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An interesting contribution to a topic much discussed on this list
recently.
Ed
Ed Weick
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The Saudi Arabia dilemma
;)
George Bush Sr. fears a Saudi
collapse in another war with Iraq. George Jr. doesn't and will go to war, says
security analyst EDWARD LUTTWAK
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By EDWARD
LUTTWAK |
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Friday, August 30, 2002 – Print Edition, Page A13, Globe and Mail
The current sharp quarrel between the
two George Bushes over the wisdom of attacking Saddam Hussein is much more
than just a disagreement over policy for the Middle East. It reflects
radically divergent conceptions of strategy and energy economics. There is
even a basic difference in cultural values -- most unusual between father
and son. What complicates matters is that the subject of the debate is
Iraq, but the disagreement is really about Saudi Arabia.
The elder Mr. Bush, his former national security adviser Brent
Scowcroft, former secretary of state James Baker, and others like them,
not only consider the Saudi ruling
family one of the most important allies of the United States, but actually
have a Saudi-centred
view of the Middle East. Therefore they vehemently oppose a war to remove
Saddam Hussein because their sources, chiefly Prince Bandar bin Sultan,
long-time Saudi ambassador
to Washington, tell them that the de facto ruler, Crown Prince Abdullah,
and other prudent members of the family are terrified of the Arab and
Muslim reaction if bombs start falling on Baghdad.
The Saudis have a point. Having indoctrinated their population in the
strictest variety of Islamic fundamentalism that prohibits any form of
amity with Christians or Jews (pagans must convert or die), they are of
course bitterly criticized for relying on the protection of the
"Christian" United States, which supports Israel, a.k.a the Jews, and
which just recently defeated the impeccably fundamentalist Taliban of
Afghanistan.
Saddam Hussein was never religious and certainly is no fundamentalist,
but in recent years he has stressed his Islamic identity more and more --
his speeches are now filled with invocations to Allah and quotes from the
Koran. If the United States now attacks him -- almost certainly with the
help of non-Arab Kurdish and Turkmen militias -- both Arab and Muslim fury
will be aroused against the Americans, and therefore the
American-protected Saudi family.
Of course, the foreign minister and other top princes keep saying that
Saudi
Arabia will not allow its territory
and bases to be used for any American war against Mr. Hussein, but U.S.
forces and logistical support remain in Saudi bases,
there is no move to remove them, and it is just not credible that they
would remain passive amidst the exigencies of war.
There is worse. Any U.S. war against Saddam Hussein would be fought
under the banner of democracy. Both U.S. officials and Iraqi exile leaders
have already declared that their aim is to replace Mr. Hussein's
dictatorship with a democratic and federal parliamentary republic. That
frightens the Saudis, who operate a family dictatorship without even the
façade of a popular assembly, and makes the elder Mr. Bush and his men
very uncomfortable. As Americans, they cannot speak out against democracy,
but in the 1991 war in the Persian Gulf, at Saudi insistence,
they refused to allow any mention of it in the propaganda beamed to Iraq,
and are still convinced that democracy is a threat and not a promise in
the Middle East because it would allow fundamentalists to come to power.
"Better the princes we know," is their slogan.
Why is Saudi
Arabia so valuable an ally in the
eyes of the elder Mr. Bush and his men? For them, the answer is too
obvious to be worth discussing: oil. More precisely, the unique ability of
Saudi
Arabia with its huge capacity to pump
extra oil when the price rises too much, thus safeguarding the world
economy from another round of inflation, and to cut back production to
drive up prices when they fall too much and endanger the economic
stability of all countries that rely primarily on oil exports, including
Russia.
The younger Mr. Bush and his closest advisers, notably Vice-President
Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, the Secretary of Defence, disagree on
every point, even including energy of late. As they see it, the cheap oil
of Arabia is the
greatest disincentive to the development of alternative sources of energy,
including new oil outside the Middle East, in Alaska for example. Instead
of attaching great value to the Saudi policy of
keeping oil below $30 per barrel, they see it as a frustrating obstacle to
any rational energy policy -- and of course it reduces the earnings of
Texan and other domestic oil producers.
Moreover, since Sept. 11, the younger Mr. Bush and his camp have
received an entire education in how Saudi oil
revenues are spent: in part for the profligate luxuries of more than 5,000
princes with their large families, and in part to operate Islamic centres
and madrasah schools all over the world, which propagate the most
extreme Salafist (Wahabi) fundamentalism -- the creed of Osama bin
Laden.
The elder Mr. Bush, Mr. Scowcroft and their like are not much concerned
with religion, and still think it perfectly natural for the Saudis to
promote their creed, whatever it is. The younger Mr. Bush is a devoted
Christian by all accounts, does pay attention to religious matters, and is
therefore very conscious of the wide gap between the fanatical,
hate-filled Salafism that the Saudis have been exporting, and the milder
doctrines of traditional Islam that it is displacing with disastrous
results.
Even the princely luxuries are far from harmless. While the invalid
King Fahd flies around with more than 300 servants, his own cars, food and
water, many lesser princes have immense villas with solid-gold doorknobs
and such (one has his own fire brigade), and thousands enjoy high incomes
without working. Saudi
Arabia is becoming an increasingly
poor country, with unemployment at over 20 per cent, and a growing problem
of outright deprivation, even hunger. That is the greatest threat to the
political equilibrium of the country, and of Arabia as a
whole.
The camp of the elder Mr. Bush views the Saudi ruling
family as the key to stability, but his son's followers increasingly
disagree. They are not at all eager to see the Saudis overthrown, but now
believe that their blind greed and overt profligacy is undermining their
rule in any case, so U.S. policies should not be inhibited by
Saudi needs.
Above all, there is a difference in strategic conceptions. The elder
Mr. Bush and his followers compare the certain costs, high risks and
uncertain benefits of a war against Saddam Hussein to conclude that it
should not be fought, especially because one of the risks is a
Saudi collapse.
By contrast, the younger Mr. Bush, Mr. Cheney and Mr. Rumsfeld are not
planning a war against Saddam Hussein in the hope of achieving any
positive gains, but rather to avoid the catastrophic losses of another
Sept. 11. They are convinced that Saddam Hussein has refused to permit UN
inspections, and paid the huge price of years of UN sanctions to
accumulate biological, chemical and radiological weapons, because he
actually wants to use them. Intelligence profiles show that Saddam
Hussein's driving motivation is revenge, and while he has a long list of
other enemies he would like to obliterate, the Americans must be at the
top of that list -- on which, by the way, the Kuwaitis and Saudis easily
outrank the Israelis.
Because the younger Mr. Bush is now persuaded that Mr. Hussein will
attack one day unless he is attacked first, he sees only danger and no
compelling advantage in waiting. Having presided impotently over the Sept.
11 catastrophe, he is determined to avoid a repetition -- at all
costs.
Finally, there is the cultural factor. By all appearances, the elder
Mr. Bush positively enjoys spending time with the graciously hospitable,
if not too bright, Prince Bandar, as with other Saudi princes. Mr. Scowcroft is a devotee of high-altitude
hiking in the costly elegance of Aspen, where Prince Bandar owns an
immense parody of a Swiss chalet.
The younger Mr. Bush by contrast does not go to Aspen. He seems immune
to its stylish attractions, preferring the plain comforts of his far from
luxurious Crawford, Tex., ranch. To be sure, Prince Bandar has been there
-- he was just there this week, but not as often as Israeli visitors.
In any case, as far as President Bush is concerned the debate is over.
He has heard out his father and knows the views of his father's former
officials. He has made his decision: Saddam Hussein must go -- even if the
Saudis go down with him.
Edward Luttwak is a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic
and International Studies in Washington.
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