What About Saudi Arabia?

Great Debates
1

With all this focus on how evil the Taliban are, I have to wonder whether focus will fall on Saudi Arabia soon, and if so, what will happen?

Look at some of these facts about Saudi Arabia:

[list]
[li]Wahhabism, the virulent strain of Islam that the Taliban practices, is the religion in Saudi Arabia, and in fact was exported from Saudi Arabia.[/li][li]Saudi Arabia is the only country that has refused to freeze Bin Laden’s assets.[/li][li]The treatment of women in Saudi Arabia is not much better than the Taliban. Women must be covered, they have no sufferage, and are severely oppressed by the largely male society (see below).[/li][li]A frightening statistic - Although the natural birth rate of men and women is about the same, by age 15 there are 1.41 men for every woman, suggesting either female infanticide or severe punishment/killing of young women for various ‘crimes’. This is far, far worse than what went on in China, which we have all condemned (the difference between the natural birth rate and adult demographic in China was ‘only’ something like .10)[/li][li]S.A. is highly oppressive, and employs religious police who act like stormtroopers, breaking into private homes and arresting people for engaging in forbidden religious practices (for example, until recently it was a severe crime to celebrate the birth of Mohammed, and people holding celebrations in their homes were arrested and punished).[/li][li]Saudi Arabia has a history of harboring and supporting terrorists.[/li][li]Rudy Guliani just returned 10 million dollars donated by a Saudi prince, after that prince made hostile anti-America comments. Way to go, Rudy. A classy response.[/li]
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Now, Saudi Arabia is a HUGE problem, because unlike Afghanistan it has lots of friends, a very large, modern army, and the biggest oil reserves in the world, meaning a lot of countries would be VERY nervous about any U.S. actions there. But this is a seriously screwed up country, and its wealth is funding a lot of terrorist activity.

Saudi Arabia also belies the notion that terrorism and radical Islamic beliefs are borne of poverty, because it’s quite a wealthy country (Per Capita income around $11,000).

So, what’s going to happen there, and what should we do?

2

From a theoretical or philosophical perspective, we should probably use any influence we can to encourage them modify their approach to the world.

From a pragmatic perspective, we are going to do nothing to irritate them until the current struggle with terrorism has ended. While bin Laden does take his theology from his homeland, Saudi Arabia is not actively protecting or exporting terrorists. Saudi Arabia is both a stronger force in the region and, of the anti-Israeli governments, the one that has the most cordial relations with the U.S. We are not going to force them into the pro-Syrian or pro-Iraq (and, hence, pro-terrorist) camps if we can avoid it.

3

Doesn’t this reflect at least in part the fact that tens of thousands of men come to Saudi Arabia from neighboring countries to work there? They bump up the census figures, and rarely bring their wives along with them.

4

From a theoretical or philosophical perspective, we should probably use any influence we can to encourage them modify their approach to the world.

From a pragmatic perspective, we are going to do nothing to irritate them until the current struggle with terrorism has ended. While bin Laden does take his theology from his homeland, Saudi Arabia is not actively protecting or exporting terrorists. Saudi Arabia is both a stronger force in the region and, of the anti-Israeli governments, the one that has the most cordial relations with the U.S. We are not going to force them into the pro-Syrian or pro-Iraq (and, hence, pro-terrorist) camps if we can avoid it.

5

Actually, I was under the impression that they froze his assets years ago. Of course, most of the Bin Laden assets in that country belong to his relatives-who will have nothing to do with him.

6

Most of the “oil rich” nations in the Gulf have a huge male to female ratios (often approaching 1.5:1) because men from Egypt, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Jordan, and Palestine work there and support relatives back home.
Also in many of those countries, up to half of the population - if not more - consists of non-citizens.

After all if massive numbers of girls were killed in Saudi Arabia, how could this be possible?

Life expectancy at birth: total population: 68.09 years
male: 66.4 years
female: 69.85 years (2001 est.)
http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/

7

This is a really important point that you have made Sam. I see Saudi Arabia as a root of many of the problems we are currently facing. I would also be willing to bet that while the Saudis are paying lip service to their hatred of bin Laden, thay are also paying him under the table to keep out of their hair. I have repeatedly heard of “tribute” being paid to bin Laden by other countries in the region. This is precisely why we need to find him and execute him, sooner than later.

I would like to see the Saudi ruling family ousted in favor of a democratic government. The chances of this are less than zero for so long as we are in bed with them for their oil. This is exactly why I am advocating a direct shift away from iol dependency in my thread “Let Them Drink Oil” in this same forum. I’m hoping that some of the other pundits at these boards will show some spine and posit some solutions to this rather significant issue. I thank you for bringing it up and hope that increased awareness of this will help to drive a larger shift away from relations with this morally corrupt nation.

8

Zenster, while I deplore what Saudi Arabia is doing to its female population–suppressing their voices in government, education, . . .–I don’t think it’s our business to impose democracy on a society that is so complex. Even if we could impose democracy on Saudi Arabia tomorrow, that country would probably be even more jacked up than it is now.

Of course I’m being an idealist, but I think that if that country is going to make it and not eat itself up with terrorism, Saudi Arabian men AND women need to work within their own society to come up with a flexible system of governance that will work in accordance with the variety of sects of Islam but also allow them to be able to exist in the global economy, of which we all have a share. The thing that gets me about Saudi Arabia and other Muslim countries is why do they fear Westernism so much? I mean if the Islamic state is so great, then that ought to be attractive enough to withstand whatever “temptations” that Western societies/cultures have? It seems to me that this is what they need to resolve, rather than having psychopaths like ObL “crusade” to impose a 7th Century literalist interpretation of Islamic culture on the world. But, hey, that’s just my opinion.

As far as US and other Western dependence on Saudi oil, well, we do need to come up with alternative sources of energy. We should focus on our own energy problems, make sure we have a good offensive stategy that will secure our country from attack, and leave Saudi Arabia to work out the mess that they’ve got in their country.

9

I highly doubt it. Osama bin Laden is committed to the overthrow of the current Fahd monarchy. I find it hard to belive that they would give him money, or even that he would accept money from them to stay away.

10

I think you’re all correct about the reason for the disparity in men/women after age 15. I must admit that I never thought of that reason. When I read that statistic, I was thinking of all the images I’ve seen of women being executed by the Taliban for ‘crimes’ like disrespecting their husbands or having sex outside of marriage. But even that level of oppression couldn’t account for that many women being killed, and if it were infanticide I’m sure we would have heard about it. My apologies for that bit of misleading info.

But still, if you made a list of the most oppressive regimes in the Middle East, Saudi Arabia would be fairly high on the list, and it has a lot of money. But the biggest worry as far as I’m concerned is Wahhabism, which strikes me as a very dangerous religion to the west.

11

Would it ever be possible for a Constitutional Monarchy, like in England, or your Scandinavian countries, or as it is in the Netherlands?

12

In the “Osama bin Laden as Che Guevara” thread, I posted some quotes from an article written by a Muslim, published in TIME magazine, called “It’s Not All America’s Fault.” The writer argued that Western modernity was introduced by way of colonialism, and the Middle East has never been able to overcome the trauma that colonialism caused. So they rejected Western modernity whole - preferring to have nothing to do with it because of its questionable beginnings.

I don’t know how reflective that opinion is of the Muslim world itself (the writer lives in London), but there is certainly some logic behind it.

What’s going on there? In the same thread, I typed this quote from “An Uneasy Ally: Inside Saudi Arabia”:

So clearly, the situation in S.A. is similar to the Taleban, although the Saudi government is monarchical, not a dictatorship.

What should we do? Until we can decrease our dependency on their oil, we will most certainly have to work with Saudi Arabia. And I’m not in support of re-organizing their government for them - that’s really not going to solve the problem at all, AFAICS. It will certainly make Muslims hate us more, however.

The biggest problem seems to be the huge ideological rift between our secular form of government and the Islamic-based governments that dominate the Middle East. How can we reconcile these differences without imposing our own form of government on Saudi Arabia? We cannot ask them to switch from monarcy to democracy. We cannot rewrite their judicial system. Perhaps with enough force, we could “subdue” them, but I don’t necessarily know if that’s what America, as a country, wants. I certainly don’t think it would be successful or beneficial.

I’m asking you guys; personally, I haven’t a clue (well, I have a few ideas, but I’m not so sure they are feasible.) I don’t know enough about Saudi Arabia to decide. I was foolishly hoping that our tepid relationship with S.A. could continue as is, but that isn’t the answer either.