Word: kingdoms
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...births for every 1,000 people-is among the highest in the world. Because of falling oil revenues and the country's spiraling debt, per capita income has plummeted from $28,600 to $6,800 in the past 20 years. Though one-third of all Saudis are unemployed, the kingdom imports 6 million foreign workers to fill the low-wage jobs Saudis don't want. Restive and jobless young Saudis have nowhere to turn in an antidemocratic society governed by puritanical social norms: Saudi authorities ban dance clubs and movie theaters, forbid women to drive and prohibit men and women...
...Islam is central to the identity of the Saudi state, whose influence in the Muslim world is based on its stewardship of Mecca and Medina, the two holiest cities in Islam. The al-Saud family has held on to power by placating the kingdom's religious establishment, which is dominated by descendants of the 18th century Muslim cleric Mohammed bin Abdul Wahhab. To defuse the religious leaders' hostility to modernization, the Sauds gave the Wahhabists broad power to dispense their forbidding brand of Islam in the country's mosques and schools and to regulate daily life in the kingdom. During...
...rich ally. As early as Sept. 24, Bush declared "the Saudi Arabians have been nothing but cooperative." Counterterrorism officials in Washington and Riyadh say they have worked closely together to liquidate al-Qaeda. According to U.S. officials, the Saudis have arrested more than 100 al-Qaeda members inside the kingdom, given American investigators access to interrogations of terrorism suspects and shared reams of intelligence on the Taliban and bin Laden's network...
...occasionally grumble about the risks associated with a U.S. troop presence in Saudi Arabia-namely, bin Laden's demand that the House of Saud be deposed for hosting the infidels-the Saudis know they can't afford to lose the guarantee of U.S. protection. Since the Gulf War, the kingdom has spent $270 billion on high-tech weapons, but its forces still lack the training and skills to make them work. As a result, the regime is helpless against external threats, and Iran could become one even if Iraq is neutralized. "They need us more than we need them," says...
...alternative to the insular world view peddled by the country's Wahhabist clerics. Saudi liberals like Professor Enazy who seek to counter the extremists still find themselves muzzled. Drinking coffee in the refuge of a Riyadh hotel room, Enazy says the government has warned him not to criticize the kingdom's religious establishment. "If I publish anything, I'll get kicked out of a job," he says. "And yet they allow the extremists to get away with anything they want." The U.S. has provided little support to those moderate voices inside Saudi Arabia, largely to avoid doing anything that would...