Word: saud
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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...
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...
Askar Enazy, a professor of international law in Riyadh and an outspoken critic of the regime, complains that the clerics "are allowed to run rampant. The al-Saud believe if they oppose them, it will undermine their own legitimacy as rulers. They had the opportunity to crush them many times before but chose not to." Mohammed al Odad is a government minister in Abha, but he is dismayed. "The fundamentalists have total control of the masses," he says. "It gets worse and worse." Parents say they are fed up with the Wahhabist school curriculum, which rears students on a diet...
...private, Saudi officials have trashed the speech. Last month, after Prince Saud and the foreign ministers of Jordan and Egypt met with Bush at the White House, the prince tried to put the best face on things, saying he was "much impressed" by Bush's commitment to a three-year timetable for a Palestinian state and an eventual end to the Israeli occupation. Still, says a U.S. official, "our reputation is at a low ebb, and so it's harder for the Saudis to do things in public view with...
...idea that the U.S. no longer needs to keep 6,000 troops in Saudi Arabia must frighten the royal family. While the princes 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...