The US victory in Iraq and the subsequent withdrawal of US troops from Saudi Arabia is unlikely to push Saudi or American rulers toward a radical reassessment of the historic oil-for-security alliance, argues John R Bradley* in Jeddah The withdrawal of United States troops from Prince Sultan Air Base 80 kilometres south of Riyadh, from where the US-led war against Iraq was coordinated, is a victory of sorts for everyone involved. Perhaps uniquely in Middle Eastern politics, even arch- enemies are in total agreement on the issue -- albeit it for contradictory reasons. The war hawks in the administration of US President George W Bush have been pushing for a reduction in US military and economic dependence on Saudi Arabia since it transpired that 15 of the 19 suicide hijackers on 11 September were Saudi nationals. For them, the pullout is the first major concession to their anti- Wahhabi agenda. Relations hit fresh lows last year when the kingdom's de facto ruler, Prince Abdullah, flew to the United States to warn Bush that oil sales and military cooperation were at risk unless he toned down support for Israel. The leaking of a classified Pentagon briefing describing Saudi Arabia as "the kernel of evil" backing Islamic terrorism sent shockwaves through the Islamic kingdom. Now, the hawks hope, the Bush administration will have less to lose by pushing the ruling Al-Saud family on the issues of faster democratic reform and an end to their alleged funding of terrorist groups. But the presence of US troops in Saudi Arabia since the first Gulf War -- their numbers peaked at more than 10,000 during the Iraq campaign -- had at the same time been a constant thorn in the side of Prince Abdullah, and their swift departure eases tension and gives his personal popularity a boost just as a wide-ranging domestic reform initiative starts to gain momentum. Saudi dissident Osama Bin Laden is equally happy. For him, the United States and the House of Saud are a single, unified enemy, and he has used the presence of "infidel" US forces on Saudi soil as a rallying cry for Islamic Jihad. Finally he has got to see one of his key demands met, namely the withdrawal of US forces from the home of Islam's holiest sites in what may be the clearest sign yet of a significant thawing in the historic oil-for-security US-Saudi alliance Bin Laden so despises. Below the surface, however, very little is clear, least of all whether the United States can free itself of its need for Saudi oil now that it has access to Iraq's vast oil reserves. "We are aware of the fact that the idea of marginalising Saudi Arabia is a pet project of the far right and the Jewish lobby in the United States," Ahmed Al- Khereiji, one-time Saudi head of economics at OPEC and former director general of the International Trade Division in oil-giant Petromin, told Al-Ahram Weekly. But Al-Khereiji draws an analogy between, on the one hand, false talk before the Afghanistan campaign that US access to reserves in the Caspian Sea would reduce American dependency on Saudi oil and, on the other, the belief now among the hawks that Iraq's oil may finally do the job. "With the Caspian Sea, the reserve figures turned out to be exaggerated. Now, while there's no doubt Iraq has massive reserves, developing Iraq's oil fields will take years. Even repairing the existing production facilities to get three million barrels a day will be an achievement." As the hawks in the US are unlikely to get what they want in the short-term, so radical Islamists in the kingdom are far from pacified. The shooting of an American civilian in the eastern city of Jubail two days after the US troop withdrawal was announced in Riyadh by US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. The incident is the latest in a string of attacks on Westerners here and may be the first indication that a militant anti- Western campaign is likely to continue. On the same day as the shooting, the US State Department issued a new security warning that talked of an imminent Al-Qa'eda attack on US targets in Saudi Arabia, and urged private citizens to consider leaving. "The radical Islamists here do not view this as a total victory," Mushary Al-Zaidi, a Saudi expert on Islamic groups, told the Weekly. "They want to completely redefine relations with the US, and they want US troops to be expelled from all of the Arabian Peninsula." In all his fatwas, Al-Zaidi points out, Bin Laden has consistently demanded a US withdrawal from the whole of Arabia. "Anyway, the Islamists' demands have no limits," he adds. "It's one thing today, but they'll shift the goal- posts tomorrow." Perhaps the only clear immediate beneficiaries are the Saudi reformists. Liberals and conservatives are vying for the upper hand in a heated debate here on reforms, fuelled by a rare meeting earlier this year between reformers and Prince Abdullah. More than a dozen pro-reform articles have been published in local newspapers discussing the landmark reform petition, including a front-page editorial in the government-controlled Okaz daily entitled "Yes to Reforms". Couched carefully in the rhetoric of national unity and the ultimate legitimacy of the royal family, the petition calls for elections in the Shura Council (Saudi Arabia's consultative assembly), an end to corruption, universal suffrage and an independent judiciary. It also advocates women's rights, municipal elections, the right of free association, freedom of speech, the monitoring of public spending and the eradication of the national debt. It calls for the abolition of all discrimination -- sectarian, regional and social -- and a public amnesty or fair trial for anyone imprisoned for criticising the system. However, far from being hand- in-glove with the Americans, the reformers are concerned that the US-led war on Iraq, coupled with American plans to "reshape" the Middle East, may delay or even stall the reform programme. Anti- American sentiment here is at an all-time high, heightened by Israel's violent suppression of the Palestinian Intifada. If change is seen as coming from America, the reformers say, it will not be accepted by the Saudi people. Khalid Al-Dakhil, a Riyadh- based professor and one of the authors of the petition, has said that the reformists have a tacit understanding with Prince Abdullah that they will not initiate a vociferous public debate at this stage. "There is fear of a backlash from the Islamists," he explained, adding that the prince had told reformers that while he personally agreed that change was needed, he would not be able to bring it about on his own. Summarising the crown prince's comments, based on conversations with the 40 who attended the meeting, Al-Dakhil added, "There are other forces, both in the government and in Saudi society, which have to be taken account of, and the process is going to be long." Indeed, the first sign of change is hardly the kind of development the Americans could have been hoping for; A Saudi-based political organisation formed last week with the aim of "defending Muslim rights globally". The Global Campaign for Resisting Aggression, based in Islam's holiest city of Mecca, described itself as non- governmental and independent -- a first for Saudi Arabia, where political parties are banned. Founding member Mohsen Al-Awajy, an Islamic scholar, was jailed for four years in the 1990s for his anti-corruption and pro-reform campaign. However, there has been no sign following his announcement of the new group that the Saudi government is taking any action against him. "If the government is not reacting negatively to this, it will add to expectations that the government is on the road to reform," Al-Dakhil told the Weekly. However, an indication of just how up-hill a task the reformists may have on their hands, even without an Islamist backlash, became clear this week when a cabinet reshuffle left everyone of importance in their posts -- including all of the Saudi princes. The signal was clear: for at least the next four years, the House of Saud has absolutely no intention of relinquishing its grip on the reins of power. "The cabinet did not give a strong indication that reforms are on the way," Al-Dakhil conceded. "It looked more like a balancing act." * John R Bradley is the managing editor of the Jeddah-based Arab News. He has written extensively on Saudi issues for Reuters, AP and the Daily Telegraph, and authored guides to Saudi Arabia and Iraq published in The Lonely Planet Guide to the Middle East, 2003.
