SAUDI ARABIA:
NOT a Friend of the United States
By Marilyn M. Brannan, Assoc. Editor
Unravelling The New World Order

Why the Turmoil in Saudi Arabia?
In 2002, Stratfor intelligence services predicted that a war in Saudi Arabia would erupt between al Qaeda and the ruling House of Saud. It appears that war has begun.

It is important to understand why Al Qaeda wants this war and how they plan to go about it. First of all, Saudi Arabia is the “golden egg” sought by al Qaeda—for two primary reasons:
(1) The kingdom is unbelievably rich, capable of influencing global oil supplies and global politics. It is estimated that one-fourth of the earth’s known oil lies beneath the sands of Saudi Arabia, making it the world’s top oil exporter.

(2) The kingdom is religiously and socially Wahhabi—the fundamentalist form of Islam that is the very root of al Qaeda. Islam’s two holiest cities, Mecca and Medina, are located in Saudi Arabia.

Al Qaeda’s endgame is complete control of Saudi Arabia. Such an achievement would give them the ability not only to influence global energy supplies, but also to control the political and security environments of dozens of other states as well. With Saudi Arabia as its secure base, al Qaeda would have a sanctuary where it could establish and train conventional armed forces while also maintaining an attack force of militants for furthering their global objectives.

The leadership of al Qaeda knows that the U.S. would never permit an al Qaeda government to come to power in Saudi Arabia. Thus, they are not likely—for the time being, anyway—to put forward an al Qaeda government as such. Instead, al Qaeda will look for leaders among the kingdom’s tribal sheikhs, business elite and senior military personnel who are sympathetic to their worldview and long-term goals. The objective: bring down the ruling House of Saud.

Three-step Plan to Undercut House of Saud
First, al Qaeda must weaken its opponents in the government. Toward that end, al Qaeda would work through shorter-term, interim goals:

(1) Severing the link between the U.S. and the House of Saud. This would restrict the Saudi government’s ability to resist outside interference from nations like Israel or Iran.

(2) Undermining House of Saud’s political authority. This would be a humiliating loss of face for the royal tribe, would reduce Saudi citizens’ confidence in and support for the House of Saud, and would be a direct challenge of its legitimacy.

Through political turmoil and the attacks on Westerners, the bombings of residential compounds, and fears of political chaos, Al Qaeda is fomenting concern about the royal family’s ability to rule. Traditional Islamic political thought is that a bad ruler is preferable to political chaos. Al Qaeda hopes to create enough political chaos to demonstrate that the House of Saud, because it cannot control the chaos, is unfit to rule

(3) Destroying the royal family’s religious credentials. Osama bin Laden enjoys broad support inside the kingdom, especially among the deeply religious Wahhabis, who adamantly believe that politics must be subservient to religion.

The Saudis’ senior religious leader, Grand Mufti Abdel Aziz Al Al-Sheikh, recently was forced to defend some of his religious rulings against accusations of excessive political influence from the government. Allowing political matters to have influence over religious matters is a damning charge as far as the Wahhabis are concerned. By challenging the credibility of the religious establishment in Saudi Arabia, al Qaeda challenges the legitimacy of the government as well.

The House of Saud has sworn an oath to protect the holiest sites in Islam as caretakers of Mecca and Medina, birthplaces of Islam. If a Wahhabi mullah were to turn on the Royal family and write a fatwah declaring that the House of Saud had violated its sacred duty as caretakers of the holy land, the Royal Family would likely be deposed as Saudi rulers.

Between a Rock and a Hard Place
Al Qaeda’s ideological home is rooted in the Wahhabi Islam that dominates the kingdom. The royal family’s affiliation with Western interests is, in al Qaeda’s thinking, a betrayal of Islam, and they regard the House of Saud as guilty of apostasy. In the past the royals have dealt with this by siccing the militants on infidels elsewhere. That strategy worked well for some time, and Saudi Arabia exported its militants to places such as Afghanistan and Chechnya. After 9-11, the U.S. confronted Riyadh over that practice.

The international community—especially the United States—will press Saudi Arabia to take a much harder line against terrorism, including a crackdown on terrorist financing and radical preaching in the mosques and religious schools—the Madrasas—where children as young as four years of age are indoctrinated with anti-Semitism, anti-Westernism and anti-Americanism.

Unfortunately, it will do little good.

It is no accident that 15 of the 9-11 terrorists were from Saudi Arabia. They were, as one analyst put it, “disturbingly representative of their fellow countrymen.” A recent survey of some 15,000 Saudis showed nearly half support Osama bin Laden’s sermons and exhortations of death to the Jews, to Israel, to the West, and especially, to America.

The Royal family has funded and harbored the radical Wahhabi movement and its radical mullahs for decades. They fund the worldwide Madrasas schools, which are breeding grounds for the Taliban and al Qaeda. Thanks to the pervasive influence of Saudi petrodollars, children are being indoctrinated with fanatical Islamist doctrine around the world—including the United States.

Among the roughly 30,000 members of the Saudi Royal family, some are sympathetic to al Qaeda, some are indifferent, and some are scared to death of them and want them wiped out. The Saudis have created a monster and they have no idea what to do with it.

Oil: Power and Money
Al Qaeda’s plan to control Saudi Arabia does not necessarily mean—at this point—the imminent overthrow of the House of Saud or the destruction of the country’s oil infrastructure and disruption of oil exports. The terrorists are no doubt reluctant to attack the Saudi oil industry directly because they want to preserve it for the vast revenue and political power it affords. The kingdom is far more valuable with its oil sector intact. Al Qaeda will thus concentrate for the foreseeable future on weakening the regime and driving out Westerners. We are seeing that stage of the plan evolving now.

Stratfor does not believe that Al Qaeda intends to trigger a U.S. invasion or a serious political backlash such as a revolution or a fracturing of the country that would diminish Riyadh’s political strength and interrupt the flow of oil money. Al Qaeda has relied heavily on financing from the Saudi kingdom. The strategy, therefore, is to infiltrate by finding a cooperative branch of support within the royal family.

The current phase of the war on Saudi Arabia—driving Westerners out of the kingdom—would serve to weaken the U.S.-Saudi ties while leaving the energy industry in Saudi hands. Driving out the “infidels” would also serve as a powerful recruiting tool for al Qaeda.

The brutal murder of Paul Johnson mid-June this year is indicative of al Qaeda’s plan; by killing the infidels in the most grizzly ways possible, al Qaeda hopes to force many of the 8 million foreign workers (including 35,000 Americans) to leave Saudi Arabia. This would include the several thousand expatriates (primarily American and British) with high levels of technical skills who run the Saudi oil industry.

For what it’s worth, the U.S. has sent a tough message to Saudi Arabia that does not rule out abandoning the kingdom’s oil sector. The Bush administration has warned that Americans will not stay in Saudi Arabia unless the kingdom takes significant steps to protect them.

But, attacking expatriates appears to be generally popular with the Saudi population, and it carries little political risk for al Qaeda. There is no love lost between the expatriates and the government, which has not made significant efforts to protect them. Saudi security forces are not particularly competent when it comes to guarding expatriates, and U.S. intelligence sources suspect the Saudi intelligence service is infiltrated with al Qaeda sympathizers. Morale of security forces, chartered to “guard the infidels” is low, and the amount of effort they put into it is minimal.

Getting Westerners out of the kingdom would open thousands of jobs in the energy and defense industries—positions that al Qaeda would fill with Saudis or other Muslims sympathetic to its worldview.

Running the energy industry without Western expertise would be a challenge initially and could lead to a decline in Saudi oil output. With other oil producers producing at flat-out capacity, Saudi Arabia is the only oil producer that has had excess capacity. If Saudi production is crippled or shut down, no one can pick up the slack. The result of a major attack on the Saudi oil industry would be an unprecedented, worldwide economic crisis; but, even with a reduced output, al Qaeda in control of Saudi Arabia would still have enormous political leverage.

Next Stage
The next phase of the war is less certain. Al Qaeda has not yet undertaken the targeting of Saudi authorities. Their initial strategy, as was stated before, is to cleanse the holy lands of infidels. However, such a movement will produce thousands of militants expecting action, and they will not likely be willing to close up shop just because the Americans have been routed. The next stage would see the militants reorienting the conflict to target what they consider the corrupt Saudi authorities in order to establish themselves as the legitimate political alternative—i.e., a new regime. A taped speech that was believed to be the voice of Osama bin Laden (aired in January of this year) called for the establishment of a legitimate and righteous political leadership to replace the corrupt Arab governments now in power.

The current anti-Western guerrilla war is only the initial stage. Ultimately, there will be a confrontation between the mujahideen and the Saudi government that could spell the end of rule by the House of Saud. It’s just a matter of time.

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Sources:
New York Post, “Al Qaeda’s Saudi Agenda: Terror vs. Oil,” Peter Brookes, June 21, 2004.

TownHall.com, “The House of Saud,” Joel Mowbray, June 11, 2004.

TownHall.com, “Saudis’ Most Recent Pledge Just as Meaningless,” Joel Mowbray, June 23, 2004.

The Stratfor Weekly, “Saudi Oil Crown Slipping Away?” Peter Zeihan, 8 June 2004.

The Stratfor Weekly, “Saudi Arabia: Al Qaeda’s Strategic Goals,” James Eldridge, 18 June 2004.

World Tribune.com, “U.S. Threatens to Abandon Saudis and Their Oil,” June 21, 2004.