The Saudi ruling bargain is an old partnership between the al-Saud tribe and the Wahhabi religious sect. The al-Saud tribe get to stay in power and live however they want behind their palace walls, and, in return, the followers of the Wahhabi sect get to control the country’s religious mores, mosques and education system.
From my reading (see my library) this is a spot-on summary of the situation in Saudi Arabia, from Tom Friedman in the New York Times on 11 May.
As Friedman has been saying consistently for some years, this alone is a powerful reason for the US to wean itself off oil -- quite apart from the global warming aspect. The security reason ought to resonate strongly even on the Republican right.
As Friedman has been saying consistently for some years, this alone is a powerful reason for the US to wean itself off oil -- quite apart from the global warming aspect. The security reason ought to resonate strongly even on the Republican right.
Another quote from Saudi writer Mai Yamani:
.... During the 1980s, Saudi Arabia spent some $75 billion for the propagation of Wahhabism, funding schools, mosques, and charities throughout the Islamic world, from Pakistan to Afghanistan, Yemen, Algeria and beyond. ... Not surprisingly, the creation of a transnational Islamic political movement, boosted by thousands of underground jihadist Web sites, has blown back into the kingdom. Like the hijackers of 9/11, who were also Saudi-Wahhabi ideological exports ... Saudi Arabia’s reserve army of potential terrorists remains, because the Wahhabi factory of fanatical ideas remains intact. So the real battle has not been with Bin Laden, but with that Saudi state-supported ideology factory.
