Seven years after 9/11 the Bush Administration has yet to name the enemy in the “war on terror”. Much has happened since the 2001 attacks on the WTC and Pentagon. Americans invaded Iraq with army and marines. Islamists invaded America with mosques and money. American soldiers are fighting to bring freedom of choice and democracy to Arabia. Islamists are working to bring freedom from choice (Islam) to America. The Islamists seem to be making better progress. Ignoring the Jihad and political Islam, Americans may find themselves on the losing end of World War IV.
How is it possible to miss the elephant in the room? Or is it the two headed snake in the lunch box?
Unlike European elites, Americans understand that Iran is one head of the snake, the Shiite head. The Sunni head, Saudi Arabia, is far more dangerous. The Saudis lead the greater Jihad, an epic drive to intimidate, infiltrate, and assimilate the West. So why is President Bush calling them “our friends the Saudis”? Was Bush not briefed properly?
Back in 2002 Laurent Murawiec, then employed by Rand Corporation, gave a 24 slide presentation to the Defense Policy Board identifying Saudi Arabia as the enemy and exploring strategies for defeating them. The Saudis complained to their friend Bush and Murawiec was fired. How is that for a legacy? The slides are preserved at United States Action and replicated below.
Slide 1
Taking Saudi Out of Arabia
Laurent Murawiec
RAND
Defense Policy Board
July 10, 2002
Slide 2
Taking Saudi out of Arabia:
ContentsThe Arab Crisis
“Saudi” Arabia
Strategies
Slide 3
The Arab Crisis
Slide 4
The systemic crisis of the Arab World
The Arab world has been in a systemic crisis for the last 200 years
It missed out on the industrial revolution, it is missing out on the digital revolution
Lack of inner resources to cope with modern world
Slide 5
Shattered Arab self-esteem
Shattered self-esteem
Could God be wrong?
Turn the rage against those who contradict God: the West, object of hatred
A whole generation of violently anti-Western, anti-American, anti-modern shock-troops
Slide 6
What has the Arab world produced?
Since independence, wars have been the principal output of the Arab world
Demographic and economic problems made intractable by failure to establish stable polities aiming at prosperity
All Arab states are either failing states or threatened to fail
Slide 7
The Crisis of the Arab world reaches a climax
The tension between the Arab world and the modern world has reached a climax
The Arab world’s home-made problems overwhelm its ability to cope
The crisis is consequently being exported to the rest of the world
Slide 8
How does change occur in the Arab world?
There is no agora, no public space for debating ideas, interests, policies
The tribal group in power blocks all avenues of change, represses all advocates of change
Plot, riot, murder, coup are the only available means to bring about political change
Slide 9
The continuation of politics by other means?
In the Arab world, violence is not a continuation of politics by other means — violence is politics, politics is violence
This culture of violence is the prime enabler of terrorism
Terror as an accepted, legitimate means of carrying out politics, has been incubated for 30 years …
Slide 10
The crisis cannot be contained to the Arab world alone
The crisis has irreversibly spilled out of the region
9/11 was a symptom of the “overflow”
The paroxysm is liable to last for several decades
U.S. response will decisively influence the duration and outcome
Slide 11
“Saudi” Arabia
Slide 12
The old partnership
Once upon a time, there was a partnership between the U.S. and Saudi ArabiaÂ
Partnerships, like alliances, are embodied in practices, ideas, policies, institutions, people — which persist after the alliance has died
Slide 13
“Saudi” Arabia
An instable group: Since 1745, 58% of all rulers of the House of Saud have met a violent demise
Wahhabism loathes modernity, capitalism, human rights, religious freedom, democracy, republics, an open society — and practices the very opposite
As long as enmity had no or little consequences outside the kingdom, the bargain between the House of Saud and the U.S. held
Slide 14
Means, motive, opportunity
1973: Saudi Arabia unleashes the Oil Shock, absorbs immense flows of resources — means
1978: Khomeiny challenges the Saudis’ Islamic credentials, provoking a radicalization and world-wide spread of Wahhabism in response — motive
1979-1989: the anti-Soviet Jihad gives life and strength to the Wahhabi putsch within Sunni Islam — opportunity. The Taliban are the result
Slide 15
The impact on Saudi policy
Wahhabism moves from Islam’s lunatic fringe to center-stage — its mission now extends world-wide
Saudis launch a putsch within Sunni Islam
Shift from pragmatic oil policy to promotion of radical Islam
Establish Saudi as “the indispensable State” — treasurers of radical, fundamentalist, terrorist groups
Slide 16
Saudis see themselves
God placed the oil in the kingdom as a sign of divine approval
Spread Wahhabism everywhere, but keep the power of the al-Saud undiminished
Survive by creating a Wahhabi-friendly environment — fundamentalist regimes — throughout the Moslem world and beyond
Slide 17
The House of Saud today
Saudi Arabia is central to the self-destruction of the Arab world and the chief vector of the Arab crisis and its outwardly-directed aggression
The Saudis are active at every level of the terror chain, from planners to financiers, from cadre to foot-soldier, from ideologist to cheerleader
Saudi Arabia supports our enemies and attacks our allies
A daily outpouring of virulent hatred against the U.S. from Saudi media, “educational” institutions, clerics, officials — Saudis tell us one thing in private, do the contrary in reality
Slide 18
Strategies
Slide 19
What is to be done?
During and after World War I, Britain’s India Office backed the House of Saud; the Foreign Office backed the Hashemites. The India Office won
But the entire post-1917 Middle East settlement designed by the British to replace the Ottoman Empire is fraying
The role assigned to the House of Saud in that arrangement has become obsolete — and nefarious
Slide 20
“Saudi Arabia” is not a God-given entity
The House of Saud was given dominion over Arabia in 1922 by the British
It wrested the Guardianship of the Holy Places — Mecca and Medina — from the Hashemite dynasty
There is an “Arabia,” but it needs not be “Saudi”
Slide 21
An ultimatum to the House of Saud
Stop any funding and support for any fundamentalist madrasa, mosque, ulama, predicator anywhere in the world
Stop all anti-U.S., anti-Israeli, anti-Western predication, writings, etc., within Arabia
Dismantle, ban all the kingdom’s “Islamic charities,” confiscate their assets
Prosecute or isolate those involved in the terror chain, including in the Saudi intelligence services
Slide 22
Or else …
What the House of Saud holds dear can be targeted:
-Oil: the old fields are defended by U.S. forces, and located in a mostly Shiite area
-Money: the Kingdom is in dire financial straits, its valuable assets invested in dollars, largely in the U.S.
-The Holy Places: let it be known that alternatives are being canvassed
Slide 23
Other Arabs?
The Saudis are hated throughout the Arab world: lazy, overbearing, dishonest, corrupt
If truly moderate regimes arise, the Wahhabi-Saudi nexus is pushed back into its extremist corner
The Hashemites have greater legitimacy as Guardians of Mecca and Medina
Slide 24
Grand strategy for the Middle East
Iraq is the tactical pivot
Saudi Arabia the strategic pivot
Egypt the prize
On December 11, 2002, Laurent Murawiec expanded on the slide presentation. In An Alternative Strategy for the War on Terrorism, he again asks “what are we at war with?” and answers that,
Saudi Arabia is at the heart of the terrorist problem, and of the war. For reasons developed elsewhere in this report, the kingdom both found itself and propelled itself into that situation. The problem is that it is barely possible to disentangle the religious ideology from the political structure, Wahhabi from al-Saud, to unscramble the imperialist spread of Wahhabism from the development of a “terrorist international,” to separate the regulated form of jihad advocated and supported by the Saudi Royals from the unregulated form of jihad practiced by bin Laden. The Siamese twins share one body but have to heads. Attempts to separate them would result in the death of both.
Bin Laden’s operation is the spearhead of the general jihadi set of ideas, of practices and of organizations that emanate from Saudi Arabia, from its dominant, institutional, reactionary ulama, and are largely shared by the Royals. The difference is tactical: the ulama only deal with pure ideology; the Royals have to deal with some of the complexities of international affairs. The Royals have lost operational control over bin Laden a long time ago – Saudi Arabia as such has not lost overall strategic control of the jihad. The relationship is somewhat akin to that between the Soviet nexus of Party and Government, on the one hand, and Komintern and mass movements on the other, Stalin’s “NGOs,” in a manner of speaking: deniability, arm’s length status, lower signature. The difference lies with the level of development: the tribal totalitarianism of Saudi Arabia is much looser than the bureaucratic totalitarianism developed in Russia. As a result, the Komintern had much tighter operational control and much fewer rogue or simply impatient units. Bin Laden is an impatient Crown Prince Abdullah.
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If Arab and Moslem terrorism is to be eradicated, the Middle East must be thoroughly transformed. To bring to an end the threat of endless and increasingly devastating terror strikes against the continental United States, the economy, American influence and interests in the world, there is no other way – no more than the Nazi threat could be appeased or circumscribed, or the Soviet threat passively allowed to fade away. Our vulnerability is that of a complex organism that pays its greater efficiency by greater immediate vulnerability. Our strength is our ability to mobilize ourselves to compensate for our vulnerabilities, and our willingness to go to the offensive. One vulnerability is our desire for quick fixes, and our reluctance to accept a mission of reshaping a region, a culture, a religion. That is nonetheless the price of victory.
The Treaties of Westphalia in 1648; the Congress of Vienna in 1814-15; the series of treaties that flowed from the Versailles deliberations; the post-1945 redrawing of the world map: seen in historical perspective, this is what the outcome of the “war on terrorism” has to be. The vast Arabic-speaking world will be brought into “the West,” surprising though this may sound: it is the only way for it to be saved from chaos, lest that chaos engulfs us as well. The period of great turmoil ahead resembles the process Dean Acheson called “Creation.”
