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Desert Chill The US–Saudi marriage of convenience probably won’t end in divorce, but there is plenty of tension in the house. Desert Chill By Peter Grier AST August, Prince Bandar bin be held at all underscores the ten- Sultan—fighter pilot, Johns sions that have arisen lately in one of Hopkins University gradu- the most important of America’s for- Late, and longtime Saudi en- eign relationships. The aggravating voy in Washington—paid a personal factors range from the personal— call on George W. Bush at the Presi- disputes over international child cus- dent’s Crawford, Tex., ranch. The tody—to the global—how to live with American leader escorted Bandar and Israel and what to do about Iraq’s his wife around the 1,600-acre spread. Saddam Hussein. Later, Bush hosted the couple and Bush Administration officials, for six of their eight children at a lunch- their part, have been frustrated at time barbecue. what they view as a reluctance by It was a gesture of friendship of- Saudi Arabia’s aging leadership to fered to few heads of state, let alone recognize the degree to which its diplomats. And it had a purpose. The kingdom has become a breeding President’s hospitality was meant to ground for terrorism and intoler- signal his desire to remain on good ance. Fifteen of the 19 hijackers of terms with the Kingdom of Saudi Sept. 11 were Saudi citizens. Saudi Arabia, a key supplier of the West’s clerics remain the source of some of crude oil and a highly influential the most virulent anti–Semitic and player in Gulf and Arab politics. anti–American rhetoric in the Arab Publicly, at least, the effort was a world. rousing success. “We don’t agree necessarily on A Bad Neighborhood every issue,” State Department spokes- In reply, Saudi officials retort man Richard A. Boucher said at the that the US has little understand- time. “There are points that we pur- ing of the political and demographic sue with them and they pursue with pressures they are under. It shares us, but overall, the US–Saudi rela- a border with Iraq to the northeast tionship is solid.” and faces Syria to the northwest That is probably true. However, and Iran across the Gulf, a combi- the mere fact that the meeting had to nation that makes its neighborhood 42 AIR FORCE Magazine / January 2003 the most volatile in the world. Its population is exploding, while its oil revenue is dropping. The House of Saud, the monarchical family that has dominated the nation’s life since the early 20th century, is en- tering a period of generational tran- sition. Meanwhile, fiery leaders of the Wahhabi strain of Islam preach USAF photo by SSgt. Timothy Cook violence and resist social and po- litical modernization. The bottom line: Saudi Arabia, as a nation, is facing years of difficult fundamental change. “The challenges the kingdom faces are more serious than any it has faced since the days of Nasser [Egyptian leader Gamal Abdel Nasser, who ruled Cairo in the period 1952–70] and the period before it acquired real oil wealth,” said Anthony H. Cor- Gen. Hal Hornburg, commander of Air Combat Command, meets with Saudi Maj. desman of the Center for Strategic Gen. Saeed Al-Haznawi, commander of Prince Sultan Air Base. Longtime allies, and International Studies, in a lengthy the Saudis allowed the US to build an air base in their country in World War II. study of Saudi Arabia’s future. Saudi Arabia today is a nation control over most of the Arabian pany struck a deal with the neigh- defined by two roles that are very peninsula. By 1932, he had become boring kingdom of Saudi Arabia; different and sometimes in conflict. the recognized leader of a sprawling SOCAL was permitted to explore To the developed world, Saudi territory that included the Hejaz, the the Eastern Province, which turned Arabia means oil, and lots of it. The Nejd, the Eastern Province of the out to be a world-class petroleum kingdom possesses an estimated 27 Gulf, and the Empty Quarter, the mother lode. percent of the world’s proven petro- largest contiguous body of sand in Eventually SOCAL joined with leum reserves, far more than any the world, populated mainly by no- other US firms in a unique partner- other country. Saudi wells can pro- madic tribesmen. ship called the Arabian American duce, every day, upward of 10 mil- Oil Co. Aramco erected a small cor- lion barrels of crude, if need be. This The Mark of Wahhab ner of America at its facilities near vast production capability allows For a long time, the House of Dhahran in the Eastern Province, and Saudi leaders to quickly step in and Saud has been associated with the US oil experts ran the nation’s pe- stabilize world petroleum markets rigorously fundamental Wahhabi troleum facilities for decades. The whenever supply falls in any other branch of Islam. In the 18th cen- Saudi government assumed full own- part of the world. tury, the ancestors of King Abdel ership of Aramco in 1980, renaming As a result, Riyadh can always Aziz had given shelter to the sect’s it Saudi Aramco. A native-born presi- prevent any use of “the oil weapon” founder, Muhammad Ibn Ab al- dent was appointed in 1984. merely by stepping up its own pro- Wahhab, and from that time onward From the kingdom’s earliest days, duction. the fortunes of the two groups were its leaders saw the United States as a To the Muslim world, Saudi Arabia intermixed. useful friend and ally. Like the Brit- isn’t oil at all but a religious heart- It was the life’s mission of Muham- ish, colonial rulers of the region, the land. The Hejaz region on the west- mad to return his people to the “true” US could offer modern technology, ern flank of the Arabian peninsula is principles of Islam. A native of arms, and aid. Unlike the British, the the birthplace of Islam, and the Saudi Medina, he wrote the Kitab at-Tawhid US appeared to have no imperial cities of Mecca and Medina are con- (“Book of Unity”), which is the main impulse. sidered its holiest sites. In fact, the text for Wahhabi doctrines. His views The security relationship between fees paid by religious pilgrims trav- were puritanical, and he took a strong the two nations began in earnest when eling to Mecca were for decades (until stand against all innovations—he the Saudis granted the US permis- the discovery of oil) the prime source viewed them as blasphemous—in sion to build an air base at Dhahran of Saudi government revenue. Islamic faith. Wahhabism has been in early 1943, a time when the out- As a nation, the current kingdom the dominant religious force in Arabia come of World War II was still in is relatively young. In 1902, Abdel since around 1800, and the Saudi doubt. Subsequently, President Frank- Aziz ibn Saud, a warrior–prince of royal family has accommodated its lin D. Roosevelt held a meeting with the prominent al Saud family, stormed practitioners in ways large and small. King Abdel Aziz on a warship at sea. out of the desert and captured Riyadh The modern petroleum industry FDR convinced the Saudi leader to in a daring military campaign. came to the region in 1932, when a enter the war on the side of the al- Over the next 30 years, the man subsidiary of Standard Oil of Cali- lies, and at war’s end, Saudi Arabia who would become King Abdel Aziz fornia discovered oil in Bahrain. In ibn Saud gradually consolidated his the next year, the American com- Continued on p. 46 AIR FORCE Magazine / January 2003 43 Continued from p. 43 US officials often describe ties with with Israel, form an axis of terrorism began to modernize its armed forces Saudi Arabia as an arranged mar- and evil in the world.” with US aid and weapons. riage, not a romantic one. Today the US–Saudi relationship By the mid–1950s, President Dwight The two cultures are as different may not be heading for a divorce, D. Eisenhower had determined that as any on Earth. Within Saudi Arabia, but since the Sept. 11 attacks, it has Washington should try to firmly link polygamy is legal, governance is come under more strain than at any Saudi Arabia to the West and pro- based on sharia, or Islamic law, and time since 1973. mote the prospects of King Saud, the ruling elite is composed of Abdel The major reason: Iraq. Follow- who had assumed the throne in 1953 Aziz’s many sons and grandsons. ing the terrorist attacks in the US, upon the death of his father, Abdel US support for Israel has been a the Saudis supported US military Aziz. Eisenhower even invited King consistent source of tension in the action in Afghanistan, if quietly. Saud to the White House in January relationship. For many years, US Since then, however, Saudi leaders 1957, as part of an effort to convince presidents promised that no Jew have continually questioned whether key Third World leaders to resist would serve at the US air base at a broad war on terror needs to in- communism. Dhahran. Aramco made the same clude Saddam Hussein as a target. In following decades, the king- promise. It is not that the Saudis are fond of dom became more and more depen- US resupply of Israel during the the Iraqi dictator; they are not. They dent on its US friend for arms and October 1973 Arab–Israeli War remember those tense days in Au- military expertise.
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