Prev msg | Threaded Index | Next msg Post A Follow-Up Message To: gulf2000-14@columbia.edu From: ak2034@columbia.edu Date: Fri, 30 Aug 2002 11:50:38 -0400 (EDT)
Aug 30, 2002- Los Angeles Times op/ed: A Bush Family Face-
Off on Saudi Arabia
President and father seem to be at odds on princes' role
and the need for a war.
By EDWARD N. LUTTWAK, Edward N. Luttwak is a senior fellow
at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in
Washington.
The sharp quarrel between the two Bushes over the wisdom of
attacking Saddam Hussein is much more than just a
disagreement over policy for the Middle East. It reflects
radically divergent concepts of strategy and energy
economics. There is even a basic difference in cultural
values. But the real fork in the road for the two Bushes is
that, when it comes to the subject of Iraq, their
disagreement is really about Saudi Arabia.
Former President George Bush and his compatriots not only
consider the Saudi ruling family one of the most important
allies of the U.S., but they actually have a Saudi-centered
view of the Middle East. Therefore they vehemently oppose a
war to remove Hussein because their sources, chiefly Prince
Bandar ibn Sultan, longtime Saudi ambassador to Washington,
tell them that the de facto ruler, Crown Prince Abdullah,
and other prudent members of the family are terrified of
the Arab and Muslim reaction if bombs start falling on
Baghdad.
The Saudis have a point. Having indoctrinated their
population in the strictest variety of Islamic
fundamentalism, one that prohibits any form of amity with
Christians or Jews (pagans must convert or die), they are
of course bitterly criticized for relying on the protection
of the "Christian" U.S., which supports Israel--a.k.a. the
Jews--and which just recently defeated the impeccably
fundamentalist Taliban of Afghanistan.
Hussein was never religious and certainly is no
fundamentalist, but in recent years he has stressed his
Islamic identity more and more. His speeches are now filled
with invocations to Allah and quotes from the Koran.
If the U.S. now attacks him--almost certainly with the help
of non-Arab Kurdish and Turkoman militias--both Arab and
Muslim fury will be aroused against the Americans and, by
extension, the American-protected Saudi family.
While the foreign minister and other top princes keep
saying that Saudi Arabia will not allow its territory or
bases to be used for any American war against Hussein, that
only slightly limits the damage. Besides, their enemies
simply do not believe the Saudis, and with good reason: It
is just not credible that U.S. forces and logistic support
on Saudi bases would remain passive amid the exigencies of
war.
There is worse. Any U.S. war against Hussein would be
fought under the banner of democracy. Both U.S. officials
and Iraqi exiled leaders already have declared that their
aim is to replace Hussein's dictatorship with a democratic
and federal parliamentary republic. That frightens the
Saudis--who operate a family dictatorship without even the
facade of a popular assembly--and makes Bush senior and his
colleagues very uncomfortable. As Americans, they cannot
speak out against democracy, but in the 1991 Gulf War, at
Saudi insistence, they refused to allow any mention of it
in the propaganda beamed to Iraq. The crowd around Bush
senior still fears that democracy is a threat in the Middle
East because it would allow fundamentalists to come to
power; "better the princes we know" is their slogan.
Why is Saudi Arabia so valuable an ally in the eyes of Bush
senior and his men? For them the answer is too obvious to
be worth discussing: oil--or more precisely the unique
ability of Saudi Arabia to pump extra oil when the price
rises too much, thus safeguarding the world economy from
another round of inflation. Almost as valuable is the Saudi
ability to cut back production to drive up prices when they
fall too much, endangering the economic stability of all
countries that rely primarily on oil exports. Oil is
produced in many countries these days, but only the Saudis
control the price of oil, and therefore of energy worldwide.
President George W. Bush and his closest advisors see the
cheap oil of Arabia as the greatest disincentive to the
development of alternative sources of energy, including new
oil outside the Middle East--in Alaska, for example.
Instead of valuing the Saudi policy of keeping oil below
$30 per barrel, they see it as a frustrating obstacle to
any rational energy policy. And, of course, it reduces the
earnings of Texan and other domestic oil producers.
Since Sept. 11, Bush junior and his camp have received an
entire education in how Saudi oil revenue is spent: in part
for the profligate luxuries of more than 5,000 princes with
their large families and in part to operate Islamic centers
and madrasas (Islamic schools) around the world that
propagate the most extreme fundamentalism--the creed of
Osama bin Laden.
Bush senior and friends are not much concerned with
religion and still think it perfectly natural for the
Saudis to promote their creed, whatever it is. Bush junior
is a devoted Christian by all accounts, does pay attention
to religious matters and is therefore very conscious of the
wide gap between the fanatical, hate-filled fundamentalism
that the Saudis have been exporting and the milder
doctrines of traditional Islam that it is displacing with
disastrous results.
Even the princely luxuries are far from harmless. While the
invalid King Fahd flies around with more than 300 servants,
his own cars, food and water, and other lesser princes have
immense villas with solid-gold doorknobs and such (one has
his own fire brigade), Saudi Arabia is becoming an
increasingly poor country. Unemployment is more than 20%,
and there is a growing problem of outright deprivation,
even hunger. That is the greatest threat to the political
equilibrium of the country and of Arabia as a whole.
Bush senior's camp views the Saudi ruling family as the key
to stability, but his son's followers increasingly
disagree. They are not eager to see the Saudis overthrown,
but they now believe that the Saudis' blind greed and overt
profligacy are undermining their rule and that, in any
case, U.S. policies should not be inhibited by Saudi needs.
Above all, there is a difference in strategic concepts.
Bush senior and his followers compare the certain costs,
high risks and uncertain benefits of a war against Hussein
to conclude that it should not be fought, especially
because it risks a Saudi collapse. In business terms, they
see war as a losing proposition.
By contrast, Bush junior and cohorts are not planning a war
against Hussein in the hope of achieving any positive gains
but rather to avoid the catastrophic losses of another
Sept. 11. They are convinced that Hussein has refused to
allow U.N. inspectors--and paid the huge price of years of
United Nations' sanctions--to accumulate biological,
chemical and radiological weapons because he wants to use
them.
Intelligence profiles show that Hussein's driving
motivation is revenge, and while he has a long list of
other enemies he would like to obliterate, the Americans
are at the top. The Kuwaitis and Saudis, by the way, easily
outrank the Israelis on that list. Because Bush junior is
now convinced that Hussein will attack one day unless he is
attacked first, he sees only danger and no compelling
advantage in waiting.
Having presided impotently over the Sept. 11 catastrophe,
he is determined to avoid a repetition--at all costs,
including the survival of the Saudi regime that his father
views so highly.
There is also the cultural factor. By all appearances, Bush
senior positively enjoys spending time with the graciously
hospitable, if not too bright, Bandar, as well as other
Saudi princes. Brent Scowcroft, who was national security
advisor to the elder Bush, is a devotee of high-altitude
hiking in the costly elegance of Aspen, where Bandar owns
an immense parody of a Swiss chalet. And Bandar is
generous: He gives out Rolex watches as tips (he once
embarrassed the staff of CNN's "Crossfire" by passing them
by the handful to junior aides and camera crews). One
assumes that Saudi generosity toward political consultants,
such as the highly respected Scowcroft Associates, is of
greater dimensions than a mere handful of $5,000 Rolex
watches.
Bush junior, by contrast, does not go to Aspen. He seems
immune to its stylish attractions, preferring the plain
comforts of his far-from-luxurious Crawford ranch. To be
sure, Bandar has been there, but not as often as Israeli
visitors.
Some, inevitably, prefer to see the Iraq dispute between
father and son in terms of rival conspiracies:
international industrialists and the oil interests on one
side, the Zionists on the other. There may be something to
that, but not much. The most bitter and influential
opponents of the Saudis in the U.S. are not Jews or
Zionists but rather the many U.S. military officers and
diplomats who have served in Saudi Arabia and who despise
the princes and abhor the fanaticism they propagate.
In any case, as far as President Bush is concerned, the
debate is over.
He has heard his father and knows the views of his father's
former officials. He has made his decision: Saddam Hussein
must go, even if the Saudis go down with him.
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