Madawi Al-Rasheed is Visiting Professor at the Middle East Centre at The London School of Economics and Political Science. She is originally from Saudi Arabia and currently lives in London. Her research focuses on history, society, religion and politics in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf. Her recent publications include A History of Saudi Arabia and A Most Masculine State .
Transcript
PAUL JAY, SENIOR EDITOR, TRNN: Welcome to The Real News Network. I'm Paul Jay.
On Friday, President Obama met with King Abdullah from Saudi Arabia to "repair frayed ties", according to The Wall Street Journal; New York Times said, to give assurances to Saudi Arabia on Syria and Iran.
But the problems between the United States and Saudi Arabia go far deeper than just some assurances can fix. Saudi Arabia sees the negotiations with Iran and sees Iran itself as an existential threat. It also sees the Arab Awakening, Arab Spring movements as existential threats. It sees the fight in Syria as part of a fight with Iran--again, as part of an existential threat.
The United States doesn't see these issues the same way. America's national interest, as articulated by President Obama, can see these issues as things that can be managed. Well, that puts them on quite a different page with the Saudis.
Now joining us to talk about all of this is Madawi Al-Rasheed. She's a visiting professor at the Middle East Center at the London School of Economics and Political Science. She's originally from Saudi Arabia and currently lives in London. Her research focuses on history, society, religion, politics in Saudi Arabia, and the Gulf. And her recent publications include A History of Saudi Arabia and A Most Masculine State.
Thanks very much for joining us, Madawi.
PROF. MADAWI AL-RASHEED, MIDDLE EAST CENTRE, LSE: Thank you.
JAY: So what do you think of what I'm suggesting? The difference here is Saudi Arabia sees these things as a real threat to their rule, the Americans don't, and American interest and Saudi interest isn't quite on the same page as much as it used to be.
AL-RASHEED: Yes, and I think what brought all this rift between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia is the Arab uprising. In 2011, Saudi Arabia was shocked, and as a result of the uprisings starting in North Africa and then moving close to home, in Yemen, Bahrain, and even Eastern Saudi Arabia. And therefore Saudi Arabia developed two strategies to deal with this uprising.
The first one is a determination to preserve monarchy as a form of government in the Arab world, starting with the GCC, and then in North Africa, Morocco, and in Jordan.
And the second strategy was to try using all means to revert the situation to the earlier phase, when it had these loyal allies in the person of Mubarak and Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and the others. And therefore Saudi Arabia wanted to return to a kind of militarized republicanism in places like Egypt and in Yemen and elsewhere.
And therefore it tried to play this role as a counterrevolutionary force in the Arab world.
Now, from the perspective of the United States, the United States also didn't really desire this Arab uprising, because it was very comfortable with the old Arab order. But even if it was cracking internally at the domestic level, it did serve the purpose of Washington, for example in maintaining stability on top of fermenting a sort of chaos and repression, and therefore the divergence between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia came as a result of the U.S. position that was not willing to save Mubarak, for example. So Egypt was key to this rift between the U.S. and Riyadh.
And on top of that, Saudi Arabia wanted to have another military adventure in Syria, when it pushed through the Arab League first, and then the United Nations Security Council, and, finally, putting pressure on Washington to deal with the Assad regime using military force, as it did in Libya.
So Saudi Arabia was pushing for military action against Assad, but Western government--Washington, London, Paris--were talking about military action but were not prepared to go into a war over Syria, simply because Syria was more complex than Libya, where military action or direct military intervention did take place.
And hence the conflict between Saudi Arabia and the U.S. started at that moment when Riyadh realized that its pressure on Washington is not going to give the right result, from the perspective of the Saudi regime. And finally, while Saudi Arabia was pushing the U.S. to take military action against Iran's nuclear program, it was shocked when it transpired just a couple of months ago that Washington and Iran were carrying out secret negotiations organized under the patronage of nobody but Oman, an important member in the Gulf Cooperation Council. And these negotiations were going to lead to further discussions that may end up lifting the sanctions on Iran and rehabilitating Iran in the international community. And therefore Saudi Arabia realized that it cannot trust Washington anymore, because in the past three, four, five decades, Saudi Arabia was actually part of U.S. policy in the Muslim world, let alone the Arab world. During the Cold War, Saudi Arabia was a close ally. It used its influence, its even religious ideology in order to fight communism in places like Afghanistan and elsewhere in the Arab world.
JAY: [incompr.] a very, very close ally of the CIA, involved in a lot of the black ops and rather dirty operations.
AL-RASHEED: Oh, absolutely. I mean, it was going on for years. But Saudi Arabia felt that it is incumbent on Washington now to honor Saudi wishes, which obviously is not happening at the moment. Hence Mr. Obama's visit to Riyadh was supposed to, in inverted commas, assure Saudis of the close ties between the two countries.
But I think the relationship had been fraught from the very beginning. Here is a country in the Middle East which has extreme wealth, and also extreme importance to Muslims around the world, yet this country remains the epitome of a repressive authoritarian monarchy that is allied with the United States that claims to support democracy and human rights and freedom of expression and all the other things that democracies want to happen.
Yet the Americans have decided that only realism would allow them to have relations as close and as intimate as the ones they have with Saudi Arabia. And I think in 2014 we're seeing the limits of this American realism in its foreign policy, and the rift with Saudi Arabia is symptomatic of this divergence of interests. And I think Washington wants to contain the Arab uprising and ensure that it can maintain good relations with whoever comes to power after these upheavals, whereas the Saudis from the very beginning opposed the Arab uprising and wanted to return to the status quo ante and was not going to have anything less than that. It decided to put its diplomatic and political weight behind projects that actually undermined the Arab uprising and divert them.
What is so interesting is--and also sad--is to see how Saudi Arabia opposed the North African uprising and also the ones that are in its vicinity, such as in Bahrain and in Yemen. But against this background, it put all its full weight behind the Syrian uprising, to the detriment of the Syrian uprising, and to diverting it from its early peaceful, democratic demands into something that resembled a sectarian war. And this is really the unfortunate development that resulted from Saudi foreign policy and its strategies to derail the Arab Spring or the Arab uprisings.JAY: The American attitude towards the Saudis is in some extent a little hard to understand at some level in terms of the broader national interests of the United States. And the only other one you can say that's like that is Israel, but that's a separate conversation. But there's a piece of this which I keep repeating 'cause I don't want this story to go away, although the rest of the media has let this story go away, which is--and, again, it's very hard for me to get my head around why. As I have said on The Real News many times, the congressional joint committee investigating 9/11, one of the leaders of that was Senator Bob Graham. And we did a series of interviews with him. They concluded that the Saudi government--not individual rogue princes or something; the Saudi government--although, if I understand correctly from some of your work, the Saudi government is very medieval with, essentially, like, fiefdoms and a king almost like a chairman of the board of the fiefdoms. But that being said, the congressional joint committee found that the Saudi government facilitated and financed the 9/11 attacks. This was enough to justify an invasion of Afghanistan although it had nothing to do with it. It was used to justify an invasion of Iraq. Yet the American-Saudi relations kind of carry on as if none of that happened. Why is that? AL-RASHEED: I think there are big questions to be asked in Washington itself. But from my perspective, it is simply a function of the so-called special relationship between Saudi Arabia and the U.S. But this special relationship has been magnified and made us believe that it's a holy alliance. And I think in politics there are no holy alliances. But if you imagine that 9/11 was the work of 15 hijackers who were not Saudi, who belonged to any other Arab countries, what would have happened to that Arab country? And how would Washington have reacted to that event? So there are big question marks. And I think perhaps the Obama administration is putting a brake or moving slower than previous administrations in dealing with Saudi Arabia and not sort of glorifying this medieval configuration. So, for example, on human rights, Washington lectures the whole world about abuse of human rights in countries that are deemed or considered to be unfriendly. But it's completely silent on Saudi Arabia. Yes, there are reports on religious freedom, reports on abuse of human rights, but is the work of civil society, really, in the U.S. and in the West in general. But it's never been an important issue brought openly for discussion by any American administration so far. And therefore it is not a holy alliance. There are interest groups who want us to believe that this is a holy alliance, the U.S. and Saudi Arabia. And obviously here we're talking about military weapons companies, we're talking about oil companies, we're talking about those who benefit from this political umbrella that is provided by Washington to Saudi Arabia and do not want to undermine this relationship, in order to keep its business and economic and financial, military relations going. JAY: Right. If this relationship were to rupture in some way and they be open about 9/11, but also many other issues, yeah, it would rather piss off (excuse the language) a great deal of American arms manufacturers, as the Saudis are one of the biggest purchasers of those arms there are. And they use that to play Europe, France, and England, the United States all off against each other. AL-RASHEED: Yes. And I think initially, when this so-called special relationship started in 1945, Saudi Arabia needed the U.S. more than the U.S. actually needed Saudi Arabia, until oil became abundant and the Saudi sort of government started having that surplus, which it recycled, and used it to buy weapons from Western governments. But at the same time, the Saudis realized recently that they have this purchasing power, and immediately after any kind of rift between Washington and Riyadh, the Saudis tried to arrange visits to other Western countries, or to Asia recently, and also offered to buy military equipment. And to just give you an example which is really symptomatic of this kind of empowerment that the Saudi regime feels, recently Saudi Arabia pledged $3 billion to the Lebanese government, and also aid to the Lebanese Army, provided that this money is used to buy military equipment from France. And this is interesting that this happened at the time when relationship with Washington was not going as usual. And therefore the Saudis are using their power to purchase military equipments and have huge contracts--and not only contacts to buy, but also to maintain the equipment afterwards. So it's an ongoing sort of source of income for these companies. And therefore it is using this purchasing power in order to put pressure on other governments, especially Western one, to remain silent on its own abuse of human rights, on its own undemocratic system, and also on its intrigues, whether they are direct or indirect in the Arab world and beyond. And I suppose the American position would be--they probably wouldn't say this openly, but they would say, well, what's the alternative to this regime? AL-RASHEED: Yes, we've heard this argument for the last 30, 40 years. Remember, when Egypt was under the dictatorship of Mr. Mubarak, everybody thought, oh, what is the alternative? The alternative is radical Islamists. And we saw how the Islamists did even participate in bringing this dramatic change in 2011. But, yes, when they were given an opportunity to participate in free elections, they did win. But then, a year later, they were removed from power as a result of a coup. And therefore the alternative is to actually to allow these societies to have a breathing space, to allow them to form free associations, civil society, in order to prepare for the alternative. But one thing that is really important is I don't know of any dictatorship that prepares its society for an alternative. If it does, then it wouldn't be called a dictatorship, would it? JAY: Right. Okay. We're going to continue the discussion in a second part and delve a little more into Saudi Arabia's domestic politics, both within the elites and outside the elites. So please join us for part two of our interview about Saudi Arabia on The Real News Network. =============== JAY: So I mentioned in an earlier segment that the joint congressional committee investigating 9/11 had found that the Saudi government was responsible for financing and facilitating the 9/11 attacks. And I interviewed Senator Bob Graham, who was cochair of that congressional investigating committee, and I asked him why he thought the Saudis had done this, and his answer was that bin Laden had told the Saudi king or the Saudi royal regime that he had 10,000 fighters that he could send to Saudi Arabia to try to develop an uprising against the Saudi royal family if they didn't help him launch these attacks. I don't know if Bob knows that for sure or not, Bob Graham, I don't know whether it's true or not true in terms of their motivation, but it is a kind of reflection of this very complicated relationship, where on the one hand, bin Laden's force, you know, when he was alive, certainly seemed to make the Saudi regime his main enemy, other than perhaps Shia. He talked about the way the Saudis' royal family had sold out to the Americans and such. On the other hand, there's all kinds of evidence that the Saudis have worked with these forces in Afghanistan and in many other places. So what is the nature of this relationship? AL-RASHEED: It is a very complex relationship. To begin with, Saudi Arabia wanted to use Islamism in its fight against any external threat that may have an internal impact. I'll give you one example. In the 1950s and '60s, Saudi Arabia saw the threat to its regime coming from the leftist movement in the Arab world, and also from Arab nationalism, and it used Islamism as a counter-force to actually destroy these two movements. And therefore it sponsored Islamic education, it sponsored Islamic opinions that depict these movements as atheism. And also, during the Cold War, it enlisted its ideology on behalf of the West in order to fight battles elsewhere, such as, for example, in Afghanistan. And therefore the Saudi-Wahhabi dimension of all this al-Qaeda is extremely important, although the Saudi regime tries to distance itself from this kind of radicalism. JAY: I think it's important to note that Eisenhower is quoted as saying that we will use--we being the United States--use the Saudis and their role in defending Mecca to help promote Wahhabism and the Saudi power to fight Nasserism, nationalism, and socialism. I may not have the quote exact, but I'm pretty close. And, of course, we know how much the CIA worked directly with the Saudis in Afghanistan. In fact, bin Laden gets to Afghanistan in a deal between the Saudis and the Americans. AL-RASHEED: Yes, absolutely. This was part of the Cold War strategy, and Saudi Arabia deployed its ideology and support, and also funds, in order to fight wars elsewhere. But the problem for Saudi Arabia is when this ideology came back to haunt the country itself. But it is almost like having a battle with your own ideology. And therefore it's very difficult for the Saudis to get rid of this kind of menace. And they haven't learned lessons from 9/11. So if you look at what is going on in Syria now, they have--the Saudis have created armed rebels who are actually almost working on behalf of the Saudis in Syria, so that the Syrian revolution was derailed and lost its democratic slogans, and now it's--became a sectarian war between different groups, Shia and the Sunnis. And with Saudi intervention, we find that the rebels who were promoted were called the Islamic Front. And we have seen how this was unfolding in Syria. Until recently, Saudi Arabia allowed its own young men to travel to Syria, or if it didn't allow them, it kept a blind eye. And only recently, just a week before Obama's visit, Saudi Arabia introduced this new antiterrorism law which says that anybody who goes to Syria and come back will face 20 years in prison. An interesting thing is, yes, we may keep a blind eye on those people going, but we're going to arrest them when they come back. But there was no effort that was obvious to me that they will make sure they will not go there to fight--. JAY: Well, it may be that they're going to make them stay there and fight, with a law like that. AL-RASHEED: I think the best thing that Saudi regime can hope for is for them to go and die there. JAY: That's sort of what I was saying. There seems to have been a change from the days when the Saudis seemed to be very concerned about attacks on their regime in Saudi Arabia from al-Qaeda forces. There seems to have been a kind of accommodation in some way that now, in fact, it seems that the al-Qaeda type forces are almost, like, part of the way the Saudis wage asymmetrical warfare and use them in leverage. I mean, the most obvious place is in Syria, but you see it in Iraq. But then you see these threats--you know, I talked about 9/11, but we know about Bandar's threat, Prince Bandar's threat to Tony Blair when there was an inquiry into the bribery scandal based on Saudis buying several billion dollars of weapons, and apparently Bandar got a billion-dollar bribe, and Bandar says to Blair, you'd better stop this inquiry or I can't promise there won't be another 7/7 (when the buses blew up in London). And more recently, apparently, Bandar threatened Putin and said, you know, we control the Chechen terrorists. It seems like it's a lever of power in their hands. AL-RASHEED: Yes, absolutely. And we have seen since 2008 there were no terrorist attacks in Saudi Arabia. They managed to push al-Qaeda to Yemen, basically. They haven't destroyed it. They haven't, you know, removed it. They simply had forced it to migrate to Yemen. And a lot of Saudis have left Saudi Arabia to go there. But the interesting thing is it has been used as a sort of a pressure on foreign governments, meaning that, you know, you do as we want you to do or we will not cooperate with you in terms of intelligence cooperation, or we would actually--you know, they wouldn't put it so directly, but, you know, it is a subtle hint that when the Serious Fraud Office in Britain wanted to open up the Al-Yamamah weapons deal and the corruption that was involved with BAE Systems, the Saudis immediately announced that if this serious fraud investigation goes ahead, they will cease to cooperate with Britain on intelligence, meaning that we will not be able to help you catch the terrorist, basically. And it is interesting that they may have had quite a close relationship, they know them so well, but they hold information about them that they're only going to release to those other intelligence services that cooperate with the Saudis, and also in governments that are supposedly friendly governments. JAY: Right. And the Saudis--one of the intelligence agencies the Saudis cooperate a lot with is the Pakistani ISI, and the Pakistani ISI seems to play the same game: you know, collaborate to some extent with the West in antiterrorist operations; on the other hand, there's lots of evidence the ISI has all kinds of relationship with the Taliban and al-Qaeda type forces. In fact, journalists that have reported on this have been assassinated by the ISI, including one that worked with us. AL-RASHEED: Yes. I mean, it is the al-Qaeda monster, it's the monster that was created at a particular historical moment and began to haunt all those contributing forces that made it happen and allowed it to flourish throughout the last three decades. And the Saudis had deployed the same strategy in Syria now, whereby individuals can go and join these rebels. They kept a blind eye for a long time. But then now, when international pressure is mounting, because they see how these rebels are really not an alternative to Bashar al-Assad, Saudis introduced this new terrorism law in order to deal with the situation. But whether it will actually work, I have my doubts. JAY: And I guess the Americans have been so part of this policy of working with extreme Islamists that they can't say or don't want to say much about it. AL-RASHEED: Yes. I mean, it is a well-known fact now. You know, the archives will be open and declassified information will be available, and future historians will probably write incredible books with concrete evidence. Now we get the information from leaked documents or from journalists who are actually in the field at the time and can report on us where the weapons to so-called rebels are coming from and who is sponsoring them. JAY: Okay. In the next segment of our interview, we're going to discuss why Saudi Arabia considers Iran such a mortal enemy. Please join us with Madawi Al-Rasheed on The Real News Network. End ================ Now joining us again from London is Madawi Al-Rasheed. She's a visiting professor at the Middle East Center at the London School of Economics and Political Science. She's originally from Saudi Arabia. She currently lives in London. Her research focuses on the history, society, and politics of Saudi Arabia and the Gulf. Recent publications include A History of Saudi Arabia and A Most Masculine State. Thanks for joining us again, Madawi. PROF. MADAWI AL-RASHEED, MIDDLE EAST CENTRE, LSE: Thank you. JAY: So, in the first segment of this interview, I opened it by saying certainly one of the key if not the key differences between the Saudis and the Americans and how they see Iran and the Arab Awakening, Arab Spring, the uprisings, is that the Saudi regime sees both of these things as existential threats and the United States does not. Why do they? Let's start with the Arab Awakening. What is the situation inside Saudi Arabia? In the final analysis, domestic politics usually determines almost all other politics. What are the Saudis afraid of? They seem to be so in control of the place. AL-RASHEED: Well, it is appearance, I think. The problem in Saudi Arabia is that society has changed a lot since the 1970s. Today we have a large cohort of youth, young people who are educated, who are using social media in a frenzy, I think, simply because other outlets are not allowed or banned. They have demanded political reform. Two thousand and one to 2011, there were 12 petitions addressed to the king asking for political change. Basically, these petitions in a country like Saudi Arabia are the only way to engage the leadership and express the wish of a cross section of society. They happen to be men, women, Islamists, non-Islamists, some are called liberals, others are more towards the religious side. But all of them wanted real political change. So what did they want? They wanted a constitutional monarchy, basically. Make the king more like an honorary figure, and have political participation in the country. You realize that Saudi Arabia until now--we are in the 21st century--does not have a national elected council, a parliament. It does not have the right to form civil society. There are no political parties. Basically, the country is run like an absolute monarchy with multiple heads, meaning that princes control important ministries that are their own sort of center of power, and the king is almost like an honorary figure who supervises these various ministries with their princely heads. And Saudis wanted to change that. They wanted more accountability. They wanted an end to corruption, which is very rife in the country. They wanted just basic rights, such as freedom of expression. You realize that a Tweet or a video clip on YouTube can actually land you in prison for several years. Just during Mr. Obama's visit to Saudi Arabia, three young Saudis posted video clips individually of themselves asking the king that their salaries are not enough, while they see that the Saudi princes enjoying luxury, which was actually made so obvious to them as a result of Mr. Obama's visit. There was one journalist, an American journalist accompanying Obama, who started Tweeting photos done on her iPhone to show the inside of the king's palace, and almost, like, a ranch outside [crosstalk] JAY: Yeah, this was, I think, the White House correspondent for Politico. AL-RASHEED: Yes, absolutely. And these photos went viral, because it gave Saudis an opportunity to see the opulence of these palaces while they were complaining that their salary, which is 1,900 Saudi riyal wasn't enough. Also, the three men who posted these YouTube videos, within 24 hours, they were taken into prison. And today, just a fourth one joined them in posting yet another video clip, protesting against the arrest of the previous ones. And therefore the Saudis are engaging with globalization, they are engaging with the discourse of human rights. They have been invigorated by what happened in the Arab world in 2011, but also disappointed by their government's position against these uprisings in the Arab world. And in the summer of 2013, a group of Saudis wrote a petition and circulated it saying that they are actually against what their government did in Egypt--mainly, supporting the military through subsidies, more than $12 billion by now, and in order to depose the Egyptian president, who was elected a year ago. And therefore the Saudi domestic scene is very volatile. But the government is keeping the lid on this sort of pressure cooker as a result of repression. But one is amazed how courageous those people are when they know that only a Tweet could lead someone to prison. And this has happened. Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch reported that the repression increased since 2011, and they have detailed reports on the various cases. And they are all political prisoners, prisoners of conscience or people who are put in prison simply because they formed a civil and political right association. And the sentences tend to be harsh. Some of them end up in prison for ten or 15 years. All this is making the Saudi regime worry about the impact. JAY: How significant is the repression and the resistance amongst the Shia in Saudi Arabia? I know it's a majority Sunni country, but the Shia are significant, and they also, if I'm correct, live mostly where most of the oil is. AL-RASHEED: Yes, absolutely. And the Shia are different from the Sunni majority in the sense that they are more experienced in civil disobedience, in staging demonstrations, in actually resisting. And they've been doing that since the 1950s as a result of their engagement with the right--the workers movement in the 1950s, which was suppressed, and later, in 1979, when they staged a rebellion in Saudi Arabia. But, interestingly, this mobilization in the Shia region did not lead to cross-sectarian solidarities, and therefore it remained isolated in the Eastern province. The Saudi regime adopted a strategy to basically undermine the credibility of the Shia uprising in the Eastern province and in Bahrain by claiming that these are Shia agents of Iran. And this is the dominant official narrative that some people, unfortunately, accepted at face value without challenging it or asking for evidence for the fact that the Shia are agents of Iran. Now, in other parts of Saudi Arabia we have seen quite a lot of mobilization, but very low-key, simply because the government tried to warn against those so-called agitators, and anybody who expressed a political opinion was immediately put in prison. And I give the example of Abdullah al-Hamid, Mohammad al-Qahtani, Suliman al-Reshoudi. These are really old activists who had been in and out of prison for more than 20 years now. And their crime, in the Saudi regime's eyes, was to form a Saudis' Association for Civil and Political Rights, to expose torture in Saudi prison, to actually encourage the relatives of political prisoners to assemble in front of the Ministry of Interior and the intelligence services asking for their relatives. And this kind of action is regarded as illegal in Saudi Arabia, and therefore Suliman al-Reshoudi, Mohammad al-Qahtani, and Abdullah al-Hamid were sentenced to between ten and 15 years in prison, and also banned from travel after the end of their prison sentence. And there are hundreds of other activists that face the same prison sentences in Saudi Arabia. JAY: You mentioned the Saudi working class movement. What state is it in? Is there still much of a movement? AL-RASHEED: It was a substantial movement in the 1950s, and it emerged out of the oil camps, where the American oil company started digging for oil. And they tried to organize themselves in a trade union. They staged demonstrations in the early '50s. But, again, from that moment the Saudi government a law to say that demonstrations are banned, and also dissolved all associations as the workers association. And now the only solution for Saudi activists is to get together online. So we have virtual protest that is serious. To just give you an example how it works, people, especially young Saudis, would devise a hashtag. For example, one hashtag was the salary is not enough. Or another one was the king doesn't represent me. And within hours, these hashtags on Twitter gathered momentum, and a lot of people started joining and contributing their 140 characters. But because there is no chance for this virtual mobilization to move to the real world now, it doesn't mean that in the future there is no hope. But I think in an authoritarian system, I find people are very creative in resisting, and they resist through using social media now. But there are other protests that has taken place in the real world. So we've already talked about the Shia protest movement. Another one is women. Women have been staging, starting with virtual mobilization, in order to ask for the right of employment and the right of movement, to be allowed to drive in Saudi Arabia, and then staged several campaigns, online campaigns. And slowly they are raising consciousness about these kind of issues. It hasn't happened that the ban is lifted, but it is moving into that direction. JAY: Do the--the Americans spend a lot of money from the Ukraine to Venezuela and many other places on what they call democracy promotion, giving money to NGOs and such. Did they do any of that in Saudi Arabia? AL-RASHEED: Well, in Saudi Arabia the situation is very dangerous. If any group or association or civil society is proven to have received money from outside, that is a criminal activity and they will definitely end up in prison. But, again, on Saturday, Mr. Obama honored a Saudi woman who is a doctor, and she was given an award, maybe in a symbolic gesture. But there are no really serious interest in gender equality in Saudi Arabia on behalf of all Western governments. While they are happy to criticize other governments for gender inequality, when it comes to Saudi Arabia, there's always this veneer of, oh, we must respect the local values; these are Islamic societies that have a different value system from us. But this is absolute rubbish, I'm sorry to say. It just invokes the old orientalist stereotypes about the Arab world or the Muslim world. And it is a pretext used by Western officials in order not to deal with this very thorny file of gender equality. And the fact that some Muslim women themselves are asking for emancipation and empowerment, they want to drive, they are the ones who are actually signing petitions to drive, it doesn't mean that driving is against Islam or it is not within that cultural tradition. And therefore there is this double standard and even hypocrisy on behalf of Western officials, that they make a big issue about these kind of files elsewhere, but when it comes to Saudi Arabia, they claim that they have to respect its own tradition and Islamic culture. And within Islam itself, we find the Islamists themselves have called for lifting the ban. Some of them have actually joined the campaign. And also they have called for the respect of human rights. I mean, the association that I mentioned, called the Association of Civil and Political Rights, was founded by a mixture of Islamists and liberals. JAY: Okay. We're going to continue our discussion with Madawa, and we're going to discuss the rather complicated relationship between the Saudi government and al-Qaeda and some of the extreme Islamist forces. So please join us for the continuation of this interview on The Real News Network. ============= The coming Saudi decentralization Author: Madawi Al-Rasheed Posted March 28, 2014 King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz of Saudi Arabia adhered to the unpredictable succession rule that dominates the Saudi system when he appointed Prince Muqrin as deputy crown prince on March 27. Muqrin, an ex-intelligence chief, will become crown prince after Prince Salman, and eventually king when both the king and current crown prince pass away. The Saudi Press Agency reported the appointment as a royal decree that cannot be challenged under any circumstances in the future. The royal statement must have come after months of deliberation among royals, who, like the rest of Saudia Arabia and the world, are impatiently waiting for a resolution of the mystery of succession in the kingdom. Summary⎙ Print The appointment of Prince Muqrin as deputy crown prince reveals a trend toward multiple power centers within the royal family.Author Madawi Al-Rasheed Posted March 28, 2014Abdullah missed an opportunity to resolve the succession issue, which sooner or later will have to be passed on to the second-generation princes awaiting their turn to shape the future of the kingdom. He overlooked the seniority principle and chose to elevate a close and loyal aide above not only other surviving brothers of the king, but also the new generation of princes. It was reported that the decision had the consent of 75% of the Oath of Allegiance Committee members, the 34 princes appointed by the king when it was established in 2007. The committee was meant to ensure a smooth succession to the throne as the king urged its royal members to "stand united, settling any differences by transparent dialogue and without allowing external forces to interfere in their private affairs." But the committee was meant to become active only after the death of Abdullah and the crown prince at the time, Prince Sultan. The king lived through the death of two crown princes, Sultan and Naif. Consequently, it became urgent to deal with the unexpected, mainly the succession moving to the second generation as a matter of necessity under the pressure of old age. It seems that the king did not want the committee to meet after his death, as stipulated in the committee’s constitution, and "elect" the future king. He may have anticipated a possible rift and resolved the matter in favor of Muqrin. Moving the succession to the second generation seems to threaten the balance of power between the various Al-Saud clans and will inevitably sideline a number of them if the succession is to move from its current horizontal line between brothers to a vertical one from father to son. The founder of the kingdom, Abdulaziz ibn Saud, marginalized his brothers when he appointed his own son, Saud, as crown prince in 1932. But this all happened at a time when it was possible to do so. Several decades later, the move is bound to be problematic for a simple reason: The founder’s many sons had already placed their own sons in key positions, and a handful of these sons are now key players in domestic and foreign policy. Take, for example, the son of Naif, Muhammad, who controls almost all aspects of Saudi internal affairs, or the king’s son Mitab, who has established control over the Saudi National Guard. Other clans within the family revolve around the sons of King Faisal, Sultan and Fahd, with several of their sons in control of important positions in the kingdom. Given the proliferation of royal positions and power holders, it is time to think of Saudi Arabia as a kingdom with multiple heads or several fiefdoms. In this context, the kingdom is no longer a centralized absolute monarchy as it used to be under King Faisal (1964-1975), but a cluster of clans under an honorary king, and over which Prince Muqrin will preside in due course. He will have to acknowledge the interest of each one of these clans and keep balancing the various factions in ways that do not undermine their privileges, positions and wealth. He can only do that by creating more positions that will absorb the growing number of princes within each clan. He will also have to be seen as a neutral arbiter between the various competing factions while not undermining their inherited control over key ministries and government arms. The pluralism that is currently unfolding among those in power is a mixed blessing. Internally, Saudis are trying to navigate this change and hope to place themselves in a patron-client relationship with at least one clan. They have been denied any say in the way their government is run, and the only available option is to become part of a princely circle of power. If one prince proves to be remote and uninterested, they may seek another, one more in need of developing his own clients to boost his popularity. The multiple princely actors within the state offer opportunities for a population denied any political representation or pressure groups. Despite the proliferation of state bureaucracy and institutions, politics in the kingdom remain personalized and revolve around the princes. The more Saudi princes there are, the more opportunities are believed to be available. The system works as long as the monarchical myth is sustained. This myth centers on the illusion that in this large pool of princes, there is always going to be one who listens and delivers. This pluralism may work, but it can also reach a dead end and generate chaos. The segmented nature of princely politics can be frustrating and counterproductive among a growing population that needs efficient and rational bureaucracy to deal with its various needs and welfare. The appointment of Muqrin as deputy crown prince may solve the mystery of succession, but it does not resolve the perils of multiple centers of power, each of which is in control of a ministry or branch of government. Externally, the princely pluralism is a challenge not only to foreign governments but also to anyone who deals with the kingdom. The personalized nature of politics undermines established long-term relationships, as outsiders are not confronted with established institutions but with princes who may or may not be in the same position when it comes time to sign a contract or close a deal. The constant shuffling of princes between various institutions and the competition between them are bound to create uncertainty and undermine the credibility of the regime. It certainly makes Saudi Arabia one of the most opaque countries to do business with, and it is difficult to maintain stable political relations that survive the lifespan of a prince. Countries and businesses find themselves baffled by these reshuffles and desperate for clues to decipher Saudi mysteries. Appointments to government positions are more a tool to balance the Saudi clans rather than a reflection of the prince’s credentials. This will remain a challenge to outsiders, especially those dependent on access to Saudi resources and investment opportunities. The multiple Saudi clans that are in control of the government and Saudi resources offer real opportunities for their members, but undermine the evolution of the kingdom into a state with institutions that are durable beyond the life of the prince. The king was expected to regulate the transfer of power to the second generation, but he can only deliver an honorary future king to rule over flourishing multiple centers of power, each of which thinks it has a divine right to monopolize the top position. For the moment, the multiple clans will continue to coexist because no one wants to rock the boat, given that the stakes are so high. The alternative to coexistence is internal strife that will no doubt undermine the future of the kingdom. Read more: http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2014/03/saudi-prince-muqrin-decentralization.html#ixzz2xtatgnQX ================= The coming Saudi decentralization Author: Madawi Al-Rasheed Posted March 28, 2014 King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz of Saudi Arabia adhered to the unpredictable succession rule that dominates the Saudi system when he appointed Prince Muqrin as deputy crown prince on March 27. Muqrin, an ex-intelligence chief, will become crown prince after Prince Salman, and eventually king when both the king and current crown prince pass away. The Saudi Press Agency reported the appointment as a royal decree that cannot be challenged under any circumstances in the future. The royal statement must have come after months of deliberation among royals, who, like the rest of Saudia Arabia and the world, are impatiently waiting for a resolution of the mystery of succession in the kingdom. Summary⎙ Print The appointment of Prince Muqrin as deputy crown prince reveals a trend toward multiple power centers within the royal family.Author Madawi Al-Rasheed Posted March 28, 2014 Abdullah missed an opportunity to resolve the succession issue, which sooner or later will have to be passed on to the second-generation princes awaiting their turn to shape the future of the kingdom. He overlooked the seniority principle and chose to elevate a close and loyal aide above not only other surviving brothers of the king, but also the new generation of princes. It was reported that the decision had the consent of 75% of the Oath of Allegiance Committee members, the 34 princes appointed by the king when it was established in 2007. The committee was meant to ensure a smooth succession to the throne as the king urged its royal members to "stand united, settling any differences by transparent dialogue and without allowing external forces to interfere in their private affairs." But the committee was meant to become active only after the death of Abdullah and the crown prince at the time, Prince Sultan. The king lived through the death of two crown princes, Sultan and Naif. Consequently, it became urgent to deal with the unexpected, mainly the succession moving to the second generation as a matter of necessity under the pressure of old age. It seems that the king did not want the committee to meet after his death, as stipulated in the committee’s constitution, and "elect" the future king. He may have anticipated a possible rift and resolved the matter in favor of Muqrin. Moving the succession to the second generation seems to threaten the balance of power between the various Al-Saud clans and will inevitably sideline a number of them if the succession is to move from its current horizontal line between brothers to a vertical one from father to son. The founder of the kingdom, Abdulaziz ibn Saud, marginalized his brothers when he appointed his own son, Saud, as crown prince in 1932. But this all happened at a time when it was possible to do so. Several decades later, the move is bound to be problematic for a simple reason: The founder’s many sons had already placed their own sons in key positions, and a handful of these sons are now key players in domestic and foreign policy. Take, for example, the son of Naif, Muhammad, who controls almost all aspects of Saudi internal affairs, or the king’s son Mitab, who has established control over the Saudi National Guard. Other clans within the family revolve around the sons of King Faisal, Sultan and Fahd, with several of their sons in control of important positions in the kingdom. Given the proliferation of royal positions and power holders, it is time to think of Saudi Arabia as a kingdom with multiple heads or several fiefdoms. In this context, the kingdom is no longer a centralized absolute monarchy as it used to be under King Faisal (1964-1975), but a cluster of clans under an honorary king, and over which Prince Muqrin will preside in due course. He will have to acknowledge the interest of each one of these clans and keep balancing the various factions in ways that do not undermine their privileges, positions and wealth. He can only do that by creating more positions that will absorb the growing number of princes within each clan. He will also have to be seen as a neutral arbiter between the various competing factions while not undermining their inherited control over key ministries and government arms. The pluralism that is currently unfolding among those in power is a mixed blessing. Internally, Saudis are trying to navigate this change and hope to place themselves in a patron-client relationship with at least one clan. They have been denied any say in the way their government is run, and the only available option is to become part of a princely circle of power. If one prince proves to be remote and uninterested, they may seek another, one more in need of developing his own clients to boost his popularity. The multiple princely actors within the state offer opportunities for a population denied any political representation or pressure groups. Despite the proliferation of state bureaucracy and institutions, politics in the kingdom remain personalized and revolve around the princes. The more Saudi princes there are, the more opportunities are believed to be available. The system works as long as the monarchical myth is sustained. This myth centers on the illusion that in this large pool of princes, there is always going to be one who listens and delivers. This pluralism may work, but it can also reach a dead end and generate chaos. The segmented nature of princely politics can be frustrating and counterproductive among a growing population that needs efficient and rational bureaucracy to deal with its various needs and welfare. The appointment of Muqrin as deputy crown prince may solve the mystery of succession, but it does not resolve the perils of multiple centers of power, each of which is in control of a ministry or branch of government. Externally, the princely pluralism is a challenge not only to foreign governments but also to anyone who deals with the kingdom. The personalized nature of politics undermines established long-term relationships, as outsiders are not confronted with established institutions but with princes who may or may not be in the same position when it comes time to sign a contract or close a deal. The constant shuffling of princes between various institutions and the competition between them are bound to create uncertainty and undermine the credibility of the regime. It certainly makes Saudi Arabia one of the most opaque countries to do business with, and it is difficult to maintain stable political relations that survive the lifespan of a prince. Countries and businesses find themselves baffled by these reshuffles and desperate for clues to decipher Saudi mysteries. Appointments to government positions are more a tool to balance the Saudi clans rather than a reflection of the prince’s credentials. This will remain a challenge to outsiders, especially those dependent on access to Saudi resources and investment opportunities. The multiple Saudi clans that are in control of the government and Saudi resources offer real opportunities for their members, but undermine the evolution of the kingdom into a state with institutions that are durable beyond the life of the prince. The king was expected to regulate the transfer of power to the second generation, but he can only deliver an honorary future king to rule over flourishing multiple centers of power, each of which thinks it has a divine right to monopolize the top position. For the moment, the multiple clans will continue to coexist because no one wants to rock the boat, given that the stakes are so high. The alternative to coexistence is internal strife that will no doubt undermine the future of the kingdom Read more: http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2014/03/saudi-prince-muqrin-decentralization.html#ixzz2xzlQaz19 =============================
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