Shoring Up the Kingdom
By Marguerite Johnson
Confidence has returned, but the Saudis must wrestle with change
There are few nations in the world whose stability and friendship are as important to the West and the U.S. in particular as Saudi Arabia, the desert kingdom that harbors nearly a quarter of the world's proven oil reserves and furnishes 20% of American crude oil imports. Its importance is matched only by its strategic vulnerability, but in recent months the Saudis have been taking strong measures to reinforce themselves. Among other things, they have been rushing the new Reagan Administration--successfully, it turns out--to provide them with more sophisticated and controversial weaponry--specifically, extra equipment for 60 F-15 fighter-bombers they have contracted to buy. For this comprehensive assessment of the Saudis' new assertiveness, TIME Middle East Bureau Chief William Stewart spent five weeks traveling throughout the country.
For a time Saudi Arabia seemed to be adrift, threatening to become the new sick man of the Middle East. Its chain of adversity began with the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty that divided the Arab world, in whose spirited leadership, at least, the Saudis, keepers of Mecca, have always felt a special role. Then came the Islamic revolution that toppled the Shah of Iran, and by implication threatened conservative Muslim regimes everywhere. At home, a fanatical band of orthodox Muslims seized the Sacred Mosque at Mecca and occupied it for two weeks before Saudi armed forces could dislodge them. It was an act of rebellion and sacrilege unparalleled in the nation's 50-year existence. Finally a shooting war broke out between Iraq and Iran, further fracturing Islamic loyalties and threatening the region's stability.
But disorder and challenge have proved to be a spur; shaken confidence has turned into action. The Saudis have launched a three-pronged campaign, as one Western official put it, "to draw their wagons in a circle." In defense, to deter any attack against their oilfields, they have been trying to strengthen their inadequate armed forces with the best military hardware money can buy. In diplomacy, the Saudis have been trying to reduce their nearly exclusive dependence on the U.S. with an incipient gulf federation, a more active leadership role in the Arab world, and broadened new ties in Western Europe. Perhaps most important, they have been trying to come to grips with the potential for internal troubles by controlling the impact of breakneck development and foreign influence on their ultraconservative Muslim culture. As a result, Saudi leadership views the world from the palaces of Riyadh with considerably more confidence than it has in some time--and wants the world to know it. Concludes a long-experienced U.S. observer in Jidda: "The Saudis are determined to get the message across that they are not in immediate jeopardy." Concerned officials and experts in Washington and other capitals tend to agree. The outlines of the Saudis' tripartite campaign:
Defense. The aim of the Saudis' military program is to build a credible deterrent that would serve notice on any potential aggressor that a move against the country or its oilfields could bring swift retaliation. Their exposed position is obvious: 4,400 miles of difficult-to-defend borders encircled by strategic problems. To the north, two radical neighbors, Syria and Iraq. To the south, Marxist South Yemen, teeming with East bloc advisers. Across the gulf, revolutionary Iran, which regards the Saudi monarchy as corrupt and Saudi society as decadent. To defend itself in this cockpit, the Saudis can deploy a 45,000-man army, a 4,000-man navy and a 17,000-man air force.
Even with the combined forces of friendly gulf states, that is still a military force smaller than that of The Netherlands.
Money is no problem; this year the Saudis have allocated $20.7 billion for defense. But they suffer from a serious military manpower shortage. To help deal with it, they have entered into military cooperation with the populous, pro-Western Islamic country of Pakistan. The Pakistani government is training Saudi officers and has furnished an estimated 1,000 advisers to the Saudis.
The U.S. has taken steps to reassure the Saudis that in the event of attack, help would be forthcoming. Last March the Carter Administration announced the formation of a Rapid Deployment Joint Task Force of 200,000 men, from which an expeditionary force could quickly be formed. To monitor Iranian air activity across the gulf after the Iraq-Iran war broke out last fall, Washington dispatched four AWACS radar early warning planes, along with 500 men to operate them. Last week the Reagan Administration took American commitment to the Saudis a big step forward: the State Department announced that the U.S. would sell the Saudis at least some of the F-15 accessories they had been seeking. Included in the new equipment will be longer-range fuel tanks and air-to-air missiles. Still under discussion are bomb racks and refueling capability for the F-15s.
State Department Spokesman William Dyess said the agreement was justified because of "serious security conditions in the Middle East." Whether the sale can get congressional approval remains to be seen; many Congressmen have already expressed opposition. Israeli Ambassador to Washington Ephraim Evron promptly notified the U.S. of "his disappointment and concern over the decision," which he said would "exacerbate the arms race and increase the dangers for Israel." The Saudis were understandably elated because they had seen the proposed sale as a symbolic test of U.S. commitment to their defense. Saudi sensitivity on the question had been such that when Crown Prince Fahd was asked about congressional opposition, he had angrily exclaimed: "If American and other Western countries slam the door in our face why not buy from the U.S.S.R.?"
The Saudis also feel that it makes good military sense to diversify the sources of their military equipment and support, and have looked to Europe for assistance. During the Mecca uprising, France supplied antiterrorist advisers to the Saudis, and West Germany is currently training Saudis in counterterrorist tactics. Now the Saudis are especially interested in such European-produced "next generation" weaponry as Leopard tanks from West Germany and the Super Mirage 4000s from France, and they are prepared to trade highly sweetened, long-term oil deals for them. Explains a West German defense contractor: "There's prestige in mere possession of such weapons systems It strengthens their bona fides with other Arabs. And God knows the Saudis can afford them." In addition, in the Saudi view, if the West Europeans can also exert some leverage on the U.S., so much the better.
Diplomacy. The Saudi defense buildup is being matched by a major diplomatic effort that readily converts Riyadh's financial clout into political muscle. The Saudi diplomatic watchwords have traditionally been discretion and caution--so much so that Egyptian President Anwar Sadat occasionally upbraided the Saudi rulers as "afraid of their own shadows." Now, noting recent Saudi successes at carving out a mediating role for themselves in the region, one of Sadat's own advisers acknowledges that the Saudis are "no longer seen as weak reactionaries but have a newly acquired respectability."
In recent months, the Saudis have been meeting with five other Persian Gulf states* to lay the political underpinning for a proposed Gulf Council for Cooperation, which would bind the region with formal defense as well as economic and cultural ties. They have improved relations with a radical former adversary, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, to the extent that Riyadh was accused of complicity--or at least patent moral support --in Iraq's original assault against Iran.
When tensions between Jordan's King Hussein and Syria's President Hafez Assad threatened an outbreak of hostilities early this winter, the Saudis skillfully stepped in and cajoled the saber-rattling neighbors into a wary detente. Some diplomats now believe that the Saudis may even be getting ready to make political peace with Sadat, with whom they broke relations in protest over the Camp David peace accord.
Saudi leaders recognize that Egypt could ultimately prove to be a crucial military ally in fending off Soviet advances in the gulf. The Egyptians, they realize, would also be indispensable to any comprehensive Middle East peace settlement that also provided a homeland for the 4.3 million Palestianians scattered throughout the Middle East. The Saudis regard the Palestinian problem as the principal threat to stability in the region, and it is hardly lost on the Saudi leadership that there are an estimated Palestinians in their own country, many of them in highly skilled and influential jobs. Riyadh lately has also called for a jihad, or holy crusade, to liberate the occupied territories.
The Saudis' overriding political purpose is thus to persuade Washington to pressure Israel into working toward a solution to the Palestinian problem. U.S. officials were caught by surprise in 1973 when the Saudis joined OPEC in the oil embargo. Observers now caution that Washington should be under no illusion that the Saudis would not use their oil weapon again if they felt they had to. Moreover the Saudis presently feel that the US owes them a great deal for having increased oil production twice during the past two years--and at a price that is $4 per bbl. below that of the other major oil producers.
Domestic Policy. At home, an avalanche of petrodollars is confronting the Saudis with a profound dilemma: how to preserve the country's Islamic identity and conservative values in the face of a headlong, frequently pell-mell rush of development. The men who face this problem are the members of the royal House of Saud, which has ruled the kingdom of Saudi Arabia since 1932 and which, perhaps like no other dynasty in the world, has turned the running of a country into a family business. All key decision-making positions are held by the royal family which consists of an estimated 5000 princes. At the apex is King Khalid bin Abdul Aziz, 68, who has turned out to be surprisingly popular, projecting an image of old-fashioned rectitude and drinking countless cups of thick coffee while listening patiently to complaints and petitions during tours of remote provinces If the King is a kind of chairman of the board, Crown Prince Fahd bin Abdul Aziz, 59, his halfbrother, is chief executive officer. Amiable and energetic he enjoys the exercise of power and, as one U.S. observer calculates, "is involved in more issues than anyone else, as the real day-to-day head of government."
The old Red Sea port of Jidda and the inland capital of Riyadh, each with a population of more than 1 million today have become two of the fastest growing cities in the Middle East. Skyscrapers sprout from the desert landscape. Building cranes bristle across the horizon. Multi-lane highways and ringroads girdle the cities. Old neighborhoods change dramatically in a matter of weeks; new ones spring up overnight. The din of traffic and construction, residents complain, makes it virtually impossible to sleep after 6 a.m.
In the cacaphony, the clash of old and new, of Islamic and Western ways, is harsh and sometimes bizarre. A $500 million 200-unit apartment complex in Jidda has yet to be occupied nearly a year after completion, because religious conservatives objected to the lack of separate elevators for women. Concedes the city's young mayor, Mohammed Said Farsi, an architect educated in Egypt and Britain: "Our biggest problem has been too rapid expansion."
The government's current $285 billion five-year plan puts the emphasis on diversification to reduce the overwhelming dependence on oil exports in the future. Huge industrial cities are under construction, one at Jubail on the Persian Gulf, the other at Yanbu on the Red Sea. By the end of the century, the two cities are to accommodate five new refineries, seven petrochemical facilities, a hydrocarbon fertilizer plant and an iron and steel complex.
To keep the economy booming, and to perform the menial tasks that the Saudis are loath to perform for themselves, the country finds it increasingly necessary to rely on an estimated 1.7 million foreign workers. There are Yemenis, Pakistanis, Indians, Koreans, Filipinos and some 45,000 Americans, fully 43% of the Saudi labor force. But the uprising at Mecca, in which a number of foreigners participated, frightened the Saudis. Today, guest workers must have both a sponsor and a specific job before entering the country. Most are not able to bring their families, and aspire only to earn a nest egg quickly and return home. But in time the government will have to turn to more and more foreigners to staff its massive construction and industrial projects. Long-term workers, in turn, will want to start settling down, and that will make foreign influences felt more strongly.
With lavish paternalism, the government has undertaken a huge program to rehouse the population, with 200,000 apartment units and individual houses. Almost anyone who wants to build a new house can readily obtain a $100,000 loan, interest-free, repayable over 20 years. University students receive $200 monthly stipends. Even so, many schools find it hard to keep students, because going into business has become a national pastime. Reports a Western businessman: "Officials of Aramco (Arabian-American Oil Company) and Saudia, the national airline, complain that Saudi employees stay only until they have learned how to make money, then they leave."
Corruption has become pervasive. An ever widening "inner circle" around the royal family takes advantage of their powerful connections to line personal coffers (see ECONOMY & BUSINESS). "Corruption is eating away at values," complains a U.S. businessman. The Saudis themselves reflect sadly that "extravagance is out of hand" and "people are becoming time-and money-conscious." Cultural clash has been wrenching for women. Fathers complain that many daughters are too readily throwing off traditionalist values, and their veils. The government is promoting better, though segregated, educational opportunities for women. But then they are not allowed to work where they could come into contact with strange men; everything from law offices to banks is off-limits. The only approved professions for women are in education, welfare and nursing.
Fabulous oil wealth. Bureaucrats and businessmen on the make. An absolutist monarchy. Billions of dollars for military hardware. To many, it all seems to evoke a formula disturbingly like the Shah's Iran. The Saudis, however, argue that, for all their problems, their essential situation is different: 1) The Shah ran a strictly one-man show and remained aloof from his people, whereas King Khalid and the senior princes keep close contact with the populace by means of regular audiences known as majlis. 2) The Shah alienated the Muslim clergy, but the Saudi dynasty has financed them and often married into their families. 3) The Shah built a formidable military machine, but oil wealth did nothing for the common people; the Saudis, on the other hand, have made sure that wealth is spread through all sectors of society.
Concludes Hisham Nazer, the Minister of Planning, confidently: "It was the lack of development in Iran that was the problem, not rapid development. The Shah built a navy, but he didn't build houses. In Saudi Arabia we have built 200,000 houses. Development here concentrates on wealth filtering down."
Some Saudis feel that if there is a threat to the country, it could come, even within two to three years, from the overloading of an antiquated central government. With all power vested in the hands of a few family members, the fear is that the ruling structure could develop a "soft center" that could collapse under the sheer weight of decisions required by the complexities of a modern economy. And in that event, the way would be open for external subversion.
But most remain optimistic that the House of Saud will see the need and adapt in time, even encouraging the development of more broadly based political institutions. If there is anything to mourn, it may be the passing of the old Saudi Arabia. Already there is a detectable sense of regret for a lost way of life that can never be recaptured. "If you go to the tribes now," says a Saudi technocrat, "you will find gentlemen Bedouins, like gentlemen farmers, who hire a caretaker for the sheep while they enjoy the luxuries of their new villa." But then he notes with hopeful satisfaction that after Hawaii, after Los Angeles, after Europe, many Saudis are returning to cherish some of the old ways, "to be religious, to be--what shall I say?--humble. The spirit, the core is still there."
--By Marguerite Johnson
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