Washington will prop up the House of Saud - for now
Saudi Arabia has descended into a cauldron of hatreds and divisions
Mai Yamani Saturday June 5, 2004
The Guardian
Long before the latest violence erupted, Saudi Arabia's immaculately suited spokesmen were out on the stump, telling anyone who would listen that the situation in the country was completely under control. They're now doing it again - only this time nobody believes them.
All the signs suggest that in the face of mounting violence and international pressure, the House of Saud has sunk into terminal denial and paralysis. Convinced that their enemies are all around them, they are nevertheless unable to locate them. Even when gunmen are totally surrounded in a building, three of them succeed in escaping. Last year the aged King Fahd threatened militants with his "iron fist", but they have gone on killing regardless. While the princes have insisted reforms are in progress, they continue to fling reformists themselves into jail - and intimidate others into keeping quiet. The government maintains its oil installations are completely safe from attack - and yet high-level oil analysts insist the Saudi security forces which guard them are infiltrated by extremists.
Such contradictions suggest that very little is currently under control in the Saudi kingdom.
While expatriates consider whether to depart en masse, reports from the Gulf say that staff members of one of the more entrepreneurial princes have asked officials in Dubai to find them living space. They might well be re-locating in the near future.
But it would be wrong to predict any immediate collapse of the state. Despite a marked cooling in relations, Saudi Arabia remains the key ally of the US in the region. With continuing violence in Iraq, Washington's priority is to prevent Saudi Arabia descending into similar anarchy, even if it means propping up a regime it no longer likes or trusts. American demands for reform have quietened in the past few months, which may explain their muted response to the clampdown on Saudi liberals last March.
While oil prices remain exceptionally high and with a US presidential election in November, Saudi Arabia is the pump that cannot be allowed to run dry. Predictably, the kingdom is determined to remind the Bush administration of its central role in the world economy and politics, aware that if peace breaks out in neighbouring Iraq, it will lose some important leverage.
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