CHAPTER 1

Blood, Oil and Cynicism

'British Aerospace Wins Huge Saudi Defence Contract'; 'King Fahd Forms Consultative Council but Retains Absolute Power'; 'Saudi Arabia Maintains Lower Oil Prices - Pressure Mounts on Other OPEC Members'; 'Saudi Arabia Appears Set to Replace Saddam'.

The above newspaper headlines concerning Saudi deeds and mis-deeds appeared during one month in 1992 and vividly demonstrate the extent of the economic and political powers wielded by that country. They also hint at attempts to respond to the winds of change. If we add two unreported events - 'Thousands Languish in Saudi Prisons' and 'King Fahd Marries - for the 100th Time' - then the picture of contemporary Saudi Arabia becomes clearer still.

What Saudi Arabia represents, and the disproportionate power it wields, cannot be considered acceptable in the modern world. Fortunately, I am not alone in viewing this situation with alarm, and whether or not Saudi Arabia should continue in its present form is an emerging question which the Saudi people and the international community cannot avoid answering for much longer. The perceived new world order and the dynamics of social change within the Middle East and Saudi Arabia itself have produced a clear response unencumbered by the historic separation of ideology from politics. No longer will people overlook the Saudi Government's backward ways because of its oil-based friendship with the West. The House of Saud's ability to maintain itself and wield regional and international power through the use of the 'oil weapon' remains strong, but most of the constraints which protected and absolved the world's most absolute feudal monarchy are no more.

Nonetheless, the conclusive answer suggested by these world-wide, regional and internal developments is not as clear-cut as it would appear. A realistic answer can only be provisional and has to take into consideration the circles of power within which Saudi Arabia operates. The country exercises power and influence inside permanent identifiable spheres, but the way they interact is constantly changing, and this has permitted the House of Saud to continue an elaborate and very successful balancing act aimed exclusively at perpetuating its rule. As the world's leading autocracy, the House of Saud runs the country as a family fiefdom, so that Saudi Arabia and the House of Saud are one and the same. For the purposes of this book, therefore, the terms are used interchangeably.

Broadly stated, Saudi Arabia's policies and internal politics have varying effects on its own people, the Arab world, the Muslim world and the world in general. The country's influence is based on two main factors: its position as the world's leading producer of oil and site of the largest oil reserves; and its important though exaggerated position as the home of Islam's holiest shrines. In the absence of a Soviet-based communist threat, Saudi Arabia's strategic position, formerly another source of power, has lost most of its importance.

The contradictions in the way Saudi Arabia skillfully nullifies the established policies of the countries with which it deals are best demonstrated through a simple example of how it uses the power oil gives it. The West is dependent on Saudi Arabia for oil at a low price, but the very same West, though it has shown a remarkable reluctance to talk about the issue, would like to see a more sensible internal and regional sharing of the oil wealth.

The House of Saud undermines the West's wish for a more equitable sharing of wealth by making it dependent on its ability to pump more oil than it needs, thereby keeping the price of oil low. This places the West in a position of dependence which varies with economic conditions. Afraid to upset this beneficial arrangement, the West forgoes its commitment to a more equitable distribution of the oil wealth. This both allows the House of Saud to continue to view the revenues from oil as a private family income and leads the West to ignore its moral commitment to the introduction of political reforms within the country.

There are even simpler examples. The Saudi money which goes to help the Arab and Muslim countries is given on the basis of a divide-and-rule policy. Saudi Arabia gives money to Syria to balance the growing power of Egypt - and vice versa - and this makes them compete, keeps them apart and renders them weaker. It supports Muslim fundamentalists in the occupied territories of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip in order to undermine the PLO's Yasser Arafat while opposing freely elected Muslim fundamentalist groups in Algeria for fear that a militant Muslim Algeria might challenge its Arab policies. The central purpose of all these policies is to promote regional discord and retard democratic progress in other countries of the Middle East. This situation serves to ensure the continuance of the House of Saud, since regional harmony could produce competitors and democratic progress in neighbouring countries might prove to be infectious.

For the first time, however, Saudi Arabia's self-perpetuating policies are now being challenged by international, regional and local developments which are converging and gaining momentum. Nothing that the rulers of the country are doing suggests that they are able or willing to undertake the steps necessary to evolve a new political approach which would help maintain their position and influence on world affairs on a more sensible basis. In fact, during the past five years the two governmental departments whose budgets have continued to increase are the royal household and the Ministry of Defence - the ruling family and its protectors.

In addition to the already mentioned diminution of the strategic importance of the country, there is an explicit desire by the advocates of the new world order to eliminate the sources of friction and future upheavals in the Middle East. For Saudi Arabia this would mean the introduction of measures to bring the abuse of internal and regional power to an end. Eliminating internal abuse goes beyond the House of Saud's sharing of the country's natural wealth with the average Saudi to protecting human rights and giving its citizens a voice in the affairs of their country.

The awareness that Saudi Arabia cannot continue to ignore the economic plight of its neighbours and survive unmolested means that future Saudi help to Arab countries must be directed at raising the standard of living of the people and not at the pockets of rulers who follow a regressive Saudi line. Surrounded as it is by poor neighbours, Saudi Arabia must deal with those who suffer this poverty, the people. (Saddam Hussein's justification for the invasion of Kuwait, buried as it is in the tide of rhetoric which followed it, called for the distribution of Kuwait's oil income among all Arabs.)

Regional developments have added to the pressures on the House of Saud to change its ways. Syria and Egypt have become outspoken in their demands for more help in return for affording the Saudis military assistance and protection. Their basic complaint resembles Saddam's: Saudi Arabia has too much and they have too little. Jordan has a functioning parliament and many of its members are critical of Saudi Arabia's wasteful policies. They, too, demand more help. The Yemen has decided that it finds the Saudi use of m6ney to reduce it to a tributary country objectionable and has challenged Saudi attempts to stop it from enacting populist measures aimed at democratizing its institutions and satisfying its people. Muslim Iran represents an even greater challenge because it espouses a militant Islam which frowns on the idea of monarchy and questions the Saudi way of expressing it. Saudi Arabia needs to develop policies to respond to these pressures.

In addition to worldwide and regional developments, the third source of pressure for change comes from within. The Saudi people are beginning to object openly to the monopoly of power exercised by the ever-increasing members (35~0 more males monthly) of the House of Saud. The number of educated people has risen dramatically beyond the country's ability to absorb them and this means that the House of Saud is no longer able to bribe all educated Saudis with good jobs. The tribal system, which constituted a questionable power base for the House of Saud, is disappearing, making way for the permanent settlement and growing sophistication of a previously scattered people incapable of joint action. The religious leaders, afraid that they might be pre-empted by a grassroots militant Islamic movement, are demanding changes aimed at reducing the power of the royal family before it is too late. Even the heavily financed and Western-equipped army is unreliable and a future coalition of these forces or parts of them seems inevitable.

The House of Saud's response to these pressures has been nothing more than the creation, after 30 years of waiting and dozens of false starts since it was first promised, of a consultative council to be appointed by King Fahd himself. It is safe to assume that the people appointed by the King will not act against his wishes and his family's interests, and Fahd has already undermined the council's future by making it clear that he is solidly opposed to the introduction of anything resembling a democratic system. The powers of the council will be limited to debating minor issues as directed by the King. In reality, the most important aspect of the consultative council may very well be its creation, underlining as it does the explicit acceptance by King Fahd of the need for change.

Apart from this highly publicized, though flawed step, the House of Saud shows no signs of understanding the world's and the Western powers' desire for it to change. It hides behind an untrue claim that Muslim countries are different and incapable of adopting democracy, and it sees all calls for a more equitable sharing of the wealth and the protection of human rights as nothing more than interference in its internal affairs. (People still disappear in the middle of the night and others are imprisoned for years without trial, not to speak of public floggings and executions.) The House of Saud refuses to accept that the disappearance of the Soviet threat has made it 'fair game' and that it is no longer immune to criticism and pressure. Unpopular as its oil policies are with its people and fellow OPEC members, the House of Saud continues to believe that providing the West with cheaper oil will protect it.

Regionally, the policies of the House of Saud are an extension of its internal attitude. Not only do its members ignore the explosive regional imbalance created by the difference of living standards between them and their neighbours but, more critically, they see money spent on programmes which raise the standard of living of the average Arab as nothing less than dangerous. To the House of Saud all this does is educate the beneficiaries into demanding more money and more rights. This is why it concentrates on supporting corrupt regimes whose leaders follow its example in stifling democracy and retarding progress. This superficial ability to control things gives it a feeling of safety which it covets above all else. And it is this same need to feel safe which makes it sponsor moves against budding parliamentarianism in Jordan, Bahrain, Kuwait and the Yemen. The House of Saud also opposes other progressive moves, including a free press, in neighbouring Arab countries. Years ago, this yearning for safety led it to try to assassinate the Arab world's leading advocate of change, the late President Nasser of Egypt.

However, it is within the kingdom itself that the problems of the House of Saud show most. The pace of social change, with all the destruction it can wreak, has a positive aspect to it. The Saudi people are not as docile as they used to be. The educated young, the merchant class, the religious leaders, the genuinely liberal and committed, the rare few who have an optimistic yen for political power, and even members of the armed forces, have become opposed to the dictatorial and profligate ways of the royal family. Locally produced audio cassettes and books carrying anti-House of Saud political messages (even the hitherto elusive number of the King's wives is now documented) have become bestsellers.

Religious leaders, including Sheikh Abdel Aziz bin Baz, the leading official imam of the country, have petitioned King Fahd, demanding a political system which would allow greater power-sharing.

The merchant class's complaints become louder with every passing month; they want a share in the governance of their country and object to the increasing numbers of the royal household who use their influence to monopolize trade and relegate others to a secondary position. Except with the royal family itself, its lackeys and a tiny group of believers in feudalism, the House of Saud has become very unpopular. Conservative estimates place the number of people arrested for 'political crimes' since the Gulf War at 8000, although most were released after a short stay in prison. The nature of the internal and regional pressures on Saudi Arabia, anchored as they are in the progress of the common Saudi and the average Arab, renders them irreversible. The gap between the demands of the advocates of change and the antiquated, insensitive ways of the House of Saud is widening. The latter appears to have made a decision that these forces matter considerably less than the influence of the oil-dependent countries, particularly the USA and Europe. Instead of mollifying the cries of discontent of its own people and fellow Arabs, it is making itself more dependent on Western support. This trend has extended to its open acceptance of Western military protection, not against a superpower threat, but against its own people and its unhappy neighbours. The simple matrix shown below, which compares the policies of the House of Saud with those of Saddam Hussein and Libya's Colonel Qaddafi, the two Arab leaders least accepted by Western governments, press and people, demonstrates this practical though morally questionable Saudi-Western relationship. King Fahd is not only the criminal equal of the Iraqi and Libyan leaders, but is much worse in important aspects of his personal conduct and in his support for despotic regimes.

The Saudi position is very clear: the only relevant area where King Fahd and the House of Saud come out ahead is their overall relationship with the West. Judged qualitatively, they murder and stifle political dissent the way the others do; they are guilty of nepotism and lechery; they support despotic regimes; they suppress their Shia minority as violently as Saddam suppresses the Kurds and his Shias; and they are infinitely more corrupt than the others. When we add the fact that the Saudi people would rather have higher oil prices and place their own welfare above that of the West - I have been told this by Saudi labourers, taxi drivers, teachers, businessmen and former Oil Minister Yamani, whose moderate oil-pricing policies made him the most unpopular man in his country - the picture is complete. The House of Saud is beholden to the West more than it is to its own people.

For its part, the West will have to try to salvage the deteriorating situation in Saudi Arabia through striking a better balance between deriving economic comfort from cheap oil and making a commitment to human rights and regional stability. So far the governments of the USA, the United Kingdom and France, and indeed their press and people, have sacrificed principle to expediency. They demonstrate no willingness to stop seeing the House of Saud as the cornerstone of their Middle East policies, but their short-sighted cynicism may come back to haunt them. After all, in a parallel situation, their inevitable inability to protect the Shah of Iran against the anger of his own people cost them a great deal.

Is it desirable for the House of Saud as we know it to continue? The simpler answer is no. The behaviour of members of the royal household and its more than 7000 members represents the lowest common denominator of twentieth-century life and Arab tradition. This book began as a documented plea against the House of Saud in the hope of convincing the press and the people of the West to mobilize their governments to take a stand against this ugly abuse of power. Somewhere along the way my attitude changed: now it is an appeal to the West to make plans to contain the damage which will follow the coming turmoil in Saudi Arabia or to pre-empt events by engineering a palace coup which would change the very nature of the rule of the House of Saud and reduce its kings to figureheads.