King Fahd of Saudi Arabia is 84 and confined to a wheelchair. Some magazines have estimated his wealth at $28 billion. He suffers from diabetes, high blood pressure and crippling orthopaedic problems.  According to a former American ambassador to the desert kingdom, ‘His mind is vacant; he spends his time watching cartoons on television – especially Mickey Mouse and Road Runner.’

Prince Abdallah, Fahd’s half-brother and heir apparent, is 82 and in poor health. In relative terms, his fortune of $4 billion does not compare with the wealth of his elder his brother. He’s had three bypass operations. A semi-literate with a heavy stutter, a recent trip to the US found him so shaky President Bush had to hold his hand to steady him in front of television cameras. The first question is whether Abdallah is mentally or physically fit enough to become King. Another is whether his family or the United States, both with de facto veto powers, will consent to his elevation.

Second in line to the Saudi throne, Defence Minister Prince Sultan, 81, is suffering from cancer. An obese, ungainly man, he is best known for elevating gun running to cocktail party gossip and making super arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi a household name. Because he has the final right of approval on every armament procurement deal made by his country, he is the world’s leading intermedler (skimmer), the man who gets a commission regardless of who wins a contract. However, his involvement in many bad investment schemes have left him with little, an estimated $5 billion.

These are the three men running Saudi Arabia; the world’s top oil exporter and home of Islam’s holiest shrines of Mecca and Medina. Their father had so many children, 49 boys and over 60 girls, he didn’t have enough time to give them individual attention and most followed their mothers. Fahd, Abdallah and Sultan have 11 years of bad education between them. Along with their cousins, they attended the Princes School where they couldn’t be prodded or punished. Whatever record is available indicates that they devoted little time to learning.

Ever since Fahd became King in 1982, and though they disagree on the internal, regional and international policies their country should follow, the three have mismanaged a country which sits atop  25 per cent of the world’s oil reserves and claims to speak for over a billion people. A de facto power sharing system defines Fahd’s , Abdallah’s and Sultan’s spheres of influence. Fahd is King and supreme, Abdallah’s simplicity has endeared him to his country’s Bedouin and some religious leaders and Sultan is the natural darling of foreign contractors.

Until now, the fierce jealousies and competition between them over spheres of influence have been kept under control by their desire to survive against the rising and increasingly violent demands of their people. For example, Abdallah is used to placate the Bedouin and speak to the religious ulemas, Fahd, seeing himself a charmer, addresses the grievances of women and Sultan is commander in chief of the army, an extension of his Defence Minister portfolio. But for some time, Abdallah and Sultan have differed as to whether the latter can use the army without consulting the others. Of course, they hold the same opinion regarding not allowing the people a voice in deciding their own future and events such as municipal elections are undermined before they take place (women couldn’t vote and the royal family fielded its own candidates). But there are signs the power sharing balancing act is coming to an end.  

The most troublesome sign of open family disunity is the refusal of Minister of Interior Prince Nayyef to obey the man running the country in Fahd’s place, the heir apparent Prince Abdallah. Nayyef, one of Fahd’s full six brothers, considers Abdallah unfit to become king and wants him replaced. Ignoring Abdallah is also true of Prince Salman, another of Fahd’s full brothers and de facto head of the family council. If more support their disobedience then a confrontation between the various family branches may develop the moment Fahd dies.

Meanwhile, Abdallah’s response to being ignored has been to expand the National Guard, the Bedouin security force which he heads. Now numbering 50,000 people and, on Abdallah’s orders equipped with tanks and helicopters, it is used  as a personal powerbase and a competitor for the army. The two forces parade on different occasions and there is no integration or co-ordination between them regarding the hardware they use.Moreover, Abdallah enjoys the support of most of his other half-brothers. Within the younger generation, Foreign Minister Saud Al Faisal and his brothers are reported in his camp.

Also, there are smaller but still telling signs of disagreement between the immediate families of the three leaders of Al Saud. Some have surfaced since Fahd’s ten-year-old incapacitation and the absence of the voice ‘of the arbiter of all things.’ Fahd’s youngest and favourite son, Prince Abdel Aziz, made advisor with ministerial rank to his father at the age of 23, six years ago, has forced himself as a partner on his uncle the minister of defence and insists on sharing in armament commissions. This situation has created tensions which weaken the solidity of the façade of unity.

Nor is the outside world oblivious to the importance of the succession contest. Until recently the U.S. has always felt safer with the Sudeiri group but was unsure about the wisdom of bypassing Abdallah. Nowadays tampering with the succession line-up is no longer an issue. America wants an acceptable counterweight to Osama bin Laden, and for the first time, it could be a new government.

The country Fahd, Abdallah and Sultan run exercises an influence through its oil reserves and religious position. Until the recent increase in the price of oil, except for two years, the country ran a deficit from 1984 until 2004. This resulted in a sharp decrease in the education and health budgets and the number of unemployed is over 20 per cent of the work force. But the budgets of the royal family and ministry of defence increased. Religiously, the countries middle position, fundamentalist at home and pro-West in its foreign policy, is under attack by militants and moderates. This is behind the confusing picture the country projects; it swings from seeming pro-West to wanting to appease the Islamists.

Corrupt from the top down, the family’s budget is taken, skimmed, from oil receipts before they become national income. Estimates put it at around $6 billion per year. On occasions, when there isn’t enough money for direct cash payments to family members, the king gives them oil to sell on the open market, what is called “princely allocations”. However they come by it, much of the money received by the royals is wasted in casinos, on blondes, palaces with gold fittings and fixtures and I know of no single male member who has been married less than three times.

According to the Washington Institute and others in 1990 and 1991 armament procurement amounted to more than 92 per cent of the oil income. A great deal of the defence expenditure is on electronic hardware the Saudis cannot master. At one point the country had more planes than pilots. During the first Gulf War, 400 military trucks went missing. Members of the royal family rented land to American forces which came to their country to defend them. Much of the land was in the public domain until a day or two before the Americans arrived.

In addition to squandering their country’s wealth on unproductive personal pursuits and arms they can’t use, the policies of Fahd and his brothers are responsible for the acceleration in the spread of militant Islam. Fahd, lazy and irreverent, ended his family’s alliance with the Wahabi religious hierarchy by refusing to share power with it. What Fahd wanted, for his family to be the source of religious guidance, was rejected out of hand by the religious ulemas. The people were left without recourse to a religious group. Militant Islamists filled the vacuum.

Judged by how Saudi Arabia is run, its influence the Arab and Muslim worlds and the knock-on effects of their actions on the rest of the globe, Fahd, Abdallah and Sultan resemble leading actors in a major tragedy. But judging them by their individual performances shows how unequipped they are for their roles. The tragedy becomes farce. Simply stated, none of them has the wherewithal to run a country, part of one or even a troupe of boy scouts. All three cannot read silently and mumble through whatever documents are presented to them.

LINES IN THE SAND

The other dynasties vying for leadership of the Arabs after World War I were more advanced than the Al Sauds or what people in the West call the House of Saud. From the beginning, the Al Saud represented a collective mental step backwards. Unlike their competitors, many of them were illiterate, most were warlike and they raided Bedouin encampments and stole grain, camel and sheep to live. Even today, the level of education among the Palestinians, including those in refugee camps, is higher than among members of Al Saud.

Perhaps the greatest proof of the dysfunctionality of the House of Saud is their inability, after 50 years of trying, to organise the succession process. We have no idea whether Abdallah will have a free hand when the incapacitated Fahd dies. He is likely become King after receiving the perfunctory approval of senior members of the family and the Council of Ulemas. But according to a new law enacted in 1994 by the Consultative Council (undemocratic and limited in its authority but functional), he would be entitled to confirm Sultan as his successor or appoint a new heir apparent.

Yet Abdallah’s ability to remove Sultan, and he dislikes him intensely because he is the Sudeiris nominee to replace him, is in doubt. Abdallah has no full brothers and when Fahd goes, Sultan will have five plus a son, Prince Khalid, who is chief of staff of the army and other sons holding high military rank. To a specialist in Saudi Arabia, ‘The division in the control of the National Guard and army between the Abdallah and Sultan factions is something to watch.’

Already there have been occasions when the two forces came close to clashing because each assumed responsibility for the same situation. This occurred in September 1994 when a civilian-led  insurrection to occupy the town of Bureida succeeded for 36 hours. Prince Sultan ordered the army to storm the town and put an end to the rebellion but Abdallah ordered the National Guard to surround it until the rebels tired and surrendered. The only reason Abdallah prevailed was because units of the National Guard arrived in Bureida before the army did.

A more likely scenario than removing Sultan is for Abdallah to refrain from appointing an heir apparent until he solidifies his position. There are subsidiary scenarios of Abdallah and Sultan’s removals. There could be an independent coup by the armed forces with support from bin Laden and other fundamentalists: A royal-army-Islamist alliance cannot be ruled out. A U.S. sponsored change has also become a realistic prospect. Anarchy could follow a street lead uprising.

The prospect for a peaceful transfer of power from Fahd to Abdallah, never good in the past, is less likely now. The divide between rich and poor has widened, the young are alienated and 50 per cent of the country is under 20 years-old. People resent the House of Saud because it sides with America despite Palestine and Iraq. The Islamists are gaining favour because the public objects to Fahd and family’s Royal Islam. Every single problem the country faces creates a demand for a new way to run the government and supports holding the royals accountable.

Solving the Abdallah-Sultan problem by dropping both and skipping a generation is wishful thinking. The deteriorating conditions within the country exclude considering others. Besides, there are no mechanisms in place to effect this without creating more problems than they solve. Already, dozens of their nephews and grand nephews are running for king. (OPTIONAL SENTENCE: Among them are generals willing to use the army to win; General Prince Khalid bin Sultan and the infamous PRINCE WALID BIN TALLAL, a multi-billionaire who is already buying other members of the clan.)

To most Saudis, the succession problem is more immediate than the Islamic threat of Osama bin Laden, the dislocation inherent in introducing democracy, a rebellion by the poor, a coup d’etat by the armed forces or a mass uprising by women and other disenfranchised, or any combination of these groups and factors. The knowledgeable among the people of the desert kingdom, and many Western experts on the subject, believe the unwieldy succession process will lead to civil war before the other issues mature. Even if the move from Fahd to Abdallah and then Sultan go smoothly, considering the ages of the ruling troika, this means soon.

To a CIA officer who served in the country for two decades, ‘Most of these guys (members of the family running for king) wouldn’t put national interest ahead of personal ambition, they hardly know what the words national interest mean. Tribal instinct comes ahead and soon they will unsheathe their swords and go for each other, even if they destroy themselves.’ Even now, people close to Abdallah are openly critical of Fahd and his full brothers and blame the country’s problems on them.

In fact, the administration of President George W. Bush is coming close to agreeing with the Saudi people and the various experts. Suspicion lurks that Washington has already given up on the House of Saud.  It has gone beyond looking for ways to save the House of Saud from themselves without replacing them to seriously considering a Saudi Arabia without them. America’s advocacy of democracy is part of this. However, rather than blame the Al Saud and implicate America, Bush presents himself as promoting the rights of the common man. The wonderful people who gave us 15 of the 19 perpetrators of the vileness of 11 September 2001(yes, 15 were Saudi citizens) may be held to account for their actions for the first time since the 1930s.

The adopted child the United States supported and protected since it first discovered oil seven decades ago, the House of Saud, has become an embarrassing relationship.  Here it should be noted that recently President Bush does not receive Prince Abdallah in Washington DC. Already there are too many Senators and members of Congress who object to Abdallah’s presence in the nation’s capital and raise questions about human rights conditions in his country. Instead, Bush receives him in Texas. In a smaller sign of the Al Sauds decline, senators and congressman no longer accept cases of Dom Perignon champagne from the Saudi ambassador as Christmas presents.

A great deal of thought was already devoted to the prospects for Saudi Arabia before the hideousness of 11 September 2001 and consequent loss of faith in the Al Sauds. America has always viewed Abdallah’s succession with unease. Manifestations of his nationalist tendencies in the past included opposing the stationing of American troops in Saudi Arabia during the First Gulf War. The fact that militant Islamists never attack him in their manifestoes is another point against him. Moreover, proof does exist that he supports some anti-US Arabic language publications in London. But for the fact that replacing Abdallah would be difficult, the US government would support such a move.

Ignorance and arrogance have been present at the creation of Saudi Arabia as one of fourteen countries which came into being after the First World War when Britain and France turned the Arab leftovers of the Ottoman Empire into countries and promoted local tribal chiefs to kings, emirs and sheiks. In the case of Saudi Arabia, the West’s deputy sheriff and country’s leader was a city Arab who used his co-religionists and his relationship in marriage to Bedouin tribes to raise an army to conquer the ghastly blank of central Arabia in steps and turn it into a country. As important as defeating the other claimants to the same patch of arid land was the support he received from the West. Unlike his competitors, especially the Hashemites, the leader of Al Saud’s, best known as ibn Saud, was not encumbered with ambitions which conflicted with Western designs. ibn Saud did not want a strong, independent Arab state; he was the ideal deputy sheriff.

Abdel Aziz Abdel Rahman ibn Saud, the ibn Saud of legend, belonged to the Wahabi sub-sect of Sunni Islam, an off-shoot of the conservative Hanbalies, the most, war-like Muslims of them all. Named after an 18^th century Bedouin cleric by the name of Mohammed Abdul Wahab, the Wahabis decreed against wearing silk, using perfume and growing roses. Even men could not bear their heads. Fierce in battle, after the First World War the Wahabis backed ibn Saud the way their ancestors backed his ancestors--- some of whom were executed by Ottoman Turkey for heresy.

He was a big man, a warrior who roamed the desert claiming oases as his own, raiding other tribes territory, kidnapping their women and looking for water wells after those customs became part of history. But, instead of disqualifying him, these primitive qualities endeared him to misguided Orientalists, above all St John Philby, the father of the famous spy Kim Philby. Instead of supporting someone who represented the future, the British backed a romantic figure who was very much part of the past. He was awarded  The Order of the Bath.

ibn Saud married over 130 times. Women weren’t disenfranchised under him; they were a commodity to be bought and sold. Around 1917 ibn Saud married one Hasa Sudeiri, as with his other marriages to forge tribal allegiance with her family. He divorced her after a year of marriage and she married his brother. In 1920 he developed a yen for her, prevailed on his brother to divorce her and married her again. She begat him seven boys and the oldest, Fahd, is the present King.

Fahd and his full brothers became known as the Sudeiri Seven after their mother, a cohesive family of seven full brothers within the larger House of Saud family. They have never made a secret of their ambition is to perpetuate Sudeiri control of the larger family and position of King. Sultan’s position is an extension of the Sudeiri power.

When Fahd became the country’s fifth King in 1982 the Sudeiris saw an opportunity to monopolize power.  They intended to declare one of Fahd’s full brothers, in all likelihood Sultan, Crown Prince in place of Abdullah, the accepted next in line. They ran foul of an older half-brother un-endearingly called Mohammed Twin-Evil. A violent drunk (his two evils cost him his position in line to the throne) Mohammed threatened to behead the manager of the radio and television establishment if he declared Fahd King. Mohammed insisted that the decree announcing Fahd’s accession to the throne should name Abdallah Crown prince. Resenting Sudeiri hegemony, the rest of the family supported Mohammed.

Nor was this Mohammed’s first imposition of his will on the family. In 1977 it was the very same Mohammed who, angered because a court wouldn’t sentence her to death, ordered the execution of his own granddaughter for adultery. When the executioner refused to carry out the order because it wasn’t signed by a judge, Mohammed had his granddaughter machine gunned by his bodyguards. The documentary film Death of a Princess which told this gruesome story was shown in over 30 countries.

The moving spirit behind making the documentary program which exposed the clan’s primitiveness, was a Lebanese woman who had married into them and was later divorced in a humiliating manner (she heard about it second-hand). In recalling the whole episode she had this to say to a cousin of hers, “It wasn’t only the business of cruel and unusual punishment, it is what the others (princesses) do and get away with. Half of the female royals wander around supermarkets passing out their telephone number to handsome young men who later call them for rampant telephone sex. Dozens of princesses roam the cities after dark in limousines with smoked windows looking for male pick ups. They pay men for sexual services. Most of the rest are lesbians. The men are corrupt openly - the women secretly. In the case of the poor child they executed (she was 18), who was genuinely in love and talked about it. They executed her because she wasn’t cynical”

In this almost imaginary kingdom, women are never counted. We don’t know the exact number of daughters of ibn Saud. We don’t even know the number of King Fahd’s wives. He marries and divorces without telling us. But it is in this area that his individuality showed. Unlike his father and brothers Fahd has been known to keep mistresses. Amazingly there is no shortage of takers. To reward the husband of a favoured blonde, Fahd gave him the agency for one of the international airlines servicing the country. The man made millions out of it.

At the time of writing, one of Fahd’s ex-wives, one Janan Harb, a Christian Palestinian, who divorced him twenty years ago, is suing him for money in a London court. It appears Ms. Harb is demanding a huge lump sum settlement before Fahd dies – perhaps $50 million.

AN INFECTIOUS BACKWARDNESS

Among the very many recorded violations of decent behaviour by Al Sauds, and they lead in this field, is one involving Al Anud bint Musaid Al Jilawi, a favourite wife of King Fahd. In 1996, Al Anud went to Phoenix, Arizona with an entourage of 300 family members, friends and fellow travellers. She stayed at the suburb of Paradise Valley, supposedly for medical treatment. Originally intending to stay two weeks she was there for four months.

The Al Anud group rented 80 rooms at the Phoenicia Hotel and another 30 at the American Biltmore plus several villas. An order by a member of her party of $1 bottle of water often resulted in $100 tip. Locals were wined and dined lavishly by members of the Saudi party all the time. They changed the character of the place. But soon a rape complaint was filed with the local police. The police investigated but the whole thing came to an end without anybody being charged. According to a local, ‘there were a lot of envelopes stuffed with cash being pushed across tables and desks.’

A member of the Saudi opposition describes the decline in the character of the people around the king from what existed when Al Saud took over the country this way, ‘The first few kings had many advisors, mostly their doctors. ibn Saud was attended by half of the doctors of the country. It’s much worse now Fahd surrounds himself with gamblers, cronies and pimps – all of whom impelled by greed. Some, as in the case of the Greek shipping magnet John Latsis and former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafic Hariri, are genuine businessmen. Latsis was awarded contracts worth hundreds millions of dollars to build refineries by order of the king. His expertise in this field was limited but Fahd wanted to reward him for being a friend. The late Rafic Hariri became Fahd’s personal partner in a construction company and made a fortune worth billions of dollars.’

On top of Al Saud buying the silence of their own people, until recently by offering them free electricity and telephone and creating jobs when none existed, featherbedding, much money was spent on mosque leaders and propagating religion. Religious ulemas were showered with gold watches, daggers and incense burners, the latter studded with precious stones. Of course, there were substantial cash payments and I am in possession of a copy of a check for over $5 million made out to a minor cleric.

The Al Saud even bought leaders who bought existing countries for them; Rafic Hariri in Lebanon and even army officers in Syria (at one point also Egyptian President Anwar Saddat when he was Vice President). In other words, America’s deputy sheriffs had their own deputy sheriffs. However, it should be remembered that they also involved themselves into questionable projects that enhanced their image among the Arabs and Moslems, including financial support for Pakistan’s and Saddam’s nuclear programs.

Meanwhile, inside the country, the 9000 male members of the family control all aspects of life. Socially, their women follow them but every single female and her descendants receive a hefty salary, difficult to confirm but in the neighbourhood of $350,000 per year each. Half of the members of the cabinet are Al Saud men and so are more than half of the province governors. Major ambassadorships, London and Washington; belong to them as are the top positions in the army and National Guard. The pilots of the Saudi air force have to come from the family. The latter move was adopted after there were several conspiracies against them in the air force. One time all 29 Air Force conspirators were dropped out of planes without parachutes.

In Washington and London as with other major capitals the Saudis are into corrupting the political system of their hosts to serve them. I know no less than 6 former US ambassadors to Saudi Arabia who act as advisors to the House of Saud. Former Vice President Spirow Anew was retained by the Saudis for years. Under secretary of state Clark Clifford did the same thing. Former President Jimmy Carter, in this case without knowing it, became an advisor to the shady Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) to help the House of Saud. Most American universities with departments of Middle East studies receive financial aid from the Al Saud. To varying degrees American universities teach the Saudi version of Middle East history.

Saudi penetration of public life in the United Kingdom is total. Former Prime Minister James Callaghan was retained by BCCI, the Emirates and Saudi backed bank which collapsed after its money- laundering operations were exposed. Member of the Thatcher cabinet Jonathan Aitken was imprisoned when he lied to the courts about receiving bribes from a son of King Fahd. Dozens of members of parliament and diplomats receive House of Saud retainers.

Perhaps the greatest example of how far Saudi money corrupted the higher ranks of Western centres of power is in the allegations against Mark Thatcher, the son of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. At best, an underachiever with spotty academic record and less than a sparkling business career, young Thatcher first appeared as part of the Middle East scene when he became a consultant to the construction company Cementation which was building a university in Oman. As it turned out Mark knew nothing about construction and his mother had lobbied the Government of Oman to get the contract for Cementation.

Later Mark was a consultant to the British Aerospace-led Yamama II Anglo-Saudi arms deal, the largest single armament contract in history. Lacking technical knowledge, Mark Thatcher is what in the trade is called a ‘name-lender’. He had no function beyond lending his name to the Saudis to use it in opening government and corporate doors. In fact, Callaghan, Aitken, Carter, Agnew, Clifford and the rest had no functions to fill.

An estimated 2000 members of the House of Saud run trading companies in their country. Often they do nothing beyond have their name on the door. Because any Al Saud has more influence than an important non-royal, they claim most of the country’s business which comes through public contracts. The committees awarding contracts cannot afford to ignore any of them or companies with which they are associated. Competing with them is useless and their heavy handedness, they have often advised others to avoid competing with them, has alienated the once loyal merchant class. Moreover, the royals teach the foreign companies they represent how to deal with their government and bribe its officials. Very often a committee awarding a contract tells his Highness or his company that others are making a better offer and give them time to match theirs.

Two examples demonstrate the extent of Al Saud power and how sophisticated they have become in using it – or crude. The American company E-Systems of Texas is one of two companies in America capable of manufacturing fiend-foe radar identification systems. In the 1980s after years of having a local agent, they were approached by someone related to the Royal family who offered to be represent them. When they turned him down because of their existing arrangement, he asked them to fire the old agent. When they refused, he threatened to block all contracts awarded to them. They responded by pointing out how this would endanger the safety and security of the country. The poaching royal told them that they had confused him with someone who gave a damn about the country’s security. Eventually the old agent became sub agent and the royal became agent receiving three times as much money. Events like this go beyond alienating the merchant class; they generate a huge level of resentment against Al Saud.

Much more elaborate is the handling by Al Sauds of the £120,000,000,000 (one hundred and twenty billion pounds sterling) Yamama II Anglo-Saudi contract – in the words of British arms expert Anthony Sampson  not only the largest deal of its type in history, carrying the largest single commission in history, but open-ended so it might go on forever.

The payments, bribes and commissions, which were paid to the Saudi Royals who facilitated the deal - by playing influence-peddlers, go-betweens and power-brokers, and their associates - were realised in three ways. First, there was the straightforward agent’s fee; five to seven percent paid the same way an automobile agent is paid. Second, Saudi Arabia paid for part of the deal in oil which was shipped to Rotterdam where it was sold on the open market and either the value of the oil was understated or goods overstated. The differential was paid to the Royals as commission.

Thirdly, the deal stipulates that the main contractor, in this case British Aerospace, placed up to half the value of the contract with a Saudi subcontractor. In fact, the main contractor seconded (let us say) 5000 maintenance workers to a shell Saudi company headed by a royal and this company being a Saudi entity did not legally have to subscribe to anti-corruption laws or SEC regulations. On occasions these phoney companies double the charges. The total commission on Yamama II through the three ways used came to 30-40 percent or £35-40,000,000,000 (thirty five to forty billion pounds sterling).

Wafic Said, the man identified by many for having steered the deal towards Britain, was known to have dined with Prime Minister Thatcher at No. 10 Downing Street. He later donated money to Oxford University to build a Graduate School of Business. There were some protests but the Al Saud school is in place. Regionally, unlike with the West, corrupting the Arabs and Muslims is an instrument of policy. The only thing Saudi Arabia has is money and it uses it to divide and conquer. They have all along opposed any real unity or unity of purpose among the Arabs. In the 1950s and 60s they spent tens of millions to stop Iraq and Syria from merging lest a strong country able of competing with them come into being. Then there is the business of the tribes. The House of Saud uses money to buy the loyalty of the mercenary Bedouin in Syria, Iraq and Jordan. They use them against their own countries if necessary – the thinking of the Bedouin and Al Saud are at the same level of development, neither truly believes in the nation state. The ignorant Bedouin is against modernization and being settled, what the other countries except Saudi Arabia want for them.  

But bribing sections of a country is the tip of the iceburg. Over the years, to keep other Arabs weak, the Al Saud have bought tribes in the Yemen to assist against progressive forces, paid the Kurds in Iraq to keep the central government of that country weak, sponsored divisions within the PLO, bribed Christian warlords in Lebanon to oppose the Palestinians and backed monarchist Morocco against Algeria. In 1959, they conspired to assassinate President Nasser of the newly formed United Arab Republic and paid to have his plane shot out of the sky as it was approaching Damascus.

They hired former Special Air Services (SAS) Bill Sterling and other British commandoes to fight in the Yemen, and even Columbian rebels received money from them to disrupt the flow of oil in that country to put a squeeze on the world’s oil supplies and prices. Of course, there was always the PLO, Lebanon, the Sudan and Somalia, divided to begin with but kept more so by the Saudi interference.

Beyond sponsoring parts of a country, a group or a tribe, or one country against another, the Al Saud has always spent much money corrupting the Arab press. In London, the centre for the Arab press (over 40 publications a week) and well ahead of Beirut and Cairo, the House of Saud controls two of the three Arab language dailies, Al Hayat and Al Sharq Al Awsat and four weekly magazines. Then there are publications beholden to individual members of the family. Not a single moderate regime can compete with them. Arab journalists employed by the House of Saud make millions acting as promoters of backwardness. To them, a mild socialist is a Communist, a moderate is a non-believer and believers in social justice are anti-Muslims. They spent millions of dollars trying to convince the world that I, the writer, am an agent of the Mossad –just because I criticised their ways. Among the people they hired to defame and slander me was a former British ambassador to their country. Meanwhile , an assistant to Fahd he offered me a  one million dollars to kill my book about them. He was turned down and I publicised the offer in a story in The Sunday Telegraph.

Saudi opposition leader Dr. Mohammed Al Mas’ari believes controlling the Arab press is a must for Al Saud. ‘Their view of history is so distorted they have to own a publication to make it carry their lies.’ Dr Sa’ad Al Fagih, head of the Committee for the Defence of the Legitimate Rights (of the Saudi people) and an astute analyst of House of Saud thinking says, ‘They know the truth is a threat to them. The truth is their enemy.’ In fact, what they are trying to do is very simple. By controlling the press, they are controlling the first draft of history. By controlling academe, they control the second draft. By controlling other Arab or Muslim governments they are trying to control a censorship apparatus.

Beyond the Arab world, Saudi Arabia acts like a guardian of Islam and Islamic values. They build mosques all over the world, including in the shadow of the Vatican. In the 1960s, Saudi Arabia supported the Muslim Brotherhood and other Muslim groups against the secularism of Nasser’s Arab nationalism. In the 1970s the Al Sauds supported anti-Communist Islamic groups throughout the world. Outwardly, they provided financial aid towards spreading the word of Allah and it looked innocent enough but the most cursory examination proves that the very same groups who received financial aid from the Al Saud, are the ones who have either been responsible for acts of terror themselves or who spawned splinter groups committed to violence. Sheikh Omar, the blind Muslim cleric who tried to blow up the World Trade Center ten years before 11 September 2001, received financial backing from Al Saud. An FBI report identifies six former employees of the Saudi Embassy in London among the leading terrorists in the world. 

The big test to the Al Sauds Muslim position came when the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in 1979. Saudi Arabia, with American backing, led the Islamic response against ‘godless Communism.’ Over 30,000 Saudis and no less than 150,000 other Arabs followed the call for a holy war against the USSR, a Jihad, and became Mujahideen. Among them was Osama bin Laden, the son of a construction magnate and a personal favourite of the House of Saud. Foolishly convinced of their ability to control the political direction of the Mujahideen, the US and Saudi Arabia gave them financial support and a free hand. In fact, the Al Saud and America were sponsoring bin Laden’s rise to prominence.

BETWEEN ALLAH AND THE KING’S RELIGION

In his youth, Prince Fahd found Saudi Arabia dull and abandoned it for carousing in Europe. He drank Scotch whiskey publicly, ordered caviar by the kilogram, attended nude shows in Paris nightclubs, became a regular at the Monte Carlo Casino and was rumoured to have paid the wife of a Lebanese businessman $100,000 for an inconclusive night of fun –supposedly he fell asleep. Legend has it he liked tall blondes.

The major difference between Fahd and his full brother, Prince Sultan, is superficial. Essentially they are both Sudeiris. But unlike Fahd, Sultan liked Saudi Arabia and very seldom travelled to non-Arab countries unless he had to. In Morrocco several years ago, he had a Boeing 747 aircraft fly him his favourite desert breakfast every day. Throughout his life, his cohorts were Saudi. He used Khashoggi instead of Latsis and Hariri. But both Fahd and Sultan, incapable of judging people intellectually or in terms of their competence, valued loyalty. Suntan stood by Khashoggi even when the latter’s behaviour was embarrassing and he was imprisoned. Fahd thought rewarding Latsis was a natural thing, not an act of corruption.

In 1982, when he became King, Fahd  moved in the opposite direction from the one of his  youth. His very first act was to disown the title of King (there is no Majesty but that of Allah, he said) and he became Guardian of Islam’s Holiest Shrines. Having been Minister of Education, Minister of Interior, Minister of Finance then Crown Prince and his country’s strongman under the fatherly retiring King Khalid, the world looked upon him as a potential modernizer and pace-setter who would bring his country of age. The opposite happened; the Guardian of Islam’s Holy Shrines ( a title coined by Suleiman the Magnificent of Ottoman Turkey)  has truly set the clock back, not only for his country but for any country or region influenced by his country, the whole world. It was his support for Islamic movements which tipped the scale in their favour against the moderate secular forces.

In 1979, it was Crown Prince Fahd the strongman policy maker of Saudi Arabia who personally made several decisions which shifted the centre  of Arab and Muslim politics in favour of Islam. With his country awash with oil wealth, Fahd assumed the leadership of the Islamic world and personally organized the campaign against Godless Communism in Afghanistan, the Horn of Africa and as far as Central America. It was the very same Fahd who supported Saddam Hussein’s invasion of anti-Western Iran, secured American support for a cruel nine-year-long war and backed the Iraqi dictator to the tune of $40 billion. And it was Fahd who bid a recent college graduate by the name of Osama bin Laden good bye when the latter left for Afghanistan seeking martyrdom.

On the surface Fahd and Osama were on the same side, Fahd was the general and Osama the field officer. But even then the writing was on the wall and the conflict between them was inevitable. It is this conflict, between pliant official Islam and radical anti-West Islam, which has shaped our lives and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. For Fahd to have made  decisions with such worldwide implications tells a great deal about Saudi Arabia as one of the quirks of history, a case of power invested in an unfit country  and unfit leaders. That is the problem of Al Sauds. The world accepts the decisions, prejudices and ignorance of the Al Saud  tribe and through them perpetuates unfitness.

Where Sultan stood on all these critical issues is unknown. According to a Lebanese friend of his, “Sultan doesn’t have a position on major policy issues. He follows his older full brother blindly.” However, another person who knows him is not as charitable, “Sultan has no position because he is too stupid to have one.”

Abdallah, whom Fahd never consulted on anything, does have a position and he is known to oppose Fahd’s total commitment to America. According to an acquaintances, ‘Abdallah will always back anything or anyone Arab or Muslim against a non-Muslim.’ This certainly explains why he has Syrian advisors. Unlike the Saudis of Sultan and mixed bag of Fahd, Abdallah’s advisors are “into politics, more than into making money”.

Amazingly, Abdallah differs from his two half-brothers in another mayor area. Neither he not any of his sons has been tainted by financial scandal. As a matter of fact, for many years he refused to allow his sons to operate trading companies or indulge in other aspects of commerce. While this suits Sultan and Fahd’s son Abdul Aziz, it does enhance Abdallah’s image with others.

SLOUCHING TOWARDS ARMAGEDDON

In 1979, in addition to Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia witnessed the most serious popular uprising against the House of Saud since the founding of the kingdom. Several hundred Wahabi zealots, members of the ruling religious establishment, seized the Grand Mosque of Mecca, the House of Islam, and “declared” against the heresies of the House of Saud. It took 11 days and a special unit of French commandoes to dislodge them. So desperate was the situation the French force, a contingent of 300 men, was converted to Islam in order to enter Mecca. The French killed all rebels but 65 who were distributed throughout the country and beheaded two or three per city, to discourage others contemplating revolution.

To the Newspaper editor and news analyst Adbel Bari Atwan, ‘From then on, the Islam of the House of Saud moved in one direction and the radicals, including Osama bin Laden, in another. True they both spoke in the name of Islam but the Al Sauds were drawing close to America while, despite their alliance against Russia, bin Laden began planning against the West in the mid-1980s.’ Atwan, among the few who saw bin Laden danger early on and decided to stay in touch with him recalls how in 1987 bin Laden, despite American resistance, led the boycott against Israel. “That and the Mosque should have told us the truth.”

Under Fahd, the relationship between Saudi Arabia and America couldn’t be closer. It was so close any move had to be a step backward. But that is when the relationship between Fahd and the Wahabi religious leadership died. The reasons for the rift were simple; the Al Saud made all objections against them tantamount to protests against religion. Essentially they pre-empted the religious pillar of the state and made themselves holy. Thus demoted, the religious ulemas were readying to rise against the Al Sauds when Saddam invaded Kuwait.

Totally convinced of his family’s need for America’s protection from Saddam , King Fahd, without consulting his brothers, agreed to allow American troops to use his country as a staging area for invading Iraq. However he needed religious sanction to do it  and, unwisely, he told whatever of his religious hierarchy was left, that America was coming to Saudi Arabia solely for the purpose of protecting it against outside threats. When events unfolded and America used Saudi Arabia to invade Iraq, the break between Al Saud and ‘their church’ was complete. According to some sources, the head of the Council of Ulemas, Abdel Aziz bin Baz, called King Fahd ‘a liar’. In addition, members of the Al Saud, even some in high office, wanted to side against America.

Fahd swallowed the insult of the religious establishment and increased his total reliance on America. Bin Laden, back in Saudi Arabia for a short while, sided with the religious establishment against the monarchy and personally handed Minister of Defence Prince Sultan a letter of protest against the American presence on ‘Muslim holy soil.’ bin Laden accused both Saudi Arabia and Iraq of being agents of America.

Incredibly the religious Ulemas, the people and bin Laden stood against Fahd. In a document which will eventually be recalled as the cry for revolution against Fahd, 107 clerics and notables sent a 46 page Memorandum of Advice and Reform criticizing Fahd and his family for their corrupt ways and human rights abuses. When Fahd asked the 17 Grand Ulemas to rebut the memorandum, seven of them refused and were dismissed by the king. This confirmed the  royal family’s  replacement of the religious establishment. It was the beginning of Royal Islam.

Between the first and second Gulf Wars open rebellion broke out in Saudi Arabia. American military and civilian facilities in Riyadh and Khobar came under attack. Shoot outs between the security forces and followers of bin Laden and sympathisers with the religious establishment became regular occurrences. In one incident, the bombers warned pick-nicking Saudi citizens to leave an area because they were going to kill infidels, the Americans living there. Not only where all The Saudi citizens given time to leave, none of them  reported the incident to the police.

In fact, a greater number of Al Sauds saw their future in taking a position against America. On being criticized for not sharing information about Islamic terrorists with the FBI, Minister of Interior Prince Nayyef announced that an infidel can’t be allowed to interrogate a believer. Revolution could come to Saudi Arabia for many reasons and from many directions, from bin Laden or an unhappy royal against the rest of the family, or from people who inhabit the Mosques and the Souks. But the more likely source is that it will follow the House of Saud’s inability to perpetuate in an acceptable way or to defend itself.

The disintegration of a state, even an absolute monarchy, is the likely result of the convergence of internal and external elements that are capable of undoing it. In the case of Saudi Arabia, there is a huge gap between the quality of the existing leadership and what the country’s importance to the rest of the world requires from it in terms of leadership. The competition between the makers of policies governing the energy supplies of the world and spokesmen for Islam and their would be successors are between Saudi Arabia and Saudi Arabia. Simply stated the House of Saud is not up to the task. Like Communism in the USSR, they have been overtaken by events.

What happened on 11 September 2001 signalled the beginning of the end of the Saudi regime and, in few hours, destroyed the al Saud’s last hope, the Saudi-American relationship that has existed for almost a century. The fifteen perpetrators of one of the vilest crimes in history belonged to the upper echelons of Saudi society. They were brought up by the House of Saud to be fundamentalist and pro-West. But this division was impossible to reconcile and the strength of religion eventually prevailed.  The House of Saud had used religion to keep people down, to justify their absoluteness and the claim that they represented Islam. In the process of doing this, they opened the door to intolerance and hate without identifying the target of their intolerance and hate.

The criminals of 11 September 2001 and the Saudi religious police, the oppressors of the people within the country, hail from the same background. Fahd, Abdallah and Sultan cannot disown one side, the fifteen terrorists, without disowning the other side, the religious police. This is why, even when it is not explicit, America’s support for the Al Sauds vanished in the dust of the World Trade Centre.

© Said K Aburish