Saudi Arabia: Friend or Foe?

Last week, attacks on three separate housing compounds in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, were undertaken by suicide bombers believed to be part of the al-Qaeda terror network. The attacks, excluding the suicide bombers, killed 25 people including eight Americans.

Saudi foreign policy adviser Adel Al-Jubeir was quick to jump on the airwaves to condemn the attacks. Al-Jubeir said, "Our hearts go out to all who have lost loved ones." In a statement, Al-Jubeir also said, "We will fight the terrorists and those who support them, with determination and vigor on all fronts."

Ever since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and President Bush's statement that "you are either with us or you're with the terrorists," the eyes of many Americans have been fixed on Saudi Arabia, and one question continues to be asked: Is Saudi Arabia a friend or a foe?

In a draft report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) titled "Saudi Security and the War on Terrorism," the authors state that Saudi Arabia "does not support international terrorism and has long fought its own battles against internal extremist movements."

The authors further state, "King Fahd, Crown Prince Abdullah, the Saudi Foreign Minister, the Saudi Defense Minister, and the Saudi Minister of the Interior, and other leading Saudi officials supported efforts to limit the activities of Islamic extremists and terrorists long before September 11th."

The report claims that the Saudi government "does not seem to have deliberately funded Islamic extremism or violence, with the exception of support for the Afghans seeking to drive the Soviet Union out of Afghanistan." But in the next sentence, the report describes Saudi support for worldwide "Islamic fundamentalist causes."

According to CSIS: "[Saudi Arabia] provided aid to Islamic movements and charities without properly examining their true character and who then funneled the money into extremist causes or that it attempted to buy off movements like the Taliban in ways that ultimately led to the money being used in extremist causes. It also has provided broader funding to elements of foreign governments like the Taliban in Afghanistan and the ISI in Pakistan which then use the money to support Islamic extremist and violent movements."

In a recently released report by the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), the commission states: "In addition to ongoing and egregious violations of religious freedom inside Saudi Arabia, activities that are financed or supported, directly or indirectly, by the Saudi government to promote its interpretation of Islam, often referred to as Wahhabism, outside of Saudi Arabia have raised some troubling questions about that government’s role in promoting religious intolerance in other countries toward both Muslims and non-Muslims in other countries."

Speaking on NBC's "Meet the Press" on May 18, Al-Jubeir addressed questions of Saudi funding of terrorism by saying: "[W]e are targeted by al-Qaeda, they're coming after us. Their objective is to change and topple the government in Saudi Arabia."

Al-Jubeir said that Saudi Arabia "has been effective in the war on terrorism." Al-Jubeir went on to say that part of the problem with the Saudi image is that "we don’t explain the steps that we’ve taken, and it creates the impression that we’re not doing something."

In addressing a specific accusation of Saudi terror funding, Al-Jubeir said: "When people say money from Princess Haifa made its way to the hijackers, we have no evidence to that effect. She gave money to a Jordanian lady who in turn may have given it to her husband. Her husband may have had contact with them. That’s like saying Suntrust Banks is involved in the financing of 9/11 because one of the hijackers had a bank account there."

Despite growing concern over the actions (or lack thereof) of the Saudi government to crack down on terrorism, the Bush administration has been reluctant to deal sternly with the Saudi government. In September 2002, the USCIRF sent a letter to Secretary of State Colin Powell recommending that Saudi Arabia be placed on the list of "countries of particular concern" (CPCs). A country on that list is said to be an "egregious religious freedom violator." Despite the recommendation, Saudi Arabia was not placed on the list.

In its report, the commission also noted its concern about "credible reports that Saudis are funding, directly and indirectly, efforts to propagate globally, including in the United States, a religious ideology that promotes hate, intolerance, and other human rights violations, in some cases violence, toward members of other religious groups, both Muslim and non-Muslims."

In a post-9/11 world, promises are no longer enough. The lives of innocent Americans cannot hang on idle talk. If Saudi Arabia is serious about confronting terrorism, it must show it.

The 9/11 attackers were mostly Saudi; the attacks in Riyadh were planned and orchestrated by Saudis. If the Saudi government is not directly sponsoring terrorism, then it needs to take a long look in the mirror and ask itself what kind of environment exists in Saudi Arabia that fosters such hatred and disdain that its countrymen would fly airliners into buildings or blow themselves up in housing compounds.

It is time for Saudi Arabia to join the war on terror. It is also time for the Bush administration to stop tap-dancing with a partner who wears a suicide-bomber belt.