The Saudis in the eye of the beholder
Here’s an interesting question. Is there a British military boot “in action” anywhere in the world whose enemy is not backed by Saudi interests? It is a question I asked in the course of a debate centred on Iran, which I chaired this week at the Royal United Services Institute.
From Pakistan and Afghanistan in the east, to Syria in the Middle East, and Libya and Mali in the west, many of the jihadists, rebels, insurgents and terrorists allegedly draw financial support from either Saudi or allied Gulf money.
Western intelligence is divided about the extent to which these monies can ultimately be tracked to the Saudi royal family, the family-dominated government, Saudi business, or bazaar and tribal sources. Early in the growth of al-Qaeda, and bin Laden’s rise to influence, an informal understanding was reached that the movement would be tolerated providing it operated beyond Saudi borders. After 9/11 the levying of taxes in Saudi market places, which found their way to al-Qaeda, was banned.
The Saudi Wahhabi brand of conservative Islam imposes an obligation upon the faithful to propagate the faith across the world. The Saudi Ministry of Islamic Affairs has co-ordinated the multi-billion pound spending on some fifteen hundred sizeable Wahhabi-oriented mosques and madrasas worldwide over the past two decades.
In Pakistan, Afghanistan, Somalia and Libya, Saudi-funded mosques and madrasas are being built at a furious rate, funded by Saudi money. In Kabul, the Saudis have begun building the giant $100m new mosque and Islamic education centre. This mirrors the vast Faisal mosque which they built in Pakistan’s capital, Islamabad, in 1988.
At the same time, in the latest financial year for which figures are available, it is estimated that the Saudis were the world’s seventh largest military spender. According to the Campaign Against Arms Trade, they spent some $48bn. BAe Systems is currently trying to negotiate a £7 bn deal to sell Eurofighter/Typhoon jet to the Saudis.
Contracts with the Saudis secure thousands of jobs in Britain. Without the trade, unemployment in the UK would be still higher.
British military boots are somewhere “in action” in Mali, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. In a covert or advisory capacity they are in and out of Somalia, Kenya, Yemen and elsewhere.
As western powers grapple with the consequences of the war in Mali, and the killing of 34 westerners in the Algerian desert at the BP complex, with what energy is the intelligence community tracking the sources of the funding to the jihadist forces involved?
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There are 12 comments on this post
Saudi money has also supported the building of Mosques here. That doesn’t imply those Saudi interests are in any way supporting terrorists here.
Some caution is needed here.
Britain’s worldwide trade interests and investments aren’t seeking to undermine the stability of other nations either.
Quite a lot of us wrinkly men in many countries endure baldness. But that co-incidence does not suggest any conspiracy to, say, undermine hairy civilisation as we know it.
Come on Jon, surely you don’t expect politicians to have any integrity, never mind tell the truth. Who cares whether the Saudis fund jihadists. As long as there is oil and other resources required by the West and the opportunity sell arms, we’ll turn a blind eye and get into bed with the devil himself. It’s called Realpolitik.
Faith is a beautiful thing, corrupted when religion is organised around it to give control over those who believe to those who hunger for power.
Sounds like Saudi bashing to me.
Then put me right where I am wrong!
Saudi money has also bought a chunk of the US just as Arab money has bought chunks of the UK. Who is the biggest buyer of your weapons? Yes, the Saudis.
You are out of touch and not qualified to evaluate these things. Fact is that saying “Saudi money” or “Gulf money” means as much as saying “American money” while referring, on one hand, to Soros and Bill Gates, and to the other, to the right wing think tanks and the creationist movement. You have to be specific. I understand this kind of writing requires a little more time but you would be advised to at least try it.
The other point is that there are numerous places where the Saudis — this time referring to the royal family — are in complete alliance and work together with the West. This includes Iraq, both times, Libya, Syria, and Bosnia. I mean, for God’s sake, the Americans used to have a base in Saudi, and have multiple bases along the Persian Gulf. So unless you can actually identify a real human being or institution in the Gulf that is funding these people you really need to stop spouting.
As said below, it was the US base in Saudi which arguably led directly to the events of 9/11/01. So foreign bases on others’ lands hardly a positive recommendation.
The UK certainly sells huge amounts of weaponry to Saudi Arabia. It is the UK’s largest customer for arms; since 2008 the UK has licensed over £4 billion worth of weaponry to the Saudis.
However, it is wrong to conclude that exporting weapons “secures thousands of jobs in the UK”. It doesn’t. The numbers of jobs in the arms industry has been falling for years and in any case, some of those jobs transfer out of the UK as weapons are assembled elsewhere. Rather, the arms industry competes for silled workers with more useful and beneficial industries such as renewables, which have the potential to provide many more jobs than the declining arms industry.
The jobs argument is used by the arms industry to garner public support – it’s time we stopped repeating their claims and looked at the facts.
You could go further. The corruption money (‘alleged’) from BAE and other arms firms to Saudis disppears into untraceability. There are only a certain number of palaces one person needs, so the cash is ideally placed, then, to fund further criminal activity – and terrorism.
So it is ironic that our own arms manufacturer could have supported terrorism. But, hang on, is it really that unintended? After the cold war, terrorism was really the only source of potential aggressors. The more terrorism, the more war, and the more defence spending. So everyone’s a winner!
An attack on Saudi Arabia? I wonder what they done? Or not agreed to do?
It is interesting that Jon’s anti Saudi Arabia attack comes on the heel of a similar anti Saudi leadership view, contained in an US article seeking a change in the Saudi Arabian leadership!
The Atlantic
‘Washington needs to overcome its perennial fear of upsetting the House of Saud and, break the habit of a lifetime of Foggy Bottom [State Department] diplomacy, help a new leadership emerge in Riyadh.’
So one wonders what prompted Jon to question-[In the so called Independent thinking Royal United Services Institute] the possibility of the Saudi Leadership funding the ‘bad guys’?
I thought the Saudis were on ‘our side’? The Good guys? I thought the Presidential Bush family [No friends of the ‘bad guys’ they] saw eye to eye with the Saudis?
So what changed?
Is it the fact that another part of the US strategy in the Middle East went wrong? And as usual the US blames someone else?
[The New Yorker, February 26, 2007
‘To undermine Iran, which is predominantly Shiite, the Bush Administration has decided, in effect, to reconfigure its priorities in the Middle East. In Lebanon, the Administration has cooperated with Saudi Arabia’s government, which is Sunni, in clandestine operations that are intended to weaken Hezbollah, the Shiite organization that is backed by Iran. The U.S. has also taken part in clandestine operations aimed at Iran and its ally Syria. A by-product of these activities has been the bolstering of Sunni extremist groups that espouse a militant vision of Islam and are hostile to America and sympathetic to Al Qaeda’ ] ???
Or could this attack on the Saudis be prompted by the possibility that the Saudi leadership, said by some in the West to be ‘increasingly politically incapacitated’ – will not give the ‘Green Light ‘to an attack on Iran from Saudi airspace?
The Atlantic Jan 10 2013- ‘To Stop Iran, Get a New Saudi King’
Either way, it is a US ‘Shot across the Saudi bows’ that the rest of the Arab world should note!- You see there is no consistency to allies in US foreign policy, other than for Israel!
Informative post, Jon. Thank you. And to those criticising Jon for Saudi-bashing, here’s an excellent piece on dictators and democracy:
The west’s self-delusions http://gu.com/p/3dekq/tw
Let’s not forget, by the way, that Osama Bin Laden’s original demand of the US was that it removed its forces from the country of Mecca. The US government did so – but only AFTER 9 September 2001.