Word: riyadh
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...uninterested-or perhaps they're in a state of denial-in the level of Saudi participation in Sept. 11, the country seethes with open loathing for the U.S. and sympathy for bin Laden's cause. Signs of anti-Western militancy are rife throughout this vast kingdom, from the capital, Riyadh-where in June separate car bombs blew up a British banker outside his home and nearly killed an American expatriate-to Abha, a remote mountain city in the southern province of Asir, where four of the hijackers were raised and locals still celebrate all "the Fifteen," as the group...
...Isolating Riyadh, though, carries risks. Western diplomats warn that the al-Saud clan, which has ruled the kingdom for the past century, is the only Western-leaning institution left in a fundamentalist state that is growing younger, poorer and more radical. "Let's say we decided to split sheets with the Saudis. What would replace them would not be a pretty sight," says a U.S. diplomat. "You could see another Taliban. There's no moderate group that could come in and take over...
...Riyadh necessarily inclined to go its own way. In the past two months, it has been worried enough about its relations with America to launch a P.R. blitz modeled after a U.S. political campaign, with issue ads, town-hall meetings, focus groups and overnight polling. The goal: to improve the image of the Saudis in the U.S. Only 32% of Americans have a favorable opinion of Saudi Arabia, down from 60% during the Gulf War. The point man for the campaign, Adel al-Jubeir, a top aide to Crown Prince Abdullah, says that after Sept. 11, "we discovered Americans...
...generation ago, vast swaths of the Arabian Peninsula lacked the basic infrastructure of a modern society-roads, running water, electricity. Today nearly half the country's 22 million people live in Riyadh or Jidda, and Saudis make up the biggest market for U.S. consumer products in the Middle East. When they're not fighting city traffic in Cadillac SUVs, middle-class Saudis frequent gleaming shopping malls lined with designer brand names from the U.S. In a country where women are required to wear full-length abayas in public, you can catch Sex and the City on satellite TV every Friday...
Although Washington can be relatively relaxed on the oil issue, the use of Saudi bases is another matter. The U.S. has significant operations at the Prince Sultan Air Base south of Riyadh, where a superhigh-tech Combined Air Operations Center is situated. The Pentagon is beefing up its presence elsewhere in the Arabian peninsula--in Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman and especially Qatar, where a second CAOC is hastily being built. But if the Saudis do not want America to attack Saddam from their territory, the region's smaller states are apt to balk as well. "If the Saudis are not doing...