“What might Washington’s attitude be if some country alleged that the Opus Dei religious sect of Roman Catholicism were engaged in terrorism around the world and had to be destroyed, its leaders killed or arrested?” High-ranking National Security Council veteran Richard Clarke raised this intriguing question while analyzing Saudi Arabia’s connections to jihadist terror in his controversial 2004 memoir, Against All Enemies: Inside America’s War on Terror.
Clarke’s book is still highly relevant 20 years after 9/11, as continuing controversies over Saudi Arabia’s responsibility for that day’s ravages indicate. Although the “analogy is imprecise,” for “Opus Dei is not engaged in terrorism,” he used this Catholic lay organization to highlight Saudi Arabia’s intimate links to Al Qaeda and other jihadists globally. Precisely this analysis undercuts his previously examined claim of “real Islam” being largely benign.
Clarke’s thought experiment ran thus:
Without even looking at the evidence offered by the foreign government, some in the government in Washington would say that they agreed with the basic beliefs of Opus Dei. Some in sensitive government jobs might even be members of Opus Dei (as FBI Director Louis Freeh was alleged to be), and thus reluctant to arrest their cobelievers.
Similarly, Clarke noted in detail,
it is certainly true that the core al Qaeda beliefs are not very different from those of many leading Saudis, whose Wahhabist version of Islam teaches intolerance of other religions and support for expanding the realm of Islam. As Keeper of the Two Holy Mosques (the Saudi King’s official title), the House of Saud has seen itself as both protector of Muslims everywhere and supporter of Wahhabist evangelism everywhere. They did, therefore, use Saudi government funds to support the jihad in Afghanistan. Saudi funds, whether officially governmental or not, almost certainly funded jihadist activities in Bosnia and, as the Russian government has charged, in Chechnya. Saudi government funds established Wahhabist mosques and schools not only in the jihad countries, but in Europe and the United States. Saudi government funds and those of concerned wealthy Saudis flowed to a series of charities and nongovernmental organizations, which in turn provided support for al Qaeda operatives.
“One thing was clear,” Clarke elaborated:
a lot of the money being raised was coming from people in Saudi Arabia. Many Saudi charities being used by al Qaeda were quasi-governmental entities that the regime used to spread its version of Islam abroad.
Clarke would
doubt any Minister or senior member of the royal family supported the attacks on the United States; indeed there is evidence that there were ineffectual efforts to control bin Laden. But it must also be said that Ministers and members of the royal family did knowingly support the global spread of Wahhabist Islam, jihads, and anti-Israeli activities. They ignored anti-American teaching in and around mosques and schools where intolerance was indoctrinated. They replaced a technical, Western-styled curriculum in Saudi schools with a Wahhabist religion-focused education. As long as the royal family and its rule were not the obvious targets, some undoubtedly turned a blind eye to a host of things that made al Qaeda’s life easier.
Ultimately, though, Al Qaeda hit home in Saudi Arabia in 2003 with truck bomb attacks in the capital Riyadh, Clarke noted. Thereafter the
Saudi security services appear to have been ordered to root out al Qaeda in the Kingdom. Not surprisingly to American counterterrorist experts, the Saudi security services have become involved in gun battles and street chases. They have uncovered large arms caches, not intended for jihad elsewhere or attacks on U.S. facilities in the Kingdom, but almost certainly intended for guerrilla war in Saudi Arabia, a war intended to replace the House of Saud.
The fall of the House of Saud would not come as a shock to many senior American officials who have followed the Middle East for years. Many have long feared, without being able to prove it, that that House and its military and security services are riddled with termites. Stung by the fall of the Shah of Iran in 1979 and its replacement with an anti-American theocracy, many American officials have feared a repeat performance of that tragedy across the Gulf in Saudi Arabia.
The aftershocks of Iran’s 1979 Islamic revolution had also placed strains on Saudi Arabia, as America in reaction to new Iranian threats strengthened its base system in Saudi Arabia. “Thousands of American civilian contractors moved into the Kingdom, causing resentment among some Muslims who read the Koran as banning the presence of infidels in the country that hosted the two holiest mosques of Islam,” Clarke noted. The problem only worsened in 1990 when hundreds of thousands of American and other foreign troops entered Saudi Arabia as a defense against Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein after his armies had menacingly subjugated neighboring Kuwait.
Saudi leaders thus welcomed the American-led coalition’s plans to drive the Iraqis out of Kuwait and end Hussein’s threat to the wider Arabian Peninsula. “The Saudis supported the offensive plan fearing the effects in their own country if hundreds of thousands of U.S. troops had to stay for years defending the Kingdom against a possible Iraqi invasion,” Clarke noted. Yet some American forces had to remain in Saudi Arabia when Hussein’s military continued to pose a threat even after his 1991 defeat in Kuwait. Thus, “Saudi dissidents who had protested the original U.S. presence now complained again that the American forces in the kingdom were a sacrilege.”
Clarke cited Saudi instabilities as among the factors motivating President George W. Bush and others in his administration, such as Vice-President Richard Cheney in 2003
to go to war with Iraq. With Saddam gone, they believed, the U.S. could reduce its dependence on Saudi Arabia, could pull forces out of the Kingdom, and could open up an alternative source of oil.
America has vital interests in eliminating Islamic supremacist influences in Saudi society and government, but Clarke stressed the need for caution in any Saudi reform program, given the kingdom’s fragilities and Iran’s ominous history:
Former CIA Director Jim Woolsey has talked publicly about the need for a new government in Riyadh. The risk that the United States runs is of creating a self-fulfilling prophecy, removing the American “mandate of heaven” from the House of Saud without a plan or any influence about what would happen next.
Precisely the sobering account Clarke gave of Saudi realities called into question his own proposals for a worldwide Islamic reform movement. He fondly envisioned that if Bill Clinton were still president after 9/11, he would be “going to Saudi Arabia and addressing the Muslim people in a moving appeal for religious tolerance.” Yet religious freedom is just as disruptive to Saudi theocracy as any American troops.
In the years since Clarke’s 2004 memoir Saudi Arabia has taken important steps under Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s reform programs. These include dramatic domestic liberalizations such as concerning women’s rights. Meanwhile Saudi policies have attempted to counter religious intolerance and improve relations with Israel, particularly in the face of a common Iranian enemy.
Yet Clarke’s Catholic analogy is still eminently important. As he himself has indicated, Islam’s holy sites in its Arabian Peninsula birthplace make Saudi Arabia central to Islam much like the Vatican in the Catholic Church. If Catholics often criticize the current Holy Father, Pope Francis, for muddled representations of Catholic doctrine, Muslims worldwide would perhaps be even more outraged by any dilution of faith coming from Saudi Arabia. Many devout Muslims would no more accept Clarke’s “religious tolerance” in Saudi Arabia’s national population than Catholics would accept Protestant worship services among Vatican City’s clergy and officials. Indeed, what would Muslims worldwide do if religious freedom allowed the Saudi people to abandon Islam for other beliefs such as atheism or Christianity?
As Saudi Arabia shows, any call for liberalism by people such as Clarke confronts Islam with enormous doctrinal challenges. His projected shift of Islam from a theocratic ideology guiding public policy to a matter of private piety entails a radical revision of received Islamic orthodoxy. As future articles will examine, Clarke had to confront Islam’s inherently political nature in countries beyond Saudi Arabia, such as Pakistan.
mortimer says
Saudi Arabia was fine with fostering jihadism as long as their jihads were directed outwards. But Osama bin Laden also emphasized on the ‘NEAR-ENEMY DOCTRINE’ of Islam which targeted Muslim rulers who did not enforce Sharia strictly enough. That targeted the House of Saud and other Muslim politicians in other countries.
Wahhabism was thus turned against Muslim rulers. The current House of Saud is now trying to dismantle Wahhabism, because it is a lethal threat for all Muslim rulers today … at least those rulers who are trying to modernize their countries in any way. With the rise of terrorist organizations in Afghanistan in the next 2 years, it will be surprising if they do not turn again to attacking these modernizing Muslim rulers.
Modernity and Islam are mortal enemies. Modernity is killing Islam and the fundamentalists know it.
Infidel says
Islam has nothing against modernity when it can use it as a weapon. Islam’s problem is that modernity is a double edged sword and a great leveler: the same internet that enables ISIS ideologues to influence kids in the West to embrace islam and leave for Syria also enables non-muslims to read exactly what muslims are taught w/o going to mosques, and to influence muslims to walk out of their religion
gravenimage says
True, Infidel–Muslims never condemn weaponry as “Bi’da”.
rubiconcrest says
Thank you Andrew. There have been few articles such as yours discussing the rational behind the decisions made by our leaders with respect to SA and Islam after 9/11. Keep them coming.
Too bad these debates were not part of a national discussion from the beginning and not all done behind closed doors. The nation could have learned great lessons.
We have done a miserable job in our dealings with the devil. We pretend Islam is not what is it and Islam infiltrates to the highest levels of governments world wide and gains legitimacy. Walking it back now is infinitely more difficult. We had the perfect moment to get it right and our ‘experts’ failed us. Now anything to do with Islam is a left / right issue instead of us vs them.
Walter Sieruk says
The Islamic kingdom of Saudi Arabia in no friend of any Western nation, Saudi Arabia is best defined as a kingdom of Islamic hate
As one Arab scholar who had lived in a Middle Eastern country, for many years revealed “Saudi madrassa notably teach hatred and condemnation of the West and non-Muslims” and “The Saudi Government also provides free textbooks to Islamic schools throughout the world . many of the Saudi- Issued textbook’s contain wording that encourages hatred and intolerance for non-Muslims.” [1]
Saudi Arabia in many ways is no better than Iran.
[1] THEY MUST BE STOPPED by Brigitte Gabriel, page 106
Walter Sieruk says
The Islamic kingdom of Saudi Arabia has not and will not spare any of its vast oil wealth as to use its financial resources to fund and promote the advancement of Islam by and through the jihad. By this it means both the stealth jihad and even the subtle support violent jihad.
As explained, for example in the book HOW ISLAM PLANS TO CHANGE THE WORLD by William Wagner. For on pages 109, 110. The reader is informed that “The Wall Street journal on April 15, 2003 published an article titled ‘In law Seminars, A Saudi Group Spreads Extremism.’ The article began by saying ‘In late February more than 300 young men from across Europe gathered for a weekend seminar on Islamic Law put on by Al-Waqf al-Islaami Foundation.’ The article went on to explain that the most famous graduates from the seminar were half a dozen members of the group of young men from Hamburg, Germany, who plotted the September 11, attacks. The language of the was Dutch, but ‘the message was imported from Saudi Arabia, via Saudi books and lecturers who taught a strict orthodox interpretation of Islam.’ “
Further on the very same page of 110 the information is given that “TIME MAGAZINE , in an article on Saudi Arabia: Inside the Kingdom,’ stated ‘Apart from channeling money to foundations that have assisted terrorist groups, Saudis have for years supported institutions abroad the propagate Wahhabism.’”
So with that Islamic regime of Saudi Arabia and its oil money support the different type of the jihad, both stealth and the violent kind, with its Islamic agenda advancement and spread , influence and infiltration of the Western nations ,this kingdom of Saudi Arabia is no friend at all of America or any other country of the West.
·
Walter Sieruk says
The Islamic kingdom of Saudi Arabia is not an innocent nation when it comes to the subject of promoting Islamic terrorism by setting up Muslim brainwashing centers in which impressionable Muslim youth are thoroughly indoctrinated into the ways of Quran based jihad violence with much killing of people who are not Muslim for the advancement of Islam. As the Quran instructs, for example 2:191., 5:33. 9:5,111,112,123 47:4,89.
One scholar, Brigitte Gabriel, who is an from the Middle East had in her book with the title of THEY MUST BE STOPPED informs her readers on page 114. “Saudi Arabia is one of the leading financial contributors to Islamic terrorism worldwide. Part of that contribution is made by funding madrasas throughout the world and the brainwashing of Muslim children with intolerant teaching towards anything non-Muslim.”
Likewise, a former Muslim, Ibn Warraq, in his book which has the title of THE ISLAM IN ISLAMIC TERRORISM on page 353 reveals that “Saudi Arabia has spent millions on Islamic propaganda and on building madrassas.”
Further on the subject that there are Muslim mind control and mind programming places where Muslim males are thoroughly indoctrinated into the strong but blind and unquestioning faith in Koran with all non-watered down; hard core Islam with its militant jihad. Those places, “schools,” are called madrasas. In those Islamic mind programming centers young Muslim male are ingrain in the mindset Koranic dogma of the use of violence and killing for the advancement of Islam. As the Koran instructs. As in, for example, in 2:191. 9:5, 123. 47:4. Many of those who of such center are so much damaged that they are literally dangerous to self and others. As seen many times in jihad suicide, homicide bombing/attacks. For the Koran instructs in 9:111. “The believers fight in Allah’s Cause, they slay and are slain, they kill and are killed.”
Furthermore, those mind programming places also ingrain the outlandish absurd Koranic doctrine of a ex-filled paradise with many virgins, houris, in it for the Muslim male who dies fighting for the cause of Islam in the jihad. Such a strange doctrine of a houris filled- place in found in the Koran in 44:54. 55:56. 78:31. Moreover, such Islamic mind programming centers are further explained about by the scholar Don Richardson in his book SECRETS OF THE KORAN which on pages 69,70. Informs the reader that “The world needs to be warned. At least forty million Muslim youth in the Muslim worlds’ religious schools, called madrasa, are avidly memorizing the entire Koran … These schools become breeding grounds for potential terrorists. When male students, isolated from family and friends in madrasa, reach puberty and their hormones are active, there are no girls to date. Instead, Muslim clerics easily shift to focusing the male student’s attention on Koranic verse that promises sex in heaven with dark-eyed houris. Students can only fantasize about martyrdom followed by the sexual release Muhammad promised. This is an unspeakably cruel brainwashing technique , and the Koran is its perfect guidebook.”
In short, Saudi Arabia is very guilty of promoting Islamic terrorism.
gravenimage says
Saudi Arabia’s House of Jihad
……………….
Saudi Arabia is no real ally of ours.
OLD GUY says
Saudi Arabia and Islam have one goal, thats world domination.
Clifford Fodor says
One guy I knew said he was talking to a Saudi who was attending the university. The Saudi said to him, “I hate you Americans. The guy asked him, “Then why are you here?” The Saudi answered him, “For your technology.”