Word: fahd
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With the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990, Saudi Arabia was thrust into a spotlight its royal family never sought. By agreeing to accept U.S. troops in exchange for protection (after a visit from then Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney), KING FAHD knew he was also inviting Western influences...
Some Saudi liberals seek U.S. support for their campaign for change. "We hope the American presence is not just protection for the status quo," says a businessman. "We assume it will bring an improvement in the integrity of the government." From Washington's viewpoint, however, pushing Fahd and family down the fast track to Westernization and democratization is a likely prescription for a Shah [of Iran]-like disaster. Swift liberalizations could easily stir religious extremists to revolt. "If there's an internal threat to the kingdom," says a U.S. expert on Saudi Arabia, "it's from fundamentalists on the right...
When U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld turned up at an ornate royal palace in Saudi Arabia last week, he shook hands with ailing King Fahd bin Abdul Aziz al Saud and then exchanged views about the war on terrorism with Crown Prince Abdullah, who runs the kingdom's day-to-day affairs. Rumsfeld might have got a somewhat different perspective if he had stopped by al Masaa, a cafe in the heart of the capital, where patrons hail Osama bin Laden as an Arab hero...
...King Fahd, 80, will be remembered in Saudi annals as the great modernizer, a staunch U.S. ally who built hospitals and highways and spent billions upgrading the Saudi armed forces. To minimize friction with Muslim leaders, however, he constantly channeled some of the kingdom's vast oil wealth into religious causes. He carved out a place in Islamic history by supervising a $25 billion expansion of the holy shrines in Mecca and Medina. The King also poured cash into scores of new Islamic universities, which began churning out thousands of fresh religious activists. "But something unexpected happened," notes a former...
Some found what they considered a higher calling. King Fahd's most portentous move was his backing of the jihad against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. The Saudis had supported Islamic political groups throughout the Middle East for decades, but the training of thousands of young Wahhabis was their first real taste of jihad. Among the recruits was a 21-year-old business administration graduate of King Abdul Aziz University named Osama bin Laden, a scion of a Jidda construction clan that made a fortune building the kingdom's infrastructure...