The Saudi Syndrome
AFP photo/ Bilal Qabalan
Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah bin Abdel Aziz
inaugurates 26 December 2004 the Al-Qatif new oil production plant, 300 kms
east of Riyadh, with a capacity of 800,000 barrels per day (bpd) to continue
meeting consumer demand for world crude.
The New York Times - Editorial
January 1, 2005
The next time you consider the purchase of a family car that
matches satisfying heft with infinitesimal mileage per gallon,
you might want to think about where
some of that gas money will ultimately be going. Part of the price of every
extra gallon helps, albeit indirectly, to finance mosques and religious schools
all over the world that spread a fanatical variant of Islam that sees legitimacy
in terrorist attacks. This financing, amounting to billions of dollars a year,
comes from the government and private charities of Saudi Arabia, a country
that is now taking in roughly $80 billion a year from oil exports.
Saudi Arabia is the source of only 15 percent of America's imported
oil. But since oil is an interchangeable commodity in world markets,
every barrel America imports, even if it comes from Venezuela,
Nigeria or Mexico, helps push up the prices received by Saudi
Arabia, the world's biggest oil exporter. America now imports
well over half of the oil it consumes, and more than half of
United States consumption is in the form of motor vehicle fuels.
Thanks to America's gas guzzlers, China's booming factories and
other thirsty consuming nations, this has been an extremely profitable
year for oil exporting countries. Overall global demand is at
record levels, and OPEC's production recently reached its highest
since 1979. Even with the latest slippage in oil prices, Saudi
Arabia's low production costs allow it to reap a hefty markup
on every barrel sold.
The Saudi government, itself under assault from Al Qaeda, is
not in the business of directly financing terrorism, and since
9/11 it has responded to American pressure to control the flow
of charitable funds to active terrorist groups. But what it still
pays for, and what the religious charities its citizens are obliged
to contribute to pay for, is a worldwide network of mosques,
schools and Islamic centers that proselytize the belligerent
and intolerant Wahhabi variant of Islam that is dominant in Saudi
Arabia. As a result of this oil-financed largess, the teachings
of more tolerant and humane Muslim leaders are losing ground
in countries like Indonesia and Pakistan. Wahhabi mosques that
glorify armed jihad have also made alarming gains among the Muslim
populations of Europe and the United States.
For years, Saudi Arabian oil money bankrolled the Taliban regime
in Afghanistan and provided financial support to Pakistan's government.
It was Saudi aid that allowed Pakistan to defy international
sanctions imposed over its nuclear bomb testing. Without Saudi
money there is some question whether chronically impoverished
Pakistan could have ever afforded to develop nuclear weapons
and the crucial bomb-related technologies that its scientists
passed on to Iran, Libya, North Korea and perhaps other countries
as well.
There is no sinister Saudi conspiracy at work here. This is
just what anyone should expect to happen when mind-boggling sums
of oil money flow into an absolute monarchy that bases its legitimacy
on puritanical militant Islam and offers no pretense of political
accountability or transparent accounting. The more copiously
that oil money flows, the less pressure a divided Saudi royal
family feels to undertake the kind of difficult political and
economic reforms that might conceivably break the nexus between
oil and terror.
The Saudi syndrome is not the only reason Americans need to
get much more serious about energy conservation. But it is a
powerfully compelling one.
Petroleumworld
01 01 05
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