Special to The Daily Star

Friday, May 21, 2004

DEAD SEA COAST, Jordan: With his back to the sea and a Cuban Montecristo in his hand, Prince Turki al-Faisal al-Saud, the man who headed Saudi Arabia's intelligence services for some 20 years and the current Saudi ambassador to the United Kingdom, went over more than 60 years of Saudi Arabia's history in 45 minutes.

Faisal, in Jordan attending the World Economic Forum, is the son of the late King Faisal of Saudi Arabia, an Arab leader that Arabs respect for standing his ground in the wake of the 1973 Arab-Israeli war and imposing an oil embargo on America for its support of Israel.

Faisal said Saudi-US relations, while strained by the Sept. 11 attacks - 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudi - remained strong despite the negative onslaught on the kingdom by the American media.

"Issues of perception have confused the reality," said Faisal. "In the US they have developed a perception that has been fed by the media, that Saudi Arabia is an enemy of the US, that the people of Saudi Arabia are somehow intrinsically opposed to anything American ... anything that America does," he said.

The relationship between the two countries, despite what observers conclude, is much more complicated, added Faisal. An alliance was forged between the two countries in the aftermath of World War II; an alliance based on the convergence of mutual strategic interests such as resisting and fighting the spread of Communism, said the prince.

"There was total public empathy with America on issues of opposing Communism and the offshoots of Communism in our part of the world, not simply just to support America, but because Saudi Arabia was a target for Communists," Faisal said.

When Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1990, the rush of US troops to defend the kingdom and liberate Kuwait, said Faisal, was testimony to depths of the relationship.

Even so, there was the recurring issue of Palestine, a conflict that Saudi Arabia believed it could influence America to resolve from as far back as the reign of King Abdel-Aziz.

The king told President Franklin D. Roosevelt the establishment of a Jewish homeland in Palestine "would not only be unfair but unjust because it wasn't the Palestinians who persecuted the Jews in Europe it was the Germans. Give (Jews) the best piece of land in Germany; that would be the just restitution for the Jews because the Germans persecuted them," said Faisal.

In 1972 the late King Faisal sent his Oil Minister Zaki Yamani to meet with President Nixon and make him an offer.

Yamani told Nixon: "(Saudi Arabia) would be willing to supply America with all of its oil needs, regardless of what these needs are, in return for America's support for a just and equitable solution to the Palestine problem."

But Nixon refused and the kingdom embargoed America once Nixon ordered an airlift in support of Israel in the 1973 war.

Another letter was sent to President George W. Bush weeks before the Sept. 11 attacks. The letter from Crown Prince Abdullah carried by Prince Bandar bin Sultan, Saudi Arabia's emissary in Washington, "quite plainly told President Bush that we are coming to a fork in the road. We can either cross that fork together and move in one direction, or we can separate," said Faisal.

The letter, according to Faisal, immediately got the attention of President Bush. The president invited Crown Prince Abdullah to visit.

"The crown prince said, 'No. I have nothing to talk to you about because you are not doing over the Middle East.' So that got their attention," said Faisal.

Prince Bandar met afterward with Secretary of State Colin Powell to draw up a peace plan that would build on the Madrid peace talks and Oslo Accords.

"It was because of Saudi pressure on America that that issue took place. That's the reality of the relationship between the two countries; that there is contact and negotiations and pressure from the Saudi point of view on Palestine," said Faisal.

Up to this point perceptions of Saudi Arabia in America were either non-existent or half-informed. But perceptions of America in the kingdom were that the US was not only a supporter of Israel, but also practically almost a partner of Israel "bent on forcing the Arab world to accept a fate accompli in Palestine."

The "identification between America and Israel took on a more concrete form after President Bush started talking about Sharon in such unusually generous terms, describing him as 'a man of peace,'" said Faisal.

The metamorphosis of US-Saudi relations testifies to the ability of Saudi Arabia to adapt to change. The kingdom today is at a crossroads, with terrorist attacks threatening the stability of the country.

"During the 1960s and 1970s we were the target of leftist terrorists in our part of the world. People like George Habash and his PFLP. Carlos (the Jackal), for example, and his gang, hijacked our oil minister," explained Faisal.

"These days we are the target of so-called right-wing ultra-conservatives, I wouldn't call them Muslim, but they choose to work under that name."

In May and November 2003, Islamists affiliated with Al-Qaeda attacked compounds in the kingdom that housed expatriate workers, killing 52 people.

The attacks led Saudi security forces to wage an all-out war against the militants. Last April, however, militants attacked the police headquarters in Riyadh and then workers at an oil refinery in Yanbu.

"In my view, the change of tactics of these terrorist groups is because they saw they are not getting anywhere ... they simply galvanized the people to oppose them so they had to change tactics," said Faisal.

"They are failing because they don't have a base to operate from in Saudi Arabia, they're alien ... their very nature is alien, and therefore it is opposed by the people."

In the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks, Saudi Arabia took some steps to try and reform various aspects that in some observer's assessments led to an upsurge in anti-American sentiments and militancy. Aside from "re-educating and retraining" some clerics, the kingdom took steps to curb its growing debt, reduce unemployment and revisited the issue of municipal elections that had surfaced in the 1950s.

Yet recently, a number of reformers who had petitioned the ruling family to adopt a constitutional monarchy were imprisoned, according to news wire reports. Faisal said the entire episode was distorted.

"These people actually forged documents; they signed other people's names on documents that they (said) represented the views and ideas of those people," said Faisal.

"When they presented these documents, those individuals whose names they signed complained to the government and said look these signatures are not ours."

Faisal said some of the people arrested were released, while others who committed the forgeries remain under questioning.

"It was not an issue of expression of opinion ... It was an issue of forging documents particularly at a time when the country is going through so much upheaval over the issue of terrorism ... Instead of adding positive elements to the debate they tried to instigate unrest in the kingdom," explained Faisal.

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