News Articles Internet Articles (2015)
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As he handed Giuliani the check, the prince cited the long and cordial relationship that has
existed between the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the United States. And,
even though the media had just revealed The American public has become
confused and mistrustful of the Saudis because, on one hand, they act
as though they are very close friends with the United States and very
loyal to whomever occupies the White Housewhether Democrat or Republican,
liberal or conservative. Yet, as the Saudis extend the hand of friendship,
the other The internal struggle for power between two half brothersSaudi princes and heirs apparent to the throne of their father, King Fahdwill ultimately impact the economic and political security of the United States because the internal struggle in Saudi Arabia is a struggle between opposing theological ideologiesTawhid and Taqarub. It is this murky, puzzling paradox that confuses the non-Muslim about the Islamic world. Because, whether a Muslim is theologically moderate or aggressively militant depends to a large degree on which ideological viewtawhid or taqarubhe follows, and not whether he is a Sunni or a Shi'a. What makes the question even
more confusing is our own erroneous perception of what constitutes "good"
Muslims and "bad" Muslims, or "militant" Muslims and Until the radical Sunni Wahhabis initiated their blood bath in and around Fallujah last week, most Americans generally viewed the Sunnis (except the Ba'athists) as Islamic moderates. The Shi'a were seen as the radical extremists. Yet, the Taliban, which practiced the harshest form of Islam known to man, are Sunni. Saddam Hussein, a Ba'athist Sunni, had no trouble aligning himself with the Wahhabi Taliban. In an idyllic Muslim world, however, the Wahhabis would have been theologically obligated to initiate a takfiri jihad against Saddam's regime. And that, of course, was Saddam's worst fear for thirty years. He had Shi'a enemies on two sides and the Arab peninsula's largest Sunni enemy on the other. Thus, rather than looking at the Muslim community politicallySunni v Shi'a (which is like comparing Americans as Democrats or Republicans) we must learn to analyze their positions based on the doctrines of tawhid or taqarub because it is only then that we will recognize whether or not the playersand Islam itselfis an inherent danger to the United States and to the American people, or whether it is a passive religion like Christianity as Islamic spinmeisters in the United States claim. While all Muslims ascribe to
the basic tenets of Islam, the theological ideology of the Shi'a and the Sunni vary greatly. The theological shift began with the
death of The Wahhabists practice
an intolerable, fanatical form of monotheism. It is the theological
paranoia of the Wahhabis that caused the absolute suppression of
women in Muslim society. To the Wahhabis, eliminating the pagan
ideology of the Taqarub is the diplomatic policy of rapprochement between Muslims and non-Muslims. Peaceful coexistence. Taqarub questions the need for Jihad and explores the notion that Muslims, Christians, Jews and secularists can live, side-by-side, as partners in a global community without hate and without bloodshed. The fanatical Wahhabis are openly hostile to taqarub in any form. The Wahhabi clerics are quick to issue fatwahs against any Sunnis who espouses taqarubincluding Crown Prince Abdullah, the eldest son of King Fahd and the presiding member of the House of Saud. And, that, you might say, has caused a taqarub-tawhid paradox in Saudi Arabia Taqarubthe doctrine of rapprochementwas the direction chosen for Saudi Arabia by Crown Prince Abdullah out of political necessity. As a tribal chieftain in a feudal Muslim world, the Crown Prince carved political alliances that would assure the survival of the House of Saud. In diplomatic circles outside the Persian Gulf area, Crown Prince Abdullah has assured the continuation of the Saud dynasty by aligning his government with the United States. Within the Persian Gulf, his half-brother, Nayef bin Abdul Aziz, is recognized as the real power within the dynasty. In the case of the al Sauds,
the question of successionwhom King Fahd will anoint to succeed
him upon his death (or even whether he will anoint anyone)has been
hanging in the air since Fahd suffered a debilitating stroke in
1995. Generally speaking, tradition dictates that the eldest sonin
this case, Crown Prince Abdullah Internally, all is not well in the schizophrenic society of the Sauds. The Sauds are divided between two worldsthe western culture that brought economic development and industrial modernization to the region, and the medieval world of the Wahhabi Muslims that eschews modernization and hates the infidels that brought wealth, prosperity, and secular idolatry into the Muslim world.
Crown Prince Adbullah is an advocate of taqarub. He is the international consensus maker. His political strength in Saudi Arabia, and his political alliances with the oil shiekhs comes from his close, personal ties with the United Statesa relationship his half brother does not share. His nation is one of the most secure in the Mideast because of alliances forged with America. He has proven to be a trusted ally who has put his own regimeand his personal familyin harm's way to support the political agendas of both Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. Although the decision to do so was made by King Fahd, the Crown Prince was the driving force that forged the Bush-41 alliance during the Gulf War. Had Prince Nayef been the Crown Prince, it is a near certainty that Saudi Arabia would have assumed a more neutral, if not more Islamic hostile, position when Bush-41 sought the use of Saudi military bases from which to wage the air war and ground offensive against the Sunni dictator of Iraq. Under Prince Nayef, Saudi Arabia in 1991 would have more closely resembled Turkey in 2003 when Bush-43 wanted to launch his northern offensive from Turkey through the Sunni Triangle and into Baghdad from the north. Since the Saudi religious establishment is viscerally hostile to Shi'a, it is unlikely a Saudi government under the control of Nayef would have been amiable to the notion of overthrowing any Sunni governmenteven one as despotic as Saddam Hussein'sthat would have allowed any Shi'a majority an opportunity to participate in governance. That is also precisely why Saudi
Arabia denied Bush-43 the use of Saudi military bases to launch
America's attack against the Sunni Taliban in Afghanistan on October
8, 2001 and the Sunni government of Saddam Hussein on March
20, 2003. While the Crown Prince has constantly signaled both friendship
and cooperation with the West Nayef, as the head of the religious police, absolved the Saudi 9-11 skyjackers of responsibility for their terrorist activity. In fact, in an interview published openly in the Arab press, he insisted that al Qaeda could not possibly have planned and executed the terrorist attack against America because of the size and scope of the attack. Nayef argued that only Israel possessed the expertise to pull of such a feat within the United Stateseven though the identities of all of the 9-11 homicide skyjackers had been learned and their photos published in the American media. And all of them, without exception, were Muslim. Al Qaeda retaliated against
the Saudis for supporting George H. W. Bush in the international
arena by bombing the Khobar Towers in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. While
it was clear to Nayef's secret police that a Wahhabi cleric, Ali
bin al-Khurdayr issued the takfiri-jihadic fatwah that resulted
in 34 deathsincluding 10 Americans and 1 Nayef was content to arrest al-Ghamdi and close the case. The Crown Prince, pressured by the Americans and British was not. Yet, it took the Crown Prince five months before enough pressure could be directed against Nayef to force the prince to serve the arrest warrant on al-Khudayr and take him into custody. Nayef was forced by the Crown Prince and a coalition of sheikhs to crack down on extremists within the Kingdom. As a result of that edict, Saudi security police clashed repeatedly with Wahhabi extremists. Hundreds of Wahhabis have been arrested in Saudi Arabia and large caches of weapons were seized. In late November al Khundayr appeared on prime time TV in Saudi Arabia and on Al Jazeera. He confessed his role in planning the Khobar Towers suicide bombing. American television networks and newspapers did not carry, nor report, his confession even though 10 American citizens died in the bombing. While it appears that Crown Prince Abdullah is winning the tawhid-taqarub tug-of-war at the moment, the Mideast is a fickle place. Political fortunes change as quickly as the shifting sand. What al Qaeda fears most is that the Americans and a coalition of Iraqi Kurds and Shi'ites will force Riyadh to implement broad religious and political reforms that will give a voice to the minority Shi'a population in the Kingdom. After America's first excursion into the deserts of Iraq in 1991, the Wahhabi clerics feared that America would join forces with the Jews and destroy Islam completelythus the need for a Jihad against America. The complicity of the Saudi Wahhabis in their support of the Sunni Ba'athists, al Qaeda and other Muslim terrorist organizations in and around Fallujah in the Sunni Triangle will eventually become public and will raise even more questions about the loyalty of the Crown Prince to the American President (whomever he may be at that time). While Crown Prince Abdullah was able, with the help of the sheikhs, to arrest and prosecute Ali bin al-Khudayr, he does not have enough power to suppress the Wahhabi clerics, nor does he possess the autonomy on his own to divorce the political system of Saudi Arabia from Wahhabism. it appears that in bringing
America's War on Terrorism into the Persian Gulf region that President
George W. Bush bit off more "goat fat" than any president
could chew at one time. And, regardless how well he chews it, he will
never be able to swallow it without choking. Bush's That, of course, will not happen. As noted by Foreign Affairs magazine in a Jan-Feb, 2004 article, The Saudi Paradox, "Getting Riyadh to divorce itself from radical Wahhabism will be as great a task as getting the Soviet Union to renounce communism. Clearly, there are forces in the kingdom who would be willing to support the efforts of a Saudi Gorbachev, but it is not clear when or whether one will appear." Unfortunately, one has appeared. But he more closely resembles a Saudi Stalin. His name is Osama bin Laden. As a Wahhabi, bin Laden is viewed as a spiritual leader not only in Saudi Arabia, but in the entire Muslim world. As the warrior chieftain of the Jihad, bin Laden sees himself as a modern Saladin. He has declared war on the infidel's world and, thus far, only America and a handful of reluctant warriors who are indebted to the United States have risen to do battle. To date it appears that only President George W. Bush seemed consciously aware that Wahhabism is a global political system that theologically obligates the Muslim maleregardless of the nation in which he residesto respond to the call of arms against the economic system created by the United States and the central bankers and industrialists of the western world, very pointedly proving that large groups of extra-national ideologically-linked entities can declare war on nations if those entities are large enough, diverse enough, and serious enough to actually perpetuate acts of war upon nations. Suffice to say that the creation of an invisible emprey known as the United Nations made it possible for the invisible global emprey of Wahhabism to exist. Saudi Arabia is a nation in tremendous political turmoil. The secular system of rapprochement mandated by the doctrine of taqarub is rapidly losing ground to the tawhidic doctrine of Wahhabism. How President Bush handles the volatile situation in Iraq will determine which Saudi princeAbdullah or Nayefwill ultimately prevail. And which half-brother prevails will ultimately determine which political doctrinetawhid or taqarubwill become the compass that guides the desert Kingdom and the global Muslim community. Whether Islam becomes taqarub or remains tawhid and brings the jihad of Wahhabi to every corner of the world will be decided by how this president, or the next, handles the War on Terrorism. If the White House uses the uncompromising forcefulness of John F. Kennedy or Ronald Reagan. Wahhabism will be crushed and the doctrines of taqarub will prevail. If, on the other hand, the White House uses the conciliatory tactics of Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton or John F. Kerry, the fires of the tawhid will ignite every corner of the globe and the Holy War of the Jihad will explode into World War III as the 13th Crusade becomes the biblical Battle of Armageddon in the Plains of Meggido before the end of this decade. |
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