Saudi Arabia and next year's front pages

Last weekend, a news story made it into the editorials of US, European and Arab newspapers. The outcome of the story might have a considerable influence on the front pages of newspapers over the next few years.

The story concerns the relationship between the US and Saudi Arabia. A 900-page declassified report on the terrorist attacks of 9/11 has been released to the US Congress. It has 28 pages blanked out. The contents of these pages, it is said, bear evidence that Saudi Arabia may have been almost officially linked to the 9/11 attacks - since a Saudi with connections to his government knew two of the hijackers and helped them (up to April 2001) pay their rent. He has denied any connection with the bombing and says that all investigations have cleared him.

The Washington report is newsworthy on its own, but some of the attention being given to it is to be explained by the anti-Saudi emphasis that some of the leading analysts of the 9/11 attack have given their writings. The New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman stands out. His popular twice-weekly column over the last two years has mainly focused on analysing news events in the light of 9/11. He has given a lot of attention to the Arab world, particularly Saudi Arabia. His collection of columns over this period - Longitudes and Attitudes (Penguin) - has been an international bestseller.

Mr Friedman underscores the fact that 15 out of the 19 hijackers were citizens of Saudi Arabia. He maintains that this was no coincidence: the government and dominant brand of Islam within that country helped foster a climate that provides Osama bin Laden with his recruits and some of his funding. Mr Friedman thinks Saudi Arabia should accept some responsibility for the fact that almost all of the hijackers were its citizens, and not just disown them, as it has, as deviants.

Essentially, Mr Friedman makes three charges. The 15 hijackers from Saudi Arabia were not poor but middle class; but they represented a class of Saudi male who is increasingly frustrated by the corruption of the Saudi regime and its failures to offer a real economic future to the Saudi middle class.

Second, there is the money trail. Mr Friedman alleges that certain Islamic charities that collected money in Saudi Arabia were known to be funnelling the money to Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan. Yet, Mr Friedman says that, on the strength of informal admissions made to him by Saudis themselves, the Saudi authorities turned a blind eye to this funding since they knew it was not going to be used against the monarchy.

Third, there is the religion - not Islam in itself, but the particular brand preached and taught in the country. Certain school textbooks draw a strict distinction between Muslims and non-Muslims, consigning the latter to a status of lesser dignity and worse. As for preachers, a minority of them issued religious rulings to justify the attacks of 9/11 - and before that date, no one censured them for preaching that America wants to destroy Islam.

Mr Friedman concedes that he encountered many Saudis (not to mention many non-Saudi Muslims) who condemned this kind of preaching.

But his argument is that the Saudi monarchy has tolerated it as a way of deflecting potential criticism of its rule.

So how might the Washington report affect what gets on the first pages of newspapers for the next few years?

Let me stick to the economic possibilities. This column noted earlier this month that the US is making some attempts to make itself less dependent on Saudi oil. This attempt could have a direct effect on the Mediterranean, if Algeria becomes the southwestern US ally of choice.

But any tinkering with the alliance with Saudi Arabia might have an impact on the latter's behaviour with respect to the crude oil market. Saudi Arabia has sometimes kept oil prices low as part of its unwritten pact with the US.

Whether Saudi decides to maintain this policy might become a story in itself if a climate of hostility in the US media persists. Changes in oil prices have an immediate impact on the cost of living in Western countries. A second aspect of the economic dimension is tied up with ecology. For the US might make itself less dependent on Saudi oil by curbing some of its energy consumption and by signalling that it is willing to sign up to the Kyoto treaty or a near-equivalent.

Neither of these two things is likely to happen under this US administration. However, the most vocal politicians asking for clarification concerning Saudi Arabia's friendship with the US are Democrats, including at least one presidential hopeful, Senator Bob Graham of Florida.

The Democrats might well try to get into the 2004 political race by combining promises of continuing the "war on terror" (popular) with multilateralism in international affairs (also popular, although George W. Bush is not practising it) with something like the ecological platform proposed by Al Gore in 2000. Popular? Follow the front pages.

ranierfsadni@europe.com