Losing
America's base in
Saudi Arabia should not be a
"clash of civilizations"
By JONATHAN
POWER
January 23rd. 2002
LONDON - Winston Churchill who invented the phrase
"Iron Curtain" did not dream up the term "Cold War".
That- La Guerra Fria- was coined by thirteenth century
Spaniards to describe their uneasy coexistence with
Muslims in the Mediterranean. This is perhaps the time to
bring it back into its correct historical usage. For
there can be no doubt that if Saudi Arabia goes ahead
with its apparent decision to ask the U.S. to close down
its important military base in Saudi Arabia, many
Americans will conclude that a Cold War of sorts between
the U.S. and the Islamic world will have begun.
Everyone knows that removing America's military
presence from the sacred soil of Saudi Arabia has been
Osama bin Laden's number one demand. In meeting it
America, however brave a face it puts on it, will feel
deep inside itself that its 50-year long relatively
benign relationship with the oil kingdoms and sheikhdoms
of the Arabian peninsular - and one should add in Egypt-
is drawing to a close.
While neither side can cut the economic relationship-
America needs to buy and the Arabs needs to sell their
oil- it is inevitable that the past intimacy will be
transformed into a more workaday arrangement. It will
indeed take everyone's ingenuity for that not to slide
into a Cold War. The Americans will feel rebuffed and all
too ready to believe that they and the Arabs are on
opposite sides of what has become a very high fence.
One senses that the White House has seen this coming,
and even more so since September 11th. Not for nothing
has it been courting the ex-Asian republics of
Kirgizstan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan. Muslim in a loose
and ready way they may be, but the Soviet era did much to
secularise the culture. Moreover, they are not Arab and
they certainly do not belong to the heartland of Islamic
culture as bin Laden sees it. Most important, they appear
to value an alliance with America, all the more to shore
up their newfound independence from Russia. They seem to
be indicating that even if the war in Afghanistan is over
they wish the Americans to stay in their new bases, and
even expand them. And America sees in the long term an
alternative supplier of oil to the Arabian peninsular
It is also becoming apparent that the Americans may
stay on a while in Pakistan. General Pervez Musharraf is
clearly sincere in his wish to break the grip of
Pakistani fundamentalism once and for all. Although
fundamentalist parties have never won more than a small
percentage of the votes in an election they have called
too many of the shots, not least in the dangerous
relationship with India, over Kashmir.
It appears that Musharraf sees an American military
presence as a valuable source of influence in helping
push his own army and intelligence services in the
direction of making a much-needed breakthrough on finding
a solution to the division of Kashmir. Meanwhile, America
is about to step up the military relationship with
predominantly Muslim Indonesia. Forced to wind down its
military training program after the fall of Suharto it is
now considering being drawn in again as the new
government struggles with radical Islamic armed
movements.
All this suggests that the picture painted by Samuel
Huntington in his Clash of Civilisations is rather
more complicated that he suggested. The Islamic world is
not that homogeneous and is riven by fault lines, even as
it shares one important historical experience- the
imposition of Western culture, first by force of arms and
more recently by the twin influences of the market place
and economic modernisation. Moreover, unlike Western
civilization or Sinic civilization, it does not possess a
core state of overwhelming influence and power around
which the others can rally and identify. At the end of
the day Saudi Arabia is nothing more than a pilgrimage
point.
While it is obvious there is no great well of sympathy
in the Islamic world for America's plight after September
11th, neither has there been any great outpouring of
support for bin Laden. Bin Laden, as the distinguished
war historian, Michael Howard, has recently written, is
about as representative of Islam as is the Northern
Ireland Protestant firebrand Ian Paisley representative
of Christianity. Yet, just as Paisley exerts a profound
influence on the politics of his homeland so does bin
Laden on his. Now that he is about to win the prime aim
of his nine-year campaign of terror it could be that his
cause will run rapidly out of steam.
For the most part Saudi leaders, albeit in a mode that
is essentially authoritarian, have done a remarkable job
of steering a balance between the fundamentalist tenets
of their Wahhabi reform movement of Islam and the
inevitable pressures of a rich oil economy that has had
to accommodate to the world outside. Ridding themselves
of the burden of an American military base will make
their task of keeping a sense of equilibrium at home that
much easier. Only the most introverted could conclude
that this is the beginning of a new "Cold War".
I can be reached by phone +44
7785 351172 and e-mail: JonatPower@aol.com
Copyright © 2002 By
JONATHAN POWER
Tell a friend about this article
Send to:
From:
Message and your name
 
|