The New York Times

April 30, 2003

U.S.-Saudi Ties Frayed Over Mideast Tensions

By SARAH KERSHAW

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia, April 23 ÷ Khaled al-Maeena, the editor of a prominent English-language newspaper here, has spent so much time in the United States, he said, that he is "for all practical purposes an American."

But this is not a self-description he would use lightly these days, or use at all in a conversation with fellow Saudis. Recently, his 22-year-old daughter, who, like generations of Saudis with the means to afford it, earned her college degree in the United States, said to her father, "If you go to Starbucks , I'll bite you."

Anti-American sentiment is pervasive now in the Middle East, but in Saudi Arabia, where the elite have had a close relationship with the United States for 70 years, these feelings represent a sea change. The barbs against the Americans are laced through newspaper editorials, Internet chat rooms and even text messages on cellphones.

Mr. Maeena, editor in chief of Arab News, recalled many heated discussions before and during the war. "People ask: `Who are these people? Our friends? They are killing people. Are they our allies? They are not our allies.' "

Prince Saud al-Faisal, the Princeton-educated foreign minister, was diplomatically circumspect but pointed enough when asked at a recent news conference about the relationship with Washington in the wake of a war that Saudi Arabia publicly opposed, while lending quiet support to the American military and allowing the air war to be run out of Prince Sultan base here.

"An act of war has implications that are well known," the prince said. He added, "The real question is: What direction will this change be? A positive direction or a negative direction?"

The direction that seems likely is a distinct loosening of the most obvious ties that have bound the two governments in recent years: American military bases in Saudi Arabia. Osama bin Laden has cited the presence of American troops in the land of the holy Islamic shrines of Mecca and Medina as a major reason for his war against the United States, and 15 of the 19 hijackers he used to destroy the World Trade Center and hit the Pentagon were Saudi.

In a week of interviews, dozens of government officials, intellectuals, businessmen, newspaper editors and others said that the Saudi-American relationship started to take a potentially irreversible plunge with the Sept. 11 attacks and that the gap that opened then has grown wider since.

"This is the lowest point of the relationship in 70 years," said Abdul Rahman A. al-Jeraisy, head of the Council of Saudi Chambers of Commerce and Industry, whose company has been in partnership with American companies for more than 35 years. "Sometimes you have to say the truth to your friends. We believe the United States is a friend but that our friend has let us down, really."

"They want to paint us as breeders of terrorism, as bankrollers of terrorism," said Abdul Mushin al-Akkas, a businessman and head of the foreign relations committee on the consultative council to the government, known as the majlis al-shura.

The two topics that surface repeatedly are the American blame cast on all Saudis for the action of 15 citizens and the Palestinian question.

"We would like to have a friendship," Mr. Akkas said. "But a culture of hate is being nurtured in Saudi Arabia and vice-versa. And if they keep painting us as the devil incarnate, I will have trouble saying the United States is a friend of ours."

Some voices ÷ ranging from critics of the Saudi government to powerful conservative Islamic forces ÷ say that Saudi Arabia has not taken enough responsibility for its role in fostering the kind of thinking that led to the Sept. 11 attacks.

Among those people ÷ some of them foreigners for whom it is much easier to speak out ÷ there is some feeling that the government, the education system, mosques and the financing of charities with alleged links to terrorist groups help to foster terrorism. In this view, the United States should put more pressure on the Saudis for reform.

The Saudi counterargument, advanced in recent months by senior figures of the royal family, is that reform is desirable but possible only if the most visible ties with the United States ÷ such as the bases ÷ are loosened or even broken.

Edward S. Walker, the American deputy chief of mission in Saudi Arabia in the late 1980's and now president of the Middle East Institute in Washington, noted that it may be counterproductive to urge reform from outside.

"The more you hammer them, the more you get statements that we are their enemies," he said. "No government wants to be seen bowing to American pressure."

Some American diplomats and Saudi officials go out of their way to stress that ties behind the scenes have remained friendly, despite the strains after Sept. 11.

"Obviously, Iraq is something that is putting pressure on the relationship, as is the Israeli-Palestinian problem, as is the perception here that the war on terrorism is a war on Islam," an American diplomat said. But, he added, "the foundation of the relationship is as sound as it ever was ÷ it was always a relationship about very important strategic interests that both governments share."

With the war over, the big question for Saudis is what happens next. "We looked at it like it was going to happen anyway," said a senior Saudi official. "But no one gave us a day-after scenario ÷ how long is the United States going to be there?"

One joke going round Riyadh reflects deeply held Saudi ÷ and Arab ÷ suspicions: "Why doesn't the United States just join the Arab League?"

"The real concern of the Saudis that I know is that, O.K., it's not actually Iraq," said Adel al-Qurashi, a 34-year-old businessman with close friends in the royal family. "But why and how and when and where and what else? We truly believe there is an agenda, we don't know what it is, but it becomes clearer every day.

"The United States has really come up and said, `I am exactly what you thought, I am embodying your fears,' " he said. "It's like the United States is now this mummy that has suddenly come to life very quickly."

The American diplomat said that "we spend an awful lot of time reassuring them" that "colonialism is not our policy."

Many here say that a kind of social umbilical chord that stretched between two radically different cultures was crucial to the relationship. It was a bond made of thousands of marriages between Saudis and Americans and tens of thousands of college degrees earned by Saudis in the United States. Now, many Saudi parents are not sending their children to study in the United States, but in Europe, Canada, Australia or even to two recently opened private universities here at home.

"The ties developed from the students," said Lubna S. Olayan, chief executive officer of the Olayan Financing Company, who is married to an American. "If this continues, people would develop affinities to the areas where they studied and lived."

Mr. Qurashi said, "When you have somebody who graduates from France and likes red wine and Brie, he's not going to come back here and fight for a Coca-Cola deal."

Several Saudis are boycotting American products in a protest against what is seen as the plight of the Palestinians. Saudi intellectuals have, according to several people interviewed, taken the once almost unknown step of declining invitations from American diplomats.

The jumbo jets that flew planeloads of Saudis to the United States every summer have plenty of empty seats now, partly because of visa problems for Arab students and tourists and detentions of suspected terrorists in the aftermath of Sept. 11.

"Some people are comparing the United States with the Roman Empire," said Turki al-Hamad, a Saudi commentator who advocates democratic reforms in the kingdom. "And now I can't explain to my kids the difference between the political America and the cultural America. I can't persuade them of the differences. My kids now ÷ they hate America."


Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company