According to his obituary in the New York Times, King Fahd bin Abdel-Aziz of Saudi Arabia urged Saddam Hussein to retreat from Kuwait in the days following Iraq’s 1990 invasion. The Times reports: “Then Dick Cheney, the defense secretary at the time, visited the king to make the case that Saudi Arabia stood a good chance of being Iraq’s next victim. He displayed satellite photos of Iraqi missiles aimed at Saudi Arabia and described other threats.”
Dick Cheney with satellite photos “proving” Saddam’s ill intentions. An American invasion of Iraq soon follows. Sound familiar?
King Fahd, throughout his reign, attempted to straddle the gulf between Saudi Arabia’s western allies and its conservative Wahhabi clerics. In the 1980s, he funded the mujahedeen in Afghanistan, including the Saudi Osama bin Laden. He gave $25 billion to Saddam for his war against Iran. The U.S. was also providing aid and arms to Saddam until a few weeks before Iraq invaded Kuwait.
After that invasion, Osama (whose family is close to the Saudi royals) offered to lead the mujahedeen, fresh from their victory over the Soviets, against the Iraqis in Kuwait. Then Dick Cheney showed up with his satellite photos and dire predictions. The gulf between western allies and fundamentalist Muslims could no longer be straddled. Fahd had to jump to one side or the other. He jumped to the U.S. side. The self-titled “Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques,” whose gambling, alcohol-drinking, womanizing playboy years had long made him suspect among the devout, now rejected an all-Muslim army in favor of opening the closed kingdom to non-Muslim military. The Times’s obituary features a photo of King Fahd and General Norman Schwartzkopf reviewing American troops.
We’ll never know if Fahd made the right or wrong decision in 1990. When his actions are seen from the point of view of fundamentalist Muslims, however, the outrage that followed the U.S.-Saudi alliance becomes clear. The world we live in today, from the rise of al Quaeda to the waxing of militant Islam, to 15 Saudis among the 19 September 11th hijackers, to the global war on terror (or struggle against violent extremism) was all helped along by the meeting between King Fahd and Mr. Cheney.
That’s the past, what of the future? The new king, Abdullah bin Abdel-Aziz, is 81; his crown prince, Sultan bin Abdel-Aziz, is 77. Saudi Arabia is reminiscent of the Soviet Union in the Brezhnev-Andropov-Chernenko era, one old man following another. Prince Bandar bin Sultan, who may eventually play the Gorbachev role, must have been cued to Fahd’s imminent death when he abruptly resigned his long-time post as ambassador to Washington last month and hurried to Riyadh to make himself available for a promotion from the new king.
The crown will press heavy on King Abdullah’s brow. These are not the best of times for the Saudi kingdom. True, the price of oil hovers at all-time highs and true, Saudi Arabia has the world’s greatest supply of oil. Saudi’s oil fields are, for the most part, in production. Iraq and Iran are thought to have the greatest unexploited supplies of oil and natural gas.
The Saudis use their position as the number one oil producer to manipulate world oil markets for the benefit of their military and economic ally, the United States. The Iranian government, if and when it takes over the number one spot, will not look as kindly on the American desire for cheap gas. Neither, perhaps, will the government now emerging in Iraq.
The fear of oil hegemony by Iraq or Iran is why the 2003 Iraq invasion was really about oil; it is why the U.S. military will never leave Iraq and it is why Mr. Cheney continues to run about with his hair on fire, making false claims about Iran’s nuclear capabilities, claims contradicted this week by a new National Intelligence Estimate.
King Abdullah, his successors really, will preside over the decline of Saudi pre-eminence in oil. They will have to tread carefully while simultaneously attempting to re-straddle the western-Muslim gulf if they wish to avoid disaster. They will do well to avoid Dick Cheney.
The Turning Point
According to his obituary in the New York Times, King Fahd bin Abdel-Aziz of Saudi Arabia urged Saddam Hussein to retreat from Kuwait in the days following Iraq’s 1990 invasion. The Times reports: “Then Dick Cheney, the defense secretary at the time, visited the king to make the case that Saudi Arabia stood a good chance of being Iraq’s next victim. He displayed satellite photos of Iraqi missiles aimed at Saudi Arabia and described other threats.”
Dick Cheney with satellite photos “proving” Saddam’s ill intentions. An American invasion of Iraq soon follows. Sound familiar?
King Fahd, throughout his reign, attempted to straddle the gulf between Saudi Arabia’s western allies and its conservative Wahhabi clerics. In the 1980s, he funded the mujahedeen in Afghanistan, including the Saudi Osama bin Laden. He gave $25 billion to Saddam for his war against Iran. The U.S. was also providing aid and arms to Saddam until a few weeks before Iraq invaded Kuwait.
After that invasion, Osama (whose family is close to the Saudi royals) offered to lead the mujahedeen, fresh from their victory over the Soviets, against the Iraqis in Kuwait. Then Dick Cheney showed up with his satellite photos and dire predictions. The gulf between western allies and fundamentalist Muslims could no longer be straddled. Fahd had to jump to one side or the other. He jumped to the U.S. side. The self-titled “Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques,” whose gambling, alcohol-drinking, womanizing playboy years had long made him suspect among the devout, now rejected an all-Muslim army in favor of opening the closed kingdom to non-Muslim military. The Times’s obituary features a photo of King Fahd and General Norman Schwartzkopf reviewing American troops.
We’ll never know if Fahd made the right or wrong decision in 1990. When his actions are seen from the point of view of fundamentalist Muslims, however, the outrage that followed the U.S.-Saudi alliance becomes clear. The world we live in today, from the rise of al Quaeda to the waxing of militant Islam, to 15 Saudis among the 19 September 11th hijackers, to the global war on terror (or struggle against violent extremism) was all helped along by the meeting between King Fahd and Mr. Cheney.
That’s the past, what of the future? The new king, Abdullah bin Abdel-Aziz, is 81; his crown prince, Sultan bin Abdel-Aziz, is 77. Saudi Arabia is reminiscent of the Soviet Union in the Brezhnev-Andropov-Chernenko era, one old man following another. Prince Bandar bin Sultan, who may eventually play the Gorbachev role, must have been cued to Fahd’s imminent death when he abruptly resigned his long-time post as ambassador to Washington last month and hurried to Riyadh to make himself available for a promotion from the new king.
The crown will press heavy on King Abdullah’s brow. These are not the best of times for the Saudi kingdom. True, the price of oil hovers at all-time highs and true, Saudi Arabia has the world’s greatest supply of oil. Saudi’s oil fields are, for the most part, in production. Iraq and Iran are thought to have the greatest unexploited supplies of oil and natural gas.
The Saudis use their position as the number one oil producer to manipulate world oil markets for the benefit of their military and economic ally, the United States. The Iranian government, if and when it takes over the number one spot, will not look as kindly on the American desire for cheap gas. Neither, perhaps, will the government now emerging in Iraq.
The fear of oil hegemony by Iraq or Iran is why the 2003 Iraq invasion was really about oil; it is why the U.S. military will never leave Iraq and it is why Mr. Cheney continues to run about with his hair on fire, making false claims about Iran’s nuclear capabilities, claims contradicted this week by a new National Intelligence Estimate.
King Abdullah, his successors really, will preside over the decline of Saudi pre-eminence in oil. They will have to tread carefully while simultaneously attempting to re-straddle the western-Muslim gulf if they wish to avoid disaster. They will do well to avoid Dick Cheney.
© Mark Floegel, 2005