Saudis Under Scrutiny

MARGARET WARNER:

What impact will the Riyadh bombings have on Saudi Arabia's response to terrorists and their supporters? For that, we turn to Steven Simon, senior director for counter-terrorism on the National Security Council during the Clinton administration. He co-authored "The Age of Sacred Terror" about al-Qaida. And he's now a senior analyst at the RAND Corporation in Washington. Gregory Gause, an associate professor of political science at the University of Vermont, and director of its Middle East studies program; he's written widely on the politics of the Arabian Peninsula; and Flynt Leverett, who's held counter-terrorism and Mideast analysis posts at the NSC, the State Department and the CIA; he's now a visiting fellow at the Saban Center for Middle East Studies at the Brookings Institution in Washington. Welcome, gentlemen. The current U.S. Ambassador to Saudi Arabia said this week, if this was not the Saudis' 9/11, it was at least their Pearl Harbor. Do you agree with that Flynt Leverett?

FLYNT LEVERETT:

Yes, I do. And I think we've seen a qualitatively different reaction from the Saudis to this episode than to previous terrorist episodes in the kingdom. The crown prince himself on the day of the attacks gave a very forward leaning speech condemning the attacks and those who perpetrated it. Prince Saud, the foreign minister has been performing a similar function to international audiences, and then of course we saw Abdel al-Jubeir's press conference today.

MARGARET WARNER:

Professor Gause, what is your take on this? Is this a wakeup call? Given previous terrorist incidents, if so, why this not and previous ones?

GREGORY GAUSE:

I think this is a wake-up call because nobody at the top level of the Saudi security establishment can now say, which many of them did say after 9/11, well, that it is a problem outside of Saudi Arabia but inside of Saudi Arabia, we have this under control. You can't say that now.

MARGARET WARNER:

And it was at the very senior levels of the Saudi government, wasn't it, the interior minister who said a few days ago, we don't have a problem?

GREGORY GAUSE:

Yes. Prince Nayef, the interior minister is on record a number of times, recently just a couple of days ago, basically saying al-Qaida was not a serious threat within Saudi Arabia.

MARGARET WARNER:

Would you add to that Steve Simon? Do you also think it is having .this – Abdel al-Jubeir called it today, a massive jolt.

STEVEN SIMON:

I think it did have a galvanizing effect on the Saudis; they've had a tendency to dismiss or deny the seriousness of the problem on their own territory. They can't do that anymore.

MARGARET WARNER:

What has their track record been like? If we go back to Khobar Towers in '96, the bombing of the U.S. installation then, through 9/11 until now, has there been a progression?

STEVEN SIMON:

Well, on the whole, their dealings with the United States have not been, you know, entirely cooperative. In the case of al-Khobar, their calculations were complicated by the fact that it looked at the time as though Iran was implicated in the attack if not fully responsible for it. For the Saudis, this posed a real dilemma. If they disclosed information pertaining to Iranian involvement, what would the Americans do? This posed real hazards for the Saudis and they preferred to keep that information under their hat. They've also had a tendency not really to want to wash their dirty linen in public, concerning the opposition within the kingdom to the royal family. So I think, you know, there have been a combination of factors that have impeded Saudi cooperation with the U.S.

MARGARET WARNER:

Mr. Leverett, though the Saudis say we have cooperated, we are doing a lot, particularly after 9/11, top officials, namely the president, say the same, that they're doing a lot, but there are all these unnamed senior U.S. officials telling reporters all over, print reporters, they're not doing enough. What is the truth? Where does the truth lie here?

FLYNT LEVERETT:

Well, I think the truth as usual, lies somewhere in the middle. I think there has been a progression in U.S.-Saudi counterterrorism cooperation, particularly since the September 11 attacks. Even just this year, things have been getting better. Cofer Black, the longstanding chief of the CIA's counterterrorism center and now a special coordinator for counterterrorism at the State Department has made two trips to the kingdom this year and has gotten the Saudis to take some very significant steps in the area of financial control and oversight of charities and NGOs based in the kingdom. These are very important things to do.

MARGARET WARNER:

In what sense though?

FLYNT LEVERETT:

In the sense that now, for example, Saudi charities that operate abroad have to vet their activities through the Saudi embassies in the countries in which they're operating. And this gives the Saudis a mechanism for trying to weed out less than completely above board activities. Similarly, on financial controls we now have far more serious and robust financial control mechanisms working in the kingdom than we did before. But as your question implied, there is still a good deal more to be done in this area.

MARGARET WARNER:

What would you add to that, Professor Gause, in terms of the level of cooperation and whether it has evolved over time?

GREGORY GAUSE:

I they it probably has evolved since 9/11, but the original Saudi response to 9/11 was very defensive, very much one of denial and it came in the context of a very tense U.S.-Saudi relationship for a number of other reasons. But I think that about six months after 9/11, you saw a change in the tone in Saudi Arabia about a willingness to begin to confront the problems at home, or at least confront the fact that there were problems at home.

MARGARET WARNER:

Expand on that. Meaning problems in terms of the support that al-Qaida has? Are we talking about rounding up cells? What are you talking about?

GREGORY GAUSE:

It's not just rounding up cells. I think one of the most interesting things that I've read from a Saudi since the explosions on Monday was a prominent Saudi columnist who writes in the Arabic newspaper Al Hayat. His column was titled "Intellectual Measures First." He said that, sure, security measures everybody has to take them and Monday showed they had to be taken, but it also meant that Saudi Arabia had to deal with the issue of why people within the country would be motivated to do these kinds of things — calling for a much more open engagement with the religious establishment, the educational establishment, kind of taking on the war of ideas as well as the specific security issues that have to be faced.

MARGARET WARNER:

Have they been reluctant, Steve Simon, to take on the clerics, radical Islamists in their kingdom, that provide the sort of culture in which radicalism grows?

STEVEN SIMON:

Well, the royal family faces real dilemmas in this regard because the royal family depends on the clerical establishment for their own political legitimacy. They're supported in a kind of, I guess grand bargain by the clergy. And at the same time, the clergy put forward a religious agenda- that is fundamentally hostile to the process of modernization that the political leadership wants to inculcate within the kingdom. So there's a bit of a vicious circle and it's very difficult, I think at this point, for the royal family to find their way out of that circle.

MARGARET WARNER:

Professor Gause, back to you for a minute. If they were to take on the religious clerics, what would that actually entail?

GREGORY GAUSE:

I don't think it would mean a frontal confrontation. I mean this is a regime, as Mr. Simon said, that relies on religious legitimation and has for hundreds of years. I think that what it means is using the religious establishment and the international Islamic institutions that are headquartered in Saudi, financed by Saudi, to take on bin Laden's ideas directly, to take on the notions of Jihad that bin Laden has propagated that really developed I think, during the 1980s, during the Jihad against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, where Jihad was a very popular cause, particularly in Saudi Arabia and turned out to be a very successful political cause against the Soviet Union. It's using the religious establishment to confront those ideas that I think is the challenge.

MARGARET WARNER:

Do you agree with Steve Simon though, that that's difficult for the Saudi royal family because of this essentially grand bargain that their predecessors made decades ago with the Wahabis?

GREGORY GAUSE:

I don't think it is difficult to confront the violent aspect of this. The senior committee were out just a couple days ago with a very strong condemnation of this violence. And they have been condemning bin Laden and September 11. I think the larger challenge is can the Saudis afford to open up the political system a bit to let people who are not within the religious establishment have more of a voice? Can they challenge the dominance of religious discourse in Saudi Arabia?

MARGARET WARNER:

Do you think, Mr. Leverett, that they can afford do this?

FLYNT LEVERETT:

I think that they can't afford not to. And I think that if there is a silver lining to be had from the tragic events in Riyadh, it may be just that; that now the Saudi leadership could be galvanized to begin that intellectual battle in their own society and try to turn the corner in this particular fight against terror.

MARGARET WARNER:

We talk about the Saudi royal family and the Saudi leadership. But what are the politics within the royal family when it comes to doing this?

FLYNT LEVERETT:

Well, the royal family is a very, very large family indeed. There are almost 9,000 princes in the royal family in total. What you have in very broad terms is a group around the crown prince, the effective leader of the country, Crown Prince Abdullah. And he and his supporters are trying to push a reform agenda for the kingdom in the economy and even to some degree in political and social spheres. But within the family, there are very, very powerful people, very powerful princes who hold important government ministries who are not supportive of this reform agenda pushed by the crowned prince. And since the royal family is traditionally operated on consensus, it makes it very challenging for reform initiatives to take hold.

MARGARET WARNER:

Is it also true, Mr. Simon, that some of the money — that the royal family and the government, which is one and the same, are involved in some of the funding and some of the support that al-Qaida gets? I noticed that one of the charities that they've agreed to at least shut down the foreign offices after the U.S. complained was run by the Saudi ministry of Islamic affairs.

STEVEN SIMON:

Yes, well government funds do pass to charities. And some of the charities have not been let's say carefully regulated. But within the kingdom, as Dr. Gause said, the cause of jihad is unassailable. I mean, it is a fundamental good, if I can put it that way. It's something that's being done for the benefit of Muslims who are being oppressed, in the Islamic view, in many places in the world. Well, it's very difficult for the government to stench the flow of money from well meaning people to charities who assert they're supporting people who are fighting the jihad. And the money is collected by trusted intermediaries who are well known to the people who contribute and they are… these people have confidence in them, and these trusted intermediaries pass on the money. These are difficult people to clamp down on.

MARGARET WARNER:

So you're saying you think it really would be a major, major step for the Saudi government to step not only in the ideas areas we were discussing earlier but even in the financial area?

STEVEN SIMON:

I think it would be very significant indeed.

MARGARET WARNER:

But difficult?

STEVEN SIMON:

But difficult, because it is not unconnected to the intellectual realm that Dr. Gause described, because the intellectual argument right now is in part as he indicated, over the importance, the significance of jihad for Muslims now. Is it in fact the forgotten obligation that Muslims have deigned to disregard and really need to take up again, or is it well, maybe more nuanced than that?

MARGARET WARNER:

All right, gentlemen, thank you all three.