Demystifying Saudi Arabia
I had a three and a half hour long dinner with a Saudi notable in Jeddah the week before last. I asked him whether the liberalization I felt I was witnessing in various academic, NGO, and government arenas in Riyadh was a function of the King Abdullah's own unique vision for the country or whether the King, or the "Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques" as he is formally referred to, was triangulating between the contending forces of conservatives and progressives in his country, with the trend moving in the progressive direction.
My host said that it was a bit of both -- and more. He said, one needs to listen to the King's own words, to hear him in Arabic and to answer the question not through the filter of handlers and public relations personnel but to the off the cuff remarks the King often made but which Westerners rarely if ever listened to. But my host didn't answer my question about the King's relationship to liberalization.
By numerous accounts, the King is a very blunt person.
I didn't meet him during my recent trip, but I met several people who regularly interacted with the King and then talked with an individual who had some insights into the King's off the cuff remark-making. While I don't yet have a good roster of these statements my Jeddah dinner host recommended I investigate, I have come by a few lines from King Abdullah now and have the sense that he is consciously unleashing some liberalization forces in Saudi Arabia that will be practically impossible for his successors to bottle up.
My dinner companion replied that many Americans and Europeans looked for quick answers in Saudi Arabia. He felt they invested little time, according to him, and looked for validation of cliches and stereotypes rather than sorting out the currents and counter-currents of a complex, evolving society.
I agreed that I would not report on the broad substance of our dinner and would not divulge my host's identity -- and in return, I was treated to a very thorough and deep discussion about what was happening inside Saudi Arabia.
Thus, I'm not going to offer a quick snapshot of my experiences and thinking about my Saudi trip. Instead, I'm going to blog a series of observations and am going to try to avoid being captured either by the anti-Saudi human rights crowd or those who want to turn a blind eye to problems inside Saudi Arabia.
As someone primarily focused on the deteriorating state of America's national security portfolio and position and the consequences of that on our allies, like Saudi Arabia, I don't tend to elevate the internal arrangements inside other countries as the principal lens through which I judge the strength, intentions, and direction of another state. But at the same time, I want to have some understanding of the nuts and bolts of Saudi society -- and why it has the internal organization it does.
My colleague and friend, Nicholas Schmidle, has recently tried to provide some quick trip snapshot essays for Slate -- and with all due respect to Schmidle who writes richly in his travelogue, I found my own reactions to Saudi trends to be quite different.
In order to ward off accusations that observers have somehow seen only what Saudi handlers wanted them to see, some writers check off the stereotypes about the morals police, mistreatment of women, the harsher edge of sharia law, and the like. I feel that Nick Schmidle engages in some of this and feels the need to quickly tell "novelty stories" rather than provide a broader survey. Schmidle is my colleague -- and writing the snapshot piece he did is something he is celebrated for doing in this country, but I think it under reports the deeper trends and realities in Saudi Arabia today.
As I begin this set of comments and observations, I also want to be clear that I don't purport to be an expert on Saudi Arabia.
My bias that I bring to this topic is that I believe that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is a vital ally of the United States in the Middle East -- and that the U.S. as a whole has poorly served that relationship and alliance.
Some of our own policies -- particularly the extra-legal handling of combat detainees in Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, and Bagram -- have been factors in radicalizing some Saudi youth -- but what is far more negatively consequential has been the border harassment at airports of Saudi students and academics who wanted to train and learn inside the U.S. I'll write more on both the visa and airport entry horror stories later -- but my fundamental point is that Saudi Arabia is a key player in the Middle East, in Israel/Palestine issues, in oil and energy politics, in Iraq, in managing Iran, and in the entire Muslim world.
I feel that we have allowed this vital relationship to be under served by elites on both sides who felt that they didn't need to care about broad public awareness of the importance of that relationship on both sides -- and by writing in the US about the Saudi system that reflected a high-handed moralism on the part of the author that emphasized some of the most significant divergences between American and Saudi societies over some of the points of convergence and common interest.
I have never been on a country trip in which the experiences I had ran at such odds with general preconceived notions I held of the place I was visiting. But more on that later.
-- Steve Clemons
Wow, way to dismiss the "anti-Saudi human rights crowd," so that you can get onto your thesis about how terribly the U.S. has treated the Saudi dictators who you call our allies.
I'm really tired of Saudi exceptionalism.
April 21, 2008 3:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
The Saudi's have found interesting ways of showing that they are a vital ally to the US, and the cost in American lives, be they our troops in Iraq or those who perished in New York, is way above that caused by the US's friendship with any other nation. Aside from those fifteen Saudi nationals who hijacked those airplanes and have made life a living hell for all foreigners traveling to the US, there are quite a few other Saudi's who seem to have a fascinating notion of what it means to befriend the USA.
http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/2007/09/us-saudis-still.html
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2006-12-08-saudis-sunnis_x.htm
Perhaps, Mr Clemons would have found less dangerous friends on the other shore of the Persian Gulf, in spite of all the negative press Iran constantly receives, especially in blame for the terrorism the Saudis have overwhelmingly sponsored.
April 21, 2008 3:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Saudis", not "Saudi's"
Apologies for the apostrophe abuse.
April 21, 2008 4:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
Steve Clemons writes:
Hmm, just His Majesty's "off the cuff remarks"? What about his facial expressions? Or the occasional public coughs and sneezes? Does anyone study those? And what's the significance of the different shades of white in the traditional garb His Majesty the King wears in public?
I'm not even talking about the regularity, color and consistency of His Majesty's feces. All these could have a crucial impact on our strategic relationship with one of the world's few remaining absolute monarchies, whose glacial crawl forward into the 19th century is such a remarkable sign of liberalism.
Heck, 25 years from now, when the Saudi oil reserves run out, we may marvel at the astonishing progress in Saudi women's rights, when the King generously grants them the right to wear multi-colored burqas.
Hmm, that's a host with guaranteed anonymity... So, do you think he was afraid, didn't trust you, or did he deem your question too damn stoopid to respond to, but was too gracious a host to tell it to your face?
Bottom line: sorry for the ribbing, but there is really nothing to demystify. A similar "analysis", and I use the term guardedly, if applied to almost any other U.S. ally, would be inconceivable and subject to wide-ranging ridicule.
So, why should we hold the Saudis to a different standard? Oh yeah, they have the Two Mosques! How could I forget? Plus, every U.S. politician - regardless of party - is on their payroll.
The truth is that strategic alliances between the U.S. and countries controlled by absolute despots - monarchs or not, never really worked out well for us. (Tactical alliances are a different ball game.) Let's not repeat past mistakes with the Saudis, especially since they will never broker peace in the Middle East, nor will they ever stand up to the Iranians - certainly not on their own (despite some US$ 100 billion they've spent on military gear.)
April 21, 2008 8:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
When it comes to Saudi Arabia the only question is how many divisions does it take to grab and hold the Ghawar oil field.
April 21, 2008 9:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
While Saudi Arabia has the potential to be such a key player in the Middle East, the kingdom hasn't even come close to exhibiting the leadership that would actualize such potential. For example, Abdullah's peace initiative would have been something to hang his hat on, if only it were not so backloaded. It does little good to dangle before the Israelis the promise of normal relastions with Arab League member nations without substantive assistance to build up the Palestinian civil infrastructure required for two states to coexist beside each other. Meanwhile, Saudi funding has traditionally moved toward the most prohibitive militant factions opposing centralized Palestinian civil authority. Meanwhile, the Israeli electorate is offered no incentive to choose a leadership confident enough to take the most effective risks toward a conclusive peace agreement. Incentives, such as minimal diplomatic exchange between Arab League member nations (besides the three already sharing treaties with Israel) and a formal lifting of the Arab League's comprehensive (economic, political, cultural) boycott of Israel, would be of minimal risk to Saudi Arabia and Arab League member nations, and could be easily reversed in the event of unsatisfactory Israeli reciprocation. The unwillingness to take even such minimal risk hardly qualifies as the leadership implied by the characterization of "key player."
April 22, 2008 9:17 AM | Reply | Permalink
1) Saudi 'youth' have been radicalized easily since the take over of the Mosque in Mecca in '79. Don't blame the U.S. for the Saudi's own problem.
2) If the Saudi students and intellectuals don't want to be hassled at the airports, I suggest that they start with an open and frank discussion of their own countrymen's role in 9/11. The Saudis are more in denial than the Japanese about their role in WWII. This cannot stand if the country wants to more forward.
3) Where are the Saudis with support for the current government in Iraq? Nowhwere, because they are Shia. Where's the aid, the reconstruction dollars, the investment? The only thing they seem to be sending to Iraq are suicide bombers.
The Saudis deserve everything they have done to themselves, and the country is sure to be consumed in flames. It will suck for the world economy, but I won't shed any tears.
April 22, 2008 11:35 AM | Reply | Permalink