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A sorry tale of Saudi King’s U.K. visit

It should have been — and was indeed billed as — a landmark visit. A Saudi monarch was paying a state visit to Britain after 20 years, a period of profound change in the west’s relations with the Arab world in general, and with Saudi Arabia in particular, in the wake of the 9/11 attacks — not to mention the impressive growth in Britain’s own relations with Riyadh, especially in trade.

In the event, however, King Abdullah’s four-day visit descended very nearly into a farce thanks to some breathtaking tactlessness on both sides. First, the King infuriated his hosts when, in a pre-visit interview to the BBC, he accused Britain of not doing enough to fight terror and, more seriously, laid the blame for the London bombings of July 7, 2005 on British security services claiming that they failed to act on Saudi intelligence.

“We … sent information to Great Britain before the terrorist attacks in Britain but unfortunately no action was taken. And it may have been able to maybe avert the tragedy,” he said.

The King’s remarks provoked a furious response from the Foreign Office and intelligence services. On tackling terrorism, the British line, fed to the media by unnamed sources, was that they would not take “lectures” on terrorism from a country whose own hands were soiled, given its record of “exporting” a potentially violent brand of Islam. As for 7/7 intelligence, angry officials accused the Saudis of continuing to harp on a claim that, they argued, had already been investigated and found to be without substance. A parliamentary committee, which investigated the information, found that there was no evidence of any specific Saudi intelligence in the run-up to the July 7 bombings.

In an unusual move, the MI5 put out a statement on its website rejecting the King’s allegation. “The Saudis provided information about possible planning for an attack in the U.K. which was materially different from the attacks that took place in London on July 7 [2005],” it said.

All this on “Day Zero” of the visit while the King’s plane was still circling over London. So, when he landed at Heathrow, with a 400-strong entourage in five jumbo jets, the mood in London was already sour with screaming headlines about the King’s “gaffe,” and calls for a boycott of the visit over his government’s human rights record. The acting Liberal Democrat leader, Vince Cable, led the boycott declaring that it was “quite wrong that as a country we should give the leader of Saudi Arabia this honour.”

“A royal guest to be proud of?” asked The Independent in a front-page article denouncing King Abdullah’s regime as one of the “most brutal in the world.” A day later, a furious Robert Fisk, the paper’s internationally respected West Asia correspondent, questioned King Abdullah’s moral right to “lecture us on terrorism.” “For King Abdullah to tell the world … that Britain is not doing enough to counter terrorism, and that most countries are not taking it seriously as his country is, is really pushing it. Weren’t most of the 11 September 2001 hijackers from, er, Saudi Arabia? Is this the land that is really going to teach us lessons?” he thundered.

The Guardian, which has been leading a campaign over allegations of corruption in arms deals with Saudi Arabia, had a photograph of the King and his delegation, stepping down from the plane, under the headline: “Welcome to Britain. But don’t mention bribery and corruption. This is business.” The caption helpfully pointed out that Prince Bandar bin Sultan, a former Saudi ambassador to Washington, who was alleged to have been paid up to £one billion by BAE Systems to win an arms deal, was a member of the King’s delegation. And in case anyone missed him, he was “third from top on right.”

The New Statesman acknowledged that the British line over the Saudis’ 7/7 intelligence claims had “shifted” since Riyadh first raised the issue after the London attacks, but still thought that for the King to return to the subject was a “piece of spectacular diplomatic discourtesy.”

One can argue that the King deserved the headlines he got over his undiplomatic jibe but whatever happened to the famous British diplomacy? Foreign Secretary David Miliband’s decision to pull out of a conference on British-Saudi relations on the very first day of the visit, inevitably, sent out all sorts of wrong signals and, in retaliation, the Saudis downgraded their own representation at the conference. Mr. Miliband was away in America to adopt a baby, and instead of returning home in time for the visit he chose to stay back, leaving it to a junior minister to deputise for him. In Saudi circles his absence was interpreted as a snub, and even those who have no love lost for the Saudis were outraged by what they regarded as Mr. Miliband’s poor judgment on this occasion.

More than anybody else, the British understand the importance of gestures in diplomacy and as The Times — no fan of the Saudis, mind you — noted it was in bad form for the Foreign Secretary (the public face of British diplomacy) to “withdraw from a state occasion at very short notice.” In fact, the whole visit had been treated as though Saudi Arabia were “an unpleasant and embarrassing regime from which Britain is emphatically eager to distance itself,” it said in a strongly-worded editorial.

Meanwhile, the Saudis faced more embarrassment when a Conservative Party think-tank, Policy Exchange, chose the visit to release a report accusing organisations with links to the Saudi government of distributing extremist literature in Britain. The report titled The Hijacking of British Islam claimed that books and DVDs preaching hatred against non-Muslims and supporting violence against non-believers were being sold in Britain’s leading Muslim centres and mosques, including the London’s Central Mosque which receives funds from the Saudi government. Its director, Ahmad al-Dubayan, a Saudi diplomat, was reportedly among those who welcomed King Abdullah on his arrival.

The idea that Britain should be “honouring” a leader whose government was engaged in radicalising British Muslim youth provoked angry comment from across the political spectrum. London’s Mayor, Ken Livingstone, hit out at the Saudi Royal family calling it the “principal funder for the Wahabi sect which is the most intolerant strain of modern Islam.” Tory leader David Cameron reportedly “confronted” the King on the issue when he met him and there was pressure on Prime Minister Gordon Brown to tell the King that this was unacceptable behaviour.

In a palpably charged atmosphere, it was left, ironically, to that most derided of British institutions — the monarchy — to save the visit from turning into a total disaster. The Queen rolled out the red carpet for King Abdullah and the reception given to him at the Buckingham Palace was indeed fit for a king. Although he does not speak English and the Queen knows no Arabic, it was clear that the King felt more at home with the British royal family (in a rare gesture, Prince Charles personally went to the airport to receive him) than in the company of her less exalted subjects.

When the King went to meet Prime Minister Gordon Brown you could tell he was uncomfortable, as he stood outside No. 10 Downing Street with the Prime Minister to pose for photographers. But apparently their meeting went off rather well as Mr. Brown went out of his way to avoid raising awkward issues, choosing instead to tell the King what he wanted to hear: the importance of Saudi Arabia’s role in pushing forward the stalled Palestinian peace process. He urged the King to play a “leadership” role at the proposed U.S.-sponsored Palestinian peace conference in Annapolis, Maryland. The King listened with interest but left him guessing about his government’s intentions. Riyadh is reluctant to attend the conference, insisting that for it to succeed Israel must first take concrete confidence-building measures including the release of Palestinian prisoners and an end to further construction of Jewish settlements on Palestinian territory.

Coming back to the visit, both sides need to reflect how they came so close to wrecking it. After all, Saudi Arabia is the most lucrative market for British arms and “civilian” exports in West Asia. Last year alone, it bought £4.5 billion ($9 billion) worth of goods and services, and London can hardly afford to displease the King. Saudis, on the other hand, see in Britain a friendly arms supplier who would go to any length to please its client and protect its interests, as we saw when former Prime Minister Tony Blair personally intervened to call off a corruption investigation into a BAE–Saudi deal after protests from Riyadh.

So, how did the royal visit go so horribly wrong?

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