Candidates Ignore Possibly Problematic Saudi Ties

Saudi Arabia is a touchy subject for the presidential candidates. The United States' energy needs are largely dependent on Saudi oil, and they are one of the biggest U.S. allies in the Middle East. Yet, 15 of the 19 Sept. 11 hijackers were Saudi Arabian and it could be risky for any candidate to actively support the government of the state that produced these hijackers.

The 9/11 Commission investigated the Saudi monarchy’s responsibility for the Sept. 11 attacks, and while the Commission found no direct link, it referred to Saudi Arabia as a “problematic ally in combating Islamic extremism” and called upon the government to do more to fight Islamic terrorism.

Given the findings of the Commission, if a presidential candidate spoke favorably about the Saudi monarchy, he or she would be open to attacks for choosing the wrong allies in the war on terror.

However, the Bush administration has had a remarkably positive relationship with the Saudi monarchy. Prince Bandar, the Saudi Arabian ambassador to the United States, has been invited to the White House on numerous occasions, and often advises the president about his foreign policy in the Middle East. But George W. Bush is not the first president to garner a positive relationship with the Saudis. Dr. F. Gregory Gause, a professor of political science at the University of Vermont, points out that Presidents Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan were both friendly with the monarchy.

Yet despite the U.S. government’s storied relationship with the Saudis, and their connection to Sept. 11, the question of policy towards Saudi Arabia has largely not been addressed by the 2008 presidential candidates.

For some candidates, the lack of a coherent policy towards Saudi Arabia is problematic, and evidence of the uncertainty surrounding this controversial country. Prior to dropping out of the race, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani (R-N.Y.) had focused his entire campaign on fighting terrorism, yet did not address what his specific policy towards Saudi Arabia would be. This is a questionable omission, considering the nationality of the Sept. 11 hijackers.

Gause, who specializes in Saudi Arabia, says that the presidential candidates have not been tough on Saudi Arabia because “it wouldn’t play politically.”

In the 2004 presidential election, John Kerry developed an anti-Saudi Arabia position for a period of time, but the position did not garner significant public support.

In addition, Gause points out, Saudi Arabia is “the only big oil state [in the Middle East] that supports us,” and the next president will be forced to deal with the monarchy because of this. Therefore, the candidates might be hesitant to antagonize one of their key allies in the region.

Ironically, the only candidate who had spoken out about his position on Saudi Arabia is former Gov. Mike Huckabee (R-Ark.), who just dropped out of the race Tuesday night. While he was generally considered the candidate with the least foreign policy experience, Huckabee had developed a position against the Saudi monarchy, and had several statements regarding Saudi Arabia on his Web site.

When advocating for U.S. energy independence on Sept. 28, 2007, at the Center for Strategic & International Studies in Washington, D.C., Huckabee warned that keeping Saudi Arabia as a close ally could threaten national security.

“The Saudis want us to support extremist Sunni groups to counter growing Iranian power," he said. "The Saudis assure us that they can control these groups and keep them from turning against us. We saw how well that turned out with al-Qaida.”

Considering the fact that Islamic fundamentalism is rampant in Saudi Arabia, and jihadists pose a significant threat to stability in the region, it is remarkable that the Saudi monarchy has been able to rule effectively.

The Saudi monarchy openly embraces a strict interpretation of Islam and is seen as a defender of the Wahhabi faith. Wahhabism is an eighteenth-century reform movement of Sunni Islam, begun by Muhammed ibn Abd-al-Wahhab, and is the dominant faith in Saudi Arabia. A PBS Frontline special analysis calls Wahhabism a faith that insists on a “literal interpretation of the Koran.”

Elements of the Islamic movement provide a distorted version of Wahhabism. The most extreme form of the Islamic movement, the jihad movement, calls for the death of all non-Muslims. While the Wahhabi movement is seen as extreme and intolerant, supporters of the movement do not take their message quite that far.

Because of the distinctions between Wahhabism and the Islamic movement, the Saudi government has seen significant internal oppostion.

So how has one of the oldest monarchies in the Middle East been able to maintain its power?

The royal family, the House of Saud, has governed the Arabian Peninsula since 1932. Prior to the al-Saud family taking power, no leader was able to successfully unify the Peninsula.

Since then, almost all of the monarchies in the Middle East have fallen. Robert O. Freedman, a professor of political science at Johns Hopkins University, with extensive diplomatic experience in the Middle East, said that the Saudi monarchy is very powerful.

“It is one of the most successful monarchies," he said. "It has not been overthrown … and it has not suffered family ousters as some Gulf Sheikhdoms have.”

One explanation for the monarchy’s ability to hold power, argues Gause, is that the Saudi monarchy has an “ideological justification for their rule.” By using Islam to give them legitimacy, the monarchy has made religion “an effective political tool for their core constituencies.”

Although, while Islam brings the monarchy support from a large percentage of Saudi Arabia’s Sunni Muslim population, the religious justification has alienated Shiite Muslims living in the country. Religion is not just a tool for the monarchy, it is a threat to Shiites, who constitute roughly 8 percent of the population.

Then there are some who argue that without the military and economic support of the United States, the monarchy would not be able to defend itself against opposition forces. The Saudis receive an enormous amount of oil revenue from the U.S. and have used that money to build a strong patronage state. Gause said that the Saudi monarchy has also used the financial support from the U.S. to develop “effective indigenous security forces” to maintain control of their state.

And there are other reasons presidential candidates should be concerned with the U.S. relationship with Saudi Arabia. The German government alleges, and Gause confirmed, that Saudi Arabia has been working with Pakistan to develop a nuclear weapons program.

Since Benazir Bhutto’s assassination, the situation in Pakistan has entered the conscience of the presidential election. Every candidate has had to deal with the fact that the American public is becoming more aware of the instability in Pakistan, and the possibility that the instability could spill over into other Middle Eastern countries, including Saudi Arabia.

Also, prior to Sept. 11, the relationship between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia was typically strained by allegations of the monarchy condoning or committing human rights abuses, ranging from arbitrary detention to torture of detainees. Even in a post-Sept. 11 world though the United States has put very little pressure on the Saudi monarchy to institute reform in this area.

One presidential candidate, however, has addressed Saudi Arabia in this context: Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) has spoken up regarding the country’s human rights abuses. He wrote an open letter to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in November 2007, asking her to condemn the sentencing of a rape victim. Obama has followed tradition on other issues, however, by ignoring the fact that many new and enthusiastic members of al-Qaida and other jihad movements come from Saudi Arabia.

Ultimately, the issue comes down to one thing: oil. One-third of the U.S. oil resources come from Saudi Arabia, and any president would have to address the fear that the destabilization of the Saudi monarchy would jeopardize those resources. An overthrow of the monarchy could produce a Saudi government that would not allow the United States access to the country's oil.

Freedman argues that the only way any president could be tough on Saudi Arabia is if the United States were no longer dependent on Saudi oil.

“This would require a huge energy independence effort, and while the Democratic candidates are talking about such an effort, it will take a number of years,” he said.

The only thing that would cause the U.S. relationship with the Saudi monarchy to fail is “another Sept. 11 with Saudi involvement,” Gause said. This could possibly lead to American public opinion becoming so adamantly anti-Saudi that it might force presidential candidates, now or in the future, to develop an anti-Saudi Arabian position.

At this point in time, however, the success of the Saudi monarchy in the face of accusations of sponsorship of terrorism and human rights abuses is remarkable. Yet, given the current U.S. dependence on Saudi oil and the stability of a country located in a historically unstable region, the next president will have to continue to deal with this difficult Saudi question, which means the candidates cannot ignore it forever.