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THE ROVING
EYE
PART 3: The sheikh against the
Saudi
By Pepe
Escobar
 Part 1: Get him before Sept 11
Part 2: What he's up to
 DUBAI and BRUSSELS - In
the improbable event that this was a John Woo movie, the
face-off to finish all face-offs would be between Osama
bin Laden and Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah. The plot has
all the elements of a Hollywood blockbuster. It may be
convoluted, but essentially it is not very hard to
follow. Although a global audience may not be aware of
it, bin Laden the villain knows deep inside how
dangerous an enemy good guy Prince Abdullah may be.
Because if Prince Abdullah's strategy succeeds, bin
Laden's master plan for the ultimate Muslim revolution
becomes totally irrelevant.
Psychoanalysis -
Freudian, Lacanian or even the Paris sidewalk cafe
variety - would have a field day comparing notes on
these two main characters. It all starts with mom. Both
bin Laden and Prince Abdullah are the only sons of their
Syrian mothers. Bin Laden's mother is reportedly 100
percent Syrian, while Prince Abdullah's is only partly
so. Bin Laden as well as Prince Abdullah are also in
conflict with their half-brothers - more conservative,
more "Saudi" and more pro-American in both cases.
Prince Abdullah, diplomatic sources reveal, may
be a good Muslim, but he is also a man who tolerates
different expressions of Islam. He is almost a hedonist,
by Islamic standards. There are plenty of Iraqi, Syrian
and Lebanese intellectuals in his entourage, and he is
working hard to improve relations with both Syria and
Iraq.
Bin Laden on the other hand is austere and
ascetic, almost a hermit (which he was, in his Afghan
caves): jihad, his brand of violent jihad, is imprinted
on his soul; it's his way to self-expression, it's his
redemption.
Prince Abdullah is in his 70s, bin
Laden is in his 40s. In terms of political experience,
Prince Abdullah is extremely impressed by Arab
nationalism as personalized by Nasser in Egypt. Bin
Laden, on the other hand, is enamored with the Iranian
Shi'ite revolution of 1979, as personalized by Ayatollah
Khomeini.
Prince Abdullah's dream is to turn the
Arab peninsula into an open house for all of the Arab
world - including Iraqis, Syrians, Yemenis,
Palestinians, Egyptians, Sudanese and, the ultimate
prize, even Shi'ite Iranians (who are Persians, not
Arabs; but they remain fervent Muslims anyway). The
sine qua non is that all the Arab neighbors -
plus of course Iran - practice moderate Islam:
diplomatic sources call it an ideal mix of Arab
nationalism and Saudi Islam - but without the hardcore,
ultra-conservative wahhabi element. Prince Abdullah has
been working on this idea ceaselessly for the past two
years: he believes that if it succeeds, the result is a
Saudi Arabia which would never have to rely again on
America for its safety.
He wants Saudi wealth to
revert to the benefit of all Arabs (a Saudi bank, basing
its figures on a Merrill Lynch study, estimates that the
kingdom has at least US$750 billion outside its borders,
four to five times its GNP: 60 percent is invested in
the US, 30 percent in Europe). He dreams that one day
all Arabs will forge a common front to face the
Americans - and Israel - but without having to go to
war.
Prince Abdullah fights on many crucial
fronts - and the results have been uneven at best. His
Middle East peace offer - Israel retreats to pre-1967
borders in Palestine in exchange of being recognized by
the whole Arab world - was lauded everywhere, even by
the Arabs: but Israeli leader Ariel Sharon responded by
smashing Palestine.
In spite of his excellent
relationship with the ultra-sharp Iraqi Christian,
Deputy Prime Minister Tarik Aziz - a character not
unlike the fascinating grand viziers of Arab literature
- Prince Abdullah simply could not get Iraq to back the
Arab family idea: but then he got a break at the Beirut
summit in March, when Baghdad fully recognized Kuwait's
independence in exchange for overwhelming Arab support
against an American strike. Not even Allah knows how
consistent this "support" will be when George W Bush's
techno-cowboys start getting ready to slouch toward
Baghdad. The American military is already talking about
launching strikes from Jordan.
Prince Abdullah's
influence was also manifest in the firing of Prince
Turki - the secret service supremo - three weeks before
September 11. He even managed to have his decision
supported by his reluctant half-brothers - King Fahd
(incapacitated since 1995) and the Defense Minister,
Prince Sultan. Prince Turki was the man behind the
endless string of money bags that helped finance the
jihad in Afghanistan in the 1980s.
He was being
blamed, among other things, for failing to solve the
puzzle concerning an assassination attempt against
Prince Abdullah, and for his bold reconciliation moves
toward Iran. But he was also blamed for not being able
to control the Taliban any more, or to convince them to
extradite bin Laden to Saudi Arabia from Afghanistan.
European intelligence sources are sure that bin Laden
controls at least one Saudi prince - if not at least
half of the ruling circle of power. Bin Laden's prince
could have been Prince Turki. They went to school
together. And it was Prince Turki who sent bin Laden to
Afghanistan.
Prince Abdullah keeps fighting hard
for the political survival of the discredited Saud
dynasty - which is now regarded as practically a pariah
in Washington. His dearest wish would be to witness an
American departure from the peninsula, slowly but
surely. A few sound minds in Washington may have
considered that such a departure would instantly melt
away any appeal of bin Laden's Islamic revolution. There
is intense speculation in Middle East diplomatic circles
that the prince will now try to convince the Americans
to fold their bases in exchange for a prominent Saudi
role as the guardian of a comprehensive peace treaty
with Israel, and as an economic powerhouse benefiting
all of the Arab world.
This dream scenario would
mean the triumph of Arab nationalism - a la Abdullah - a
sort of embryonic democracy that could have its public
expression in what Qatar's Al Jazeera television network
embodies today. European diplomatic sources believe this
semi-democratic Arab world certainly would not be allied
to the US - it would rather strike a closer relationship
with Japan and Korea, and with the enlarged European
Union.
On the opposite end of Prince Abdullah's
large and ambitious spectrum, bin Laden long ago
realized that maybe he could upstage the non-exportable
Shi'ite Iranian revolution by offering to the Muslim
world his own brand of a Sunni, conservative, super
revolution: a revolution by the sword. It's no less
ironic that he came to this conclusion by the hands -
and most of all the mind - of an Egyptian (definitely
not a friend of Nasser's): the redoubtable "Surgeon"
Ayman al-Zawahiri. So, to woo hardcore Iranian mullahs,
bin Laden had to do everything in his power to erase the
image of himself as a rich Saudi working for the benefit
of the Americans during the anti-Soviet jihad in
Afghanistan.
As is now well known, bin Laden
wants to restore an Islamic caliphate. Afghanistan for
him was just a sideshow - a convenient base. What really
matters in his grand design are the connections that he
has been able to build over these past few years. For
example, al-Qaeda's priceless connections inside the
Pakistani army and the country's Inter-Services
Intelligence; al-Qaeda's influence over the Yemeni
intelligence service; and the privileged connections
with key ulemas (clerics) in Saudi Arabia and
with the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt.
Inside
Saudi Arabia, bin Laden plays on two key fronts. The
Nejd region is in the center of Saudi Arabia, around
Riyadh: this is where the founder of the regime, Ibn
Saud, comes from. The rest of the kingdom is deeply
anti-Nejd. The consensual attitude used to be secular
and anti-wahhabi, but bin Laden and his operatives are
trying their best to turn it into hardcore Islamist. And
bin Laden's pious Islamic credentials remain a major hit
with the ulemas: a substantial majority are
pro-bin Laden and regard the pro-American stance of the
Saudi family as the plague.
The manner in which
both bin Laden and Prince Abdullah court Iran is
absolutely essential to preview the possible next moves
in their showdown by proxy. Asia Times Online learned in
Iran that President Khatami reportedly gets along
extremely well with Prince Abdullah. The prince hoped
that his alliance with Iran - concluded at the end of
2000 - would lead to the absolute irrelevance of an
American presence in the Persian Gulf. But it didn't
turn out this way - and the winner, for the moment, is
bin Laden.
With a healthy Saudi-Iranian
cooperation in place and the Americans on the way out,
there would be no more tension inside Saudi Arabia. This
means that ultimately a revolutionary bin Laden could
not play the card of whipping up antagonism against the
Americans inside Saudi Arabia. Prince Abdullah
definitely does not want a new caliphate. On the
contrary: revolution is the last thing on his mind. He
wants to reinforce secular states such as Iraq and
Syria. He is regarded by European intelligence circles
as an Arab patriot. He wants a winning Arab world. He is
sick of so many failures. The abominable failure of both
Baath parties - in Syria and Iraq. The interminable
failure of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. And of
course the failure of Saudi oil wealth to reach all of
the citizens of the kingdom (in 20 years, the annual oil
revenue per Saudi has collapsed to US$2,600 from a high
of $24,000).
A United Arab Emirates businessman
points to a crucial fact: even Saudis who hated bin
Laden were against handing him over to the Americans.
Virtually no one wanted him to fall. Otherwise he would
have fallen a long time ago. Although Prince Abdullah
and the Saud family dwell in a rarified world off limits
to foreigners (especially infidels), it's fair to assume
that the prince and the family are mulling the only two
options left. Bin Laden's revolutionary folly may lead
al-Qaeda to a spectacular debacle. Or it may be the
beginning of the end for the House of Saud. Bin Laden
has raised a lot dissent in the heart of the Saudi
court. The Saudi opposition is totally pro-bin Laden.
And a revolution in neighboring Yemen could happen at
any time - with an overspill effect on Saudi Arabia. At
least for the moment, patient, tolerant Prince Abdullah
is not laughing.
Next: Tracking al-Qaeda in
Europe
(©2002 Asia Times Online Co, Ltd. All
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