The Future of U.S.-Saudi Relations

F. Gregory Gause, III

University of Vermont

Testimony before Subcommittee on Middle East and South Asia

House Committee on International Relations

May 22, 2002

Mr. Chairman, Members of the Subcommittee:

I am honored to have this opportunity to present my thoughts on the future of the U.S.-Saudi relationship.

September 11 has focused all of our attentions on Saudi Arabia in a way that is unparalleled in the history of the U.S.-Saudi relationship, even during the days of the Saudi oil embargo of 1973-74.  The negative feelings among Americans toward the Saudis are certainly understandable, particularly given the originally equivocating response of many Saudi officials to the event, and to American requests for Saudi assistance in our war against the Taliban and al-Qa’ida.

The intensity of those negative feelings toward Saudi Arabia , however, is at least somewhat based on a false premise:  that Saudi Arabia is our friend, in the way that Great Britain or Canada is a friend of the United States , sharing our cultural values, our system of government and our general view of the world.  This belief stemmed in large part from our cooperation with Saudi Arabia in the Gulf War, and the very close military and political relations we have had with Riyadh since 1990.  Thus, in the minds of many, if September 11 and its aftermath have proved that Saudi Arabia is not a friend, then it must be something of an enemy.  I think that conclusion is equally false.

We should think of Saudi Arabia not as a friend, or as an enemy, but as a strategic partner on a number of very important issues for our interests:  most importantly, on oil issues and the stability of the Persian/Arabian Gulf area.  The Gulf War exemplifies this strategic partnership.  We did not fight the Gulf War because we liked the Saudis, or to do them a favor.  We fought that war because we have a national interest, recognized since World War II and codified in the Carter Doctrine of 1980, in preventing any hostile power from dominating a region that contains 2/3’s of the world’s known reserves of oil.  The Saudis share this interest with us, and thus we can work together on this centrally important issue.

The fact that 15 of the 19 terrorists who perpetrated the attacks on our fellow citizens and our country on September 11 were from Saudi Arabia has raised important questions about the Saudi domestic political system in the minds of Americans.  It is undoubtedly true that the official interpretation of Islam in Saudi Arabia , what is referred to in the West as “Wahhabism,” is doctrinally rigid, limited and extremely conservative in dealing with modern intellectual innovations.  However, this has been true since the founding of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia , and throughout the more than 50 years of the U.S.-Saudi relationship.  Usama bin Ladin and those 15 Saudis were animated not by the official Islam preached in Saudi Arabia today, but by a transnational Islamist movement – based on an extreme interpretation of Muslim history and philosophy – that unfortunately has attracted adherents, in small but significant numbers, from across the Arab world and the Muslim world in the past decades.  There are certainly many Saudis who have been caught up in this movement, even some within the official religious hierarchy in Saudi Arabia , but also many Pakistanis, Egyptians, Jordanians, Algerians and others.  This dangerous trend is not Saudi or “Wahhabi” in any exclusive sense.  It is part of the zeitgeist of the whole Muslim world right now.

The Saudi government has for over a decade recognized the threat that this extremist Islamist current poses for its own stability and survival, more so since September 11.  We can and should push them to police this current more vigorously.  If we have evidence that senior members of Saudi society, including of the ruling family, are directly supporting al-Qa’ida and similar groups that are planning attacks on America , I do not think that you need some academic from the hinterlands to tell our government what to do.  We can and should have forceful and productive discussions with the Saudi government about the monies, both official and private, that go from Saudi Arabia to Muslim charities and organizations abroad.  The Saudi government has already, since 9-11, taken steps to exercise greater control over how Saudi charitable contributions are used abroad.

However, we should be very circumspect about making domestic reform a major issue on the U.S.-Saudi agenda.  Pushing for greater openness in the political system – like elections – right now will only give forces in society that are more sympathetic to extremist Islamist positions a greater role in Saudi society, and will undercut those in both the ruling family and the larger society – small in number but in influential positions – who see the need for changes.  Saudi Arabia needs educational reform, to produce graduates able to get jobs in the modern economy.  This has been a matter of profound debate among Saudis, long before September 11.  But any educational reform that seems to be coming from American pressure will face many more obstacles to acceptance than plans generated from within Saudi Arabia itself.  We need to avoid the hubris of thinking that we know how to govern Saudi Arabian society better than the Al Saud do, and to remember that any realistic alternative to Al Saud rule in Arabia right now would be much less amenable to American interests, and American values, than the current regime.

Strategic partnership does not mean agreement on all issues, as the history of U.S.-Saudi relations demonstrates.  For over 50 years we have disagreed with the Saudis on Arab-Israeli questions.  Only once in that history, however, have Arab-Israeli issues led to a breach in our relations with Riyadh that profoundly harmed our interests – the 1973-74 oil embargo.  Riyadh has managed to deal with its differences with us on Arab-Israeli issues since then in ways that have not directly harmed our interests, and have allowed them to manage the real and important public opinion sentiments in Saudi Arabia on the Palestinian issue.  Crown Prince Abdallah’s recent initiative, while hardly a panacea for Arab-Israeli problems, is at least a step in the right direction, from the American point of view.  But for us to try to force the Saudis to get too far ahead of their population on the Arab-Israeli issue will not only not work, it will make obtaining Saudi cooperation on other issues of importance – oil, Gulf stability – more difficult. 

The closeness of the last 11 years in the U.S.-Saudi relationship has been unusual.  The Saudis have always preferred to keep their American connection, particularly in its military form, “over the horizon.”  That bit of distance was seen as useful for them both in terms of regional politics and in terms of dealing with their own people.  My sense is that the Saudi rulers would prefer returning to that kind of relationship – close, cooperative, not a divorce, but maybe not so close a marriage as they have had over the past decade.  We have very different societies, political systems, cultural values.  There is no strong constituency in our society that supports a close relationship with Saudi Arabia .  Likewise, there is no real popular base of support in Saudi Arabia for close relations with the United States .  This has always been a relationship built on mutual interests, not shared values; based on common understandings among elites, not general publics.  That is not a bad thing – those common interests are very important to us as a country.  But putting a bit of distance back into the relationship, particularly regarding the stationing of American troops in Saudi Arabia , on the model of the 1980’s, might not be a bad thing.

RESPONSE TO QUESTION POSED BY CONG. GILMAN AT THE CONCLUSION OF THE HEARING:

Determining the best thing that we can do in our relations with Saudi Arabia to prevent further terrorist attacks on the United States requires an understanding of the role that Saudi Arabia played in the lead-up to September 11.  It is a gross oversimplification to say that Saudi Arabia is, by itself, the source of Arab/Muslim terrorism against the United States .  Rather, the Saudi government, much like the United States government, played an unwitting role over decades in the development of al-Qa’ida and in providing it with a base from which to plan its activities.

The roots, both ideological and organizational, of al-Qa’ida stem from the two great successes of Saudi-American cooperation:  the Afghani jihad against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan in the 1980’s, and the Gulf War.  During the Afghan War the networks that came to form the basis of al-Qa’ida were formed and Usama bin Ladin’s leadership role established.  Perhaps most importantly, the Arab Islamist extremists who fought in that war came to believe that, since they had defeated and brought down one superpower through a combination of violence and faith in God, they could bring down another superpower.  During and after the Gulf War, bin Ladin and his circle came to believe that the United States had replaced the Soviet Union as the major threat to what they saw as the purity and independence of Muslim lands.

It is undoubtedly true that the al-Qa’ida network was able to recruit many Saudis.  But it would be a mistake to attribute this simply to some purported affinity between “Wahhabism” and al-Qa’ida’s message of jihad.  Some Saudi clerics and intellectuals have supported al-Qa’ida’s message, but the vast majority have condemned it.  Moreover, al-Qa’ida has been able to recruit both fighters and intellectual supporters from many countries – Egypt and Pakistan , to name but two – where “Wahhabism” is not a prominent intellectual current.  Unfortunately, the political and ideological factors that have attracted a small but significant number of Arabs and Muslims to join al-Qa’ida are not limited to Saudi Arabia . 

If one accepts the argument that there is nothing inherent in “Wahhabism” that attaches it to al-Qa’ida, then we should look not to domestic Saudi religious institutions for the solution to the terrorist threat to the United States, but rather to the networks of support that bolster al-Qa’ida and groups like it.  Here is where the U.S. government can work with the Saudi government to take effective actions – the best things we can do – to prevent future attacks:

1)    the Saudi government, for a number of historical reasons, supported the Taliban government of Afghanistan for some time.  (We are not completely innocent in this regard, though the United States did not extend the same type of support to the Taliban that Saudi Arabia did.)  The Saudis have learned a lesson here that we can reinforce:  supporting governments that harbor groups aimed at your own destruction and at attacking the United States will not buy you protection against negative consequences.

2)    private Saudi citizens and Saudi charitable organizations sent money to al-Qa’ida and to front organizations.  To some extent, these financial networks date back to the 1980’s, during the Afghani jihad against the Soviet Union, when such contributions not only were not directed against the United States, but were encouraged by the United States.  However, times and circumstances change, and the Saudi government did not take enough care to police these financial networks as al-Qa’ida developed its anti-American, and anti-Saudi, activities.  The United States can continue to work with, and when necessary pressure, the Saudi government to break up these financial networks.  We can continue to foster intelligence cooperation with Saudi Arabia to keep us better informed as to trends within Islamist extremist organizations.

3)    Saudi religious institutions, both domestically and internationally (like the Islamic Conference Organization and the World Muslim League), have condemned the attacks of September 11.  The prestige and financial power of these organizations give them considerable influence in the Muslim world as a whole, and that influence since September 11 has redounded to the benefit of the United States in the war on terrorism, even when those organizations take positions at variance with American policy on Arab-Israeli questions.  Unfortunately, these organizations were reactive to the events of September 11.  There was little discussion or condemnation of the “bin Ladin phenomenon” before the attacks.  The United States can urge the Saudis to use their influence, and their money, within both domestic and international Islamic organizations to take strong stands against terrorist actions and violently deviant interpretations of Islam regularly.

RESPONES TO WRITTEN QUESTIONS FROM REP. PITTS

1.     Will the panel please provide any details about the relationship between the Saudi government and the media in that country?  In the opinion of this panel, how should the Administration address this abhorrent criticism?

The Saudi print media is privately owned, though members of the ruling family have ownership stakes in some of the newspapers.  All Saudi newspapers are under the indirect control of the Ministry of Information, which has the power to censor them.  The more normal procedure is self-censorship by the editors themselves, as the limits of permissible publication have been very well known.

As of the last few years, there has been a steady, if still not enormous, widening of those limits.  There is greater latitude for discussion of Saudi domestic issues, and for criticism of government policy (though not of the system or the ruling family).  There is also greater latitude for critical discussion of foreign policy issues, and that has meant increased criticism of American policy.  The level of negative reporting and commentary on the U.S. military operations against the Taliban government in Afghanistan , for example, was very high.

The United States is caught on the horns of a dilemma in dealing with the Saudi media.  On the one hand, our general principles argue for freedom of the press and free discussion, even if that discussion includes brutal criticism of the U.S.   On the other hand, we would like friendly governments to prevent negative views of the U.S. from becoming common among their populations.  To the extent that we would like to see greater political freedoms in Saudi Arabia , we will have to be ready to bear more direct and intense criticism of our policies.

2.     How would you advise the Administration to confront the Saudis about this sort of [anti-Semitic] propaganda?

The best antidote to these pervasive anti-Jewish feelings in the Arab Middle East (they are certainly not limited to Saudi Arabia) is a forthright stand by those who know better – including both governments and civil societies in the Arab world – against them.  The role the United States can play is two-fold.  First, we can publicize these canards internationally, as is already being done, to “name and shame” those who perpetrate them.  It is interesting to note that the international focus on the Purim blood libel story published on March 10, 2002 in al-Riyadh led the editor of the paper to apologize for allowing it to be published.  Second, the U.S. government can urge friendly Arab governments like the Saudi government to publicly disown this kind of rhetoric and to provide an atmosphere in which private actors in their societies can condemn them.

3.     How seriously can one take the Saudi peace plan?  How would the panel suggest the Administration approach the Saudi plan? 

The content of the Saudi peace plan is not new.  What is new about it is the fact that Saudi diplomacy led the plan to be adopted unanimously by the Arab League.  This provides an important piece of diplomatic cover for individual Arab states and for the Palestinian Authority to renew negotiations with Israel toward a final status agreement.  The plan is no substitute for agreements between Israel and the Palestinians, or Israel and other Arab states.  Unfortunately, the facts on the ground now do not hold out much hope for progress toward such agreements.  The Administration can build on the Saudi plan by more actively engaging Saudi Arabia , Egypt and Jordan to provide backing to the Palestinian Authority for renewed negotiations with Israel toward a final status agreement.

4.     Is there any rational means of explaining the paradox of the Saudis’ rhetorical support for peace with Israel in the West while soliciting from their people very real support for terrorism?

This is not a paradox, because the Saudis are not soliciting support for terrorism from their people.  In the telethon mentioned in the question, money was being raised for Palestinians who had lost family and property during the recent Israeli incursions.  To my knowledge, there was absolutely no special treatment or funds for the families of suicide bombers.  Saudi charities have supported all Palestinian families who have lost members in the violence, including the families of suicide bombers.  To Saudis, this is a policy of support for the Palestinian people.  It is very deeply felt in public opinion. The Palestinian families who lose members through suicide bombings can be equally in need of charitable support as those who lose them through other acts of violence, and in the Saudi view cannot be held responsible for the actions of the family member who committed the terrorist act.  The argument that this charitable support encourages suicide bombing is a gross and insulting insinuation.  Palestinians value the lives of their children as much as any other people; they would not sacrifice them for a few thousand dollars.  Suicide bombings are abhorrent, but their roots are not in money.

There is no inconsistency between this policy and support for a peace settlement between Israel and the Palestinians. The United States wants peace between Israel and the Palestinians.  We give large amounts of military aid to Israel every year, and are supportive of Israeli use of that aid in attacks on Palestinians in response to terrorist bombings.  There is no inconsistency in supporting Israel militarily and wanting peace between Israel and the Palestinians.  Similarly, there is no inconsistency in Saudi policy on this point.

5.     Is anyone on the panel aware of the issue of Saudi funding for American educational institutions ever being raised with the Saudi government?  How would this panel recommend Congress act to respond to this type of ongoing activity?

I am not aware of this issue being part of the bilateral Saudi-American government dialogue.  I am not an expert on domestic educational issues, but I would assume that any educational institution in the United States , even private ones, are governed by regulations established by state and local educational authorities.  Those authorities can be encouraged to make sure that curricula used in any private school in any state conform with the regulations of that state.  We do not need to have a dialogue with the Saudi government on this.  We can do this ourselves, and should not ask anyone’s permission to do so.