons. One is that the Bush administration is not pressing the Saudi Royal Family enough, and the
second is that the Royal Family went through a period of turbulence after 9-11. For, perhaps, two years, it was willing to do a
bit more than its normal inclination. As the pressure abated, it shifted back to less moderation in the education and preaching
spheres.
MEQ: Is King Abdullah a reformer?
Lippman: There is a tendency in the United States to think of King Abdullah as a reformer who, as Crown Prince, was
chomping at the bit to implement liberalizing change in Saudi Arabia. I never believed that. He is some 80 years old. He's been
part of the tiny ruling elite of Saudi Arabia all his life. He is not bursting out of the gate to make major changes in the Saudi
power structure.
Alyami: Abdullah is no reformer. Abdullah was marginalized throughout his life by his father the King, by the Sudairi
full-brothers, and by prior kings, including the late King Fahd, with whom he shared the same mother. He became Crown
Prince only because King Fahd felt badly for him. The Royal Family agreed to this because it assumed Abdullah would die
before Fahd. God made a liar out of them, for Fahd died before Abdullah. The Royal Family did not want Abdullah as King,
but he threatened them with the National Guard.
There is no accountability in Saudi Arabia. There is no transparency. Anybody can pay to kill another person. There is the
hawala [religious financial] system, which the Saudis use quite a bit, that leaves no paper trail. The judicial system is broken
and needs urgently to be changed. The Saudi people are fed up. Power lies in the hands of Abdullah, Sultan, Naif, Majid,
Khalid bin Faisal bin Abdul Aziz [governor of Asir province], perhaps Mohammed bin Fahd bin Abdul Aziz [governor of
the Eastern Province], and a few others here and there.
King Abdullah has not implemented a single recommendation suggested by the national dialogues [high-profile
conferences he organized to gather suggestions from a wide range of commoners]. He takes orders from those around him.
He is one absolute monarch out of many absolutes. This is the reality of Saudi Arabia.
MEQ: What about the religious establishment?
Alyami: Amr Hamzawy is right that reform is in retreat. The House of Saud is the real establishment; the religious institution
is only as powerful as the House of Saud allows it to be. The Saudi government plays the religious people against each
other, and it also plays the religious establishment against liberals. If the Saudi Royal Family wanted to muzzle the religious
establishment, it could. It has used the mufti to issue fatwas [religious rulings] against [Libyan leader Mu‘ammar] Qadhafi
and against [former Iraqi dictator] Saddam Hussein.
The Royal Family can silence people, but does not silence the clergy because the alternative is liberalization, which is not in
its interest. It feels safer with all the problems and threats of the religious establishment than with democratization, for
democratizing means sharing power and becoming accountable.
MEQ: And terrorism?
Alyami: The hatred the religious establishment preaches against Christians, Jews, Shi‘ite Muslims, and all
non-Wahhabi Muslims is huge. Without reform, there will be no end to the hate in Saudi mosques, and terrorism will
continue.
MEQ: Washington has praised reform efforts in Bahrain, Qatar, and Kuwait. What is Riyadh's attitude toward its
neighbors' reforms? How do Saudis see U.S. policy to promote democratic reform in the Middle East?
Hamzawy: The Saudi situation is far more complicated than its neighbors.' Saudi Arabia is a [Persian] Gulf
superpower. Other [Persian] Gulf countries depend on Saudi Arabia.
Throughout recent years, the Saudi government minimized reforms through various strategies. As Simon Henderson said, it
uses oil. It also uses the fear that democratization could lead to the Kingdom's takeover by Jihadists. More recently, the
Saudis have also exploited Western and primarily U.S. fears of the aftermath of the ouster of Saddam Hussein to urge
Washington to consider other democracy promotion projects more carefully.
Accordingly, the U.S. government might consider reaching out directly to civil society institutions, to groups promoting
democratic change, and to the Saudi people themselves.
Henderson: The Americans should encourage civil society and advocate democratic reforms in Saudi Arabia.
Washington should also be tougher, with regards to human rights abuses. The Kingdom's record is appalling; innocent
people are thrown in jail and tortured.
SAUDI FOREIGN POLICY
MEQ: Turning to foreign affairs, how helpful is Saudi influence to Washington on regional issues such as
stabilizing Iraq, pressing Syria to end its interference in Lebanon, promoting Israeli-Arab peace, and responding to the
Iranian nuclear challenge? Are these issues on which the U.S. and Saudi governments can work together?
Henderson: A schizophrenia exists in Saudi foreign policy. Anyone who listens to Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal
would think U.S.-Saudi interests converge. But looking at the history of Saudi foreign policy during the 1980s and 1990s,
the Kingdom, despite being a close ally of the United States, exported its Islamic extremist firebrands to Afghanistan,
Bosnia, and Chechnya. Islamists almost triumphed in Algeria, not because the Saudi government was directly encouraging
the emergence of Islamist-controlled governments, but because Saudi interests promoted the Islamists. There is a strong
Islamist element to Saudi foreign policy that often goes unrecognized.
MEQ: But, for a long time during the Cold War, wasn't the U.S.-Saudi alliance based on common interests against
the Soviet Union and Communism? The U.S. government worked with the Saudis in the 1950s and 1960s against Nasserism;
there was bilateral cooperation in the 1980s in Afghanistan.
Henderson: U.S. and Saudi interests converged in Afghanistan. They did not in Bosnia.
MEQ: Those interests converged for three decades of the Cold War.
Henderson: They did not converge in Algeria, Bosnia, or Chechnya.
MEQ: All those are post-Cold War examples.
Henderson: Washington did not necessarily recognize that, in the post-Cold War period, U.S.-Saudi interests have
diverged. The Saudis may not have a longterm interest in a stable Iraq. They will not, of course, say this publicly.
MEQ: What about Saudi policy toward Syria and the Arab-Israeli peace process?
Henderson: Abdullah has a sense of kinship with the Assads. Saudi involvement in Arab-Israeli peace negotiations
was more a way of placating Washington. The Saudis are politically correct enough not to speak publicly against Arab-Israeli
peace; they go along with the peace process. They get brownie points in Washington for meeting Jewish groups, for pushing
the Palestinians in certain directions, for funding Palestinian peace diplomacy, and things like this.
Hamzawy: Simon over-Orientalizes Saudi Arabia. Sometimes he suggests it's religion, other times kinship. I disagree.
Yes, Wahhabi Islam is a defining factor for the Saudi Royal Family and the Saudi establishment. In the 1960s, a power struggle
took place between Nasserism and Saudi traditionalism. This was not a power struggle over the soul of the Arab world; it was
a struggle over who would be the region's power center at a time of shifting regional and international alliances. The Saudis
often used religion to counter other ideologies, always, however, based on clear political calculations. They used religion in
Afghanistan, with the blessing of Washington, I might add. In the post-Cold War era, the Saudis used religion to promote
what they perceive as being Saudi national interests. At the end of the day, what is structuring the reality of Saudi foreign
policy is the preservation of the Saudi Royal Family's power. It's not religion, or kinship, or ideology. It's simply preservation
of power. That is the story of Saudi Middle East policy.
Lippman: Absolutely correct, and the historical record supports that assessment. Look at some of the most critical
external decisions Saudi Arabia has made over the past forty or fifty years. Self-preservation is the first rule of the House of
Saud. Likewise, the civil war in Yemen back in the 1960s was about preservation, not religion. In OPEC [the Organization of
Petroleum Exporting Countries], the Saudis cooperated with the most radical Arab regimes with which they had nothing in
common politically or spiritually. The same rationale impelled them to make the mistake of allowing 500,000 Americans to
enter the country for Operation Desert Shield [in 1990]. Abdullah's 2002 peace initiative on Israel was pragmatic and a sign
of a generally non-ideological foreign policy.
MEQ: What does this mean about the issues and concerns to the United States in regional politics?
Hamzawy: Just as Tom Lippman said, I see pragmatism as key; preserving Saudi Royal Family power leads to
convergence on regional issues. But I disagree with Simon Henderson concerning Iraq. the Saudi Royal Family has an
interest in a stable Iraq, but not necessarily a democratic Iraq. The Royal Family is not against Iraqi democracy, but it will
not invest much to help democratization flourish in Iraq. The Saudi ruling family has a prescription to stabilize Iraq, which
is to integrate, not exclude, the Sunni Arabs. Do not divide the country. That is pragmatism. The Saudi Royal Family
agrees with Cairo, with Damascus, more or less, and also somewhat with Washington.
MEQ: And the Arab-Israeli conflict?
Hamzawy: The Abdullah plan was a pragmatic effort to gain momentum and establish Saudi Arabia at the
forefront of regional leaders. Abdullah intended to push Egypt and Jordan back a little and portray Saudi Arabia as an
influential regional power. The Saudis would love to see the Palestinian issue solved, because it is exploited by radicals
and militants. A solution to the issue would rid the Saudis, in terms of ideology and discourse, of a central factor in the
popular appeal of Islamism and terrorist leader Osama bin Laden. Saudi foreign policy is designed to preserve power
and minimize threats. It has very little to do with religion and hardly anything to do with exporting Wahhabism.
Alyami: The House of Saud's only agenda is to stay in power. It will do whatever it takes -- kill, murder,
incarcerate, destroy. The Saudis have no interest in stabilizing Iraq. I disagree with the idea that it is indifferent to a
democratic Iraq. The Saudis hate two things: Shi‘ite empowerment and a democracy on their border. They will do
whatever it takes to ensure neither happens.
The Saudi government would like to see the United States stay in Iraq for sixty years. For one thing, the Saudi regime
does not want Washington even to consider invading another Arab country, so getting the U.S.A.'s nose rubbed in
the mud suits Saudi purposes. Moreover, a U.S. occupation in Iraq can be just as useful a symbol, if the U.S. military
gets bogged down in the country.
In Syria, the Saudis have mixed interests. Because the Alawites who control Syria are an offshoot of Shi‘ism, they fear
the Assad regime's outreach to Iran and the Shi‘ite-controlled government in Iraq. On the other hand, the Saudis fear
the alternatives to the Assad dynasty, and fear that chaos in Syria may undercut Lebanon.
Abdullah's Arab-Israeli peace plan was tactically wise. He knew that the Israelis could not accept it, because it called
for Israel to return all land occupied in 1967, including East Jerusalem. The Saudi Royal Family wants sway over East
Jerusalem to add to [their patronage of] Mecca and Medina. Then they would be custodian of three holy places,
instead of two, and would increase their stature accordingly. The Saudi government has no interest in seeing
Palestinian-Israeli peace, especially if that results in a democratic Palestine. The Saudis are the greatest financial
patrons of Hamas and of Al-Aqsa Brigades and other groups. If Israel and the Arabs make peace and democratization
proceeds, the Saudi Royal Family will lose its power.
What really bothers me about all these discussions is that the Saudi people are never considered. We talk about the
women in Saudi Arabia today, as if we are talking about women's situations 500 or 600 years ago, and then people say
there are openings for women, there are openings for religious minorities — but Saudi Atabia is still a country ruled by
four or five old men who still do not recognize half of their society as human beings.
Henderson: I always regarded Abdullah's peace plan as a Saudi public relations attempt to deflect attention
from Saudi Arabia's indirect role in the September 11, 2001, Islamist terror attacks on the U.S.A.
THE OIL FACTOR
MEQ: How important is oil to the bilateral U.S.-Saudi relationship?
Lippman: I'm a contrarian on this. Oil is not very relevant to bilateral relations. Even if there were a Jihadist
revolution tomorrow....
Alyami: I say, it's all about Saudi oil.
Lippman: The record shows that the United States boycotts oil producers. They do not cut off America. Take,
for instance, Libya and Iran …
MEQ: Saddam's Iraq, too, right?
Lippman: Yes. But, that was because of United Nations' sanctions. And the United States bought the oil
anyway. I believe that oil has no country of origin. There is only one global oil market. If the United States stopped
buying the three million barrels a day that it buys from Saudi Arabia, and instead purchased that amount somewhere else,
then the Saudis would sell the same three million barrels to the Chinese, the South Africans, the Japanese, or the
Argentineans. As long as Saudi Arabia is not in the forefront of rebels trying to drive the prices up (the way Mu‘ammar
Qadhafi or even that old U.S. friend, the Shah of Iran, did in the old days), there should be no problem. Washington
should take the Saudis at their word, just as U.S. Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman did on his recent trip to Saudi
Arabia.
Alyami: From day one, oil has been the basis, directly or indirectly, of the U.S.-Saudi relationship. Oil is important
in Saudi relations with Japan and Europe, too, as both of them import a lot of Saudi oil. If their economies fall, the Saudi
economy will follow. Therefore, oil becomes a key issue here. Tom is right that the U.S.A. does not import so much oil
from the Saudis right now, but the situation will change in ten or fifteen years, as China consumes more energy than the
United States. The Chinese have few reserves, and they will try to buy as much as they can from the Persian Gulf region.
That said, the United States will never let the Chinese or anyone else get control of oil production in the Middle East.
Henderson: I disagree with Tom Lippman's remarks. Oil is the basis of the relationship and is absolutely vital to it.
So, preservation of the present Saudi regime is in Washington's best interests, because, when other major oil exporters'
governments fail, the history is that their oil production and exports are drastically reduced. Iran and Iraq are cases in point.
MEQ: And Qadhafi?
Henderson: Yes, and Qadhafi, too. He didn't actually fall, but Washington gave him a hard time.
MEQ: Yes, oil production in Libya has fallen for so long that the country now hopes that, by 2010, it can return
production to where it was when he came to power in 1969.
Henderson: Of course, Saudi Arabia, because of its huge reserves and huge production, has a crucial role, one
that Riyadh has been happy to undertake for many years -- to be the swing producer. Many in Washington consider it
vital that Saudi Arabia continue to perform that role in the future. Such concerns limit Washington's freedom of action on
a whole series of concerns about Saudi Arabia.
MEQ: Thank you for these most interesting observations. In sum, while there remains disagreement on many, I heard a
consensus that Washington should encourage the Saudi Kingdom's civil society organizations and democratic reformers.
That would be quite a change, indeed, from U.S. policy in decades past.
NOTES:
[1] Daniel L. Glaser, deputy assistant secretary Office of Terrorist Financing and Financial Crimes, U.S. Department of the Treasury, testimony before the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, Nov. 8, 2005.
[2] The World Muslim League is a Saudi-sponsored organization founded in 1962 to fund mosques, publishing houses, cultural centers, schools, and other Islamic institutions.
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
Middle East -- Arabs, Arab States,
& Their Middle Eastern Neighbors
Israel -- The Israeli-Arab Conflict
Islamism & Jihadism -- The Threat of Radical Islam
Page Three
Page Two
Page One
War & Peace in the Real World
Page Two
Page One
Islamist Terrorist Attacks on the U.S.A.
Osama bin Laden & the Islamist Declaration of War
Against the U.S.A. & Western Civilization
Islamist International Terrorism &
U.S. Intelligence Agencies
U.S. National Security Strategy
The foregoing roundtable discussion was originally published in the Middle East Quarterly, Spring, 2006, and can
be found on the Internet website maintained by the Middle East Forum.
Republished with Permission of the Middle East Forum
Reprinted from the Middle East Forum News
mefnews@meforum.org (MEF NEWS)
MEF News, April 28, 2006
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