Strains in U.S.-Saudi Arabia ties

By Kesava Menon

MANAMA (BAHRAIN), OCT. 31. A warning from Saudi Arabia that it could ask all their citizens to quit the United States if they continued to be harassed, has come as the latest sign of strain in the relations between Riyadh and Washington.

The Government-controlled Saudi press has been relentless in its criticism of the U.S. bombing raids on Afghanistan and there are other signs that the Kingdom could be pushing its own agenda in respect of the war-torn country.

The Saudi Interior Minister, Prince Nayef bin Abdelaziz, in expressing his distress at the harassment that the Kingdom's nationals and other Arabs are being subjected to by U.S. officials and private citizens, has said his Government was working strenuously to put an end to this situation. If, however, there was no improvement to the treatment that Arabs faced in the U.S. the Kingdom would ask its citizens to return home or shift to some other country. There are thousands of Saudi citizens at any given time in the U.S. who are studying there, looking after their business and professional interests or merely visiting.

Prince Nayef's statement might not be much more than a warning to the U.S. that the Kingdom could toughen its stance. But there a few other stray signs that the Saudis might not continue to be as acquiescent partners of the U.S. as they were throughout the 1990s. According to reports in the U.S. media, the Kingdom's de facto ruler, Crown Prince Abdullah, has written to the U.S. President, Mr. George W. Bush, that there are times when nations, like people, have to part ways and that the time might have now arrived for both countries to look after their own interests in their own ways.

These signs of Saudi estrangement might be attributable in part to the steady stream of anti-Saudi news stories and analyses appearing in the Western media, on the basis of information sourced to Western officials. In general, the Western media has focussed on the Saudi contribution to the spread of Osamaism through the export of the Wahabi interpretation of Islam, financing of mosques where this interpretation is imparted all over the world and the provision of a large number of recruits to fundamentalist organisations.

Underlying this pique at what the Kingdom would consider anti- Saudi propaganda is a harder factor. In slowly consolidating the idea that Wahabism under-writes extremism in the Muslim world, the ideologues of the West have posed a challenge to the ideological underpinnings of the Saudi regime. The Saudi monarchy came to power and retains it through a symbiotic relationship with the Wahabi sect and the descendants of the sect's founder, Sheikh Abdul Wahab (the al Sheikhs), constitute the second most important clan in the Kingdom.

The Saudi regime's beliefs and baser interests converge on the issue of Afghanistan. Saudi Arabia has invested a lot over two decades, in terms of money and political effort, in trying to ensure a hard-line Sunni dominance in Afghanistan. This policy appeared to have blown up in the face of the Saudis when the Sept. 11 terror attacks took place.

An Arab League and an OIC meeting that took place soon after were devoted to the effort to ensure that causes dear to the Arab heart - Palestine especially - did not suffer collateral damage from the newly launched U.S. war on terrorism. The problems of Afghanistan and Pakistan were largely ignored at these meetings.

Since then, the Saudis appear to have taken a second breath perhaps emboldened by the manner in which Pakistan has been able to insert the idea of ``a moderate Taliban'' into the U.S. thinking. The Saudis now apparently feel, especially after the Foreign Minister, Prince Saudi Al Faisal's visit to Islamabad, that the stakes they have invested in Afghanistan are not totally irretrievable. In order to have their own input in Afghan affairs, the Saudis have to mark out a difference from the U.S. while reaffirming their links with Pakistan.

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Section  : International
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