Editor's Note:
This article originally appeared in History
in Dispute, Volume 14, The Middle East Since 1945, First Series
by David W. Lesch, Editor.
Has
Saudi Arabia Been a Positive Influence in the Middle East?
By John Duke Anthony
Viewpoint:
Yes. Saudi Arabia has been successful in building up its infrastructure amid
relative political stability and it has been a moderating influence in the
region.
By
John Duke Anthony, National Council on U.S.-Arab
Relations, Washington, D.C.
Saudi
Arabia is a one-of-a-kind country. Alone among the world�s 212 countries,
the kingdom is the only one to have entered the international comity of
nations in the twentieth century not out from under Western imperial rule. For
the past seventy years it is unrivaled in being the United States�
longest-standing Arab ally.
State
revenues from the Saudi�s prodigious supplies of oil began in the late
1930s. However, these revenues were not large until following the oil embargo
of 1973�1974, begun in conjunction with the October 1973 Arab-Israeli War.
The Kingdom then entered an era of modernization and development unmatched by
any other developing nation and, indeed, by few among the older,
industrialized societies in any region.
Beginning
in the late 1960s, and against persistent advice from international
consultants, Saudi leaders began adding a technologically advanced industrial
base to its energy sector. The purpose was to diversify the economy with a
view to adding value in a domain of enterprise where no other Arab, and few
Islamic, nations had succeeded before. Starting from a base of zero
petrochemical exports as recently as the early 1980s, the Kingdom had by 2003
managed to corner a growing percentage of the international market for
petrochemicals. In so doing, it became an even more formidable player than it
already was in the councils of world energy, petrochemical, and industrial
markets the world over.
In
addition, Saudi manufacturing expanded exponentially at the same time.
Starting from a narrow manufacturing base of only a few hundred factories in
the early 1970s, none of which were more than medium-sized establishments
producing goods for what was then an exceptionally small domestic market, the
rate and nature of growth in this area has been equally phenomenal. Indeed, at
the onset of the twenty-first century, Saudi Arabia boasted nearly three
thousand factories of which a majority produced goods for export.
In
addition to proving wrong virtually the entire international community of
industrial consultants, Saudi Arabia has also experienced success in the field
of agriculture. It has been able to demonstrate that those who counseled it
not to consider becoming an exporter of agricultural goods, let alone seek to
bring into being an agribusiness industry and an agrarian middle class where
neither existed before, were also in error. As early as the mid 1980s the
Kingdom had emerged from next to zero among the international producers of
agricultural commodities to become the sixth largest exporter of wheat, an
annual source of flowers for the Netherlands, and home to two of the world�s
largest dairy farms.
In
the area of human resources infrastructure development, Saudi Arabia, during
the boom period of the mid 1970s to the mid 1980s, boasted that it had built
one new school every day. The number of hospitals, clinics, and healthcare
systems that were brought into being during this period was no less
impressive.
Further,
as far as housing is concerned, at one point in the early 1990s the Ministry of
Planning pointed out that as much as 25 percent of the Saudi population lived
in affordable housing made possible largely by generous consumer loans. A
prominent feature was that 20 percent of a particular loan would be waived if
the owner succeeded in making payments on schedule on the remainder of the
loan.
In
addition, throughout half a dozen official five-year development plans, Saudi
Arabia succeeded in sharing its newfound wealth in other ways. Among the
recipients of its material munificence were the less fortunate of its friends,
partners, and allies in the developing world. Indeed, together with
neighboring Kuwait and the emirate of Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates (UAE),
Saudi Arabia has annually ranked in the top three of the world�s most
generous charitable donors based on the percentage of annual Gross Domestic
Product (GDP) as well as a percentage of its citizens� income per capita.
Furthermore,
in 2003 Saudi Arabia agreed to adhere to a common tariff for imports in
association with a six-country Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) customs union
among Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, and the UAE. It did so pursuant to
establishing a common market and entering into negotiations aimed at
concluding a GCC-European Union (EU) free trade agreement. In so doing, few
outside observers noticed that the Saudis simultaneously lowered substantially
the customs duties that for decades had shielded its manufacturers from
lower-cost goods produced elsewhere. Here again, many foreign analysts
expected the decision to be rejected by Saudi industrial entrepreneurs.
However, as with the other predictions, no social, economic, or political
instability ensued as a result. A major reason was the ease with which the
government introduced these far-reaching measures. Of additional importance
was the patience with which officials explained to Saudi entrepreneurs the
potentially greater long-term benefits that would follow from the
significantly expanded international markets for their goods.
For
the same reasons, no political instability resulted from parallel moves by the
government to privatize some of the economic jewels in the state sector�s
crown, such as telecommunications and port management. Future candidates for
privatization include power generation, water desalination, and airline
transportation, to be combined with the introduction of steeper user and
service fees for water and electricity.
The
extent to which Saudi Arabia has or has not been a moderating force in the
region is a subject of ongoing and at times highly controversial debate. On
one side are Westerners, particularly Americans, who in the aftermath of the
terrorist attacks on the United States on 11 September 2001, have been highly
critical of Saudi Arabia, owing in large measure to the fact that fifteen of
the nineteen terrorists responsible for those attacks were Saudis.
At
the other extreme has been the Bush administration, which has frequently gone
out of its way to emphasize the many mutual benefits that the American and
Saudi people have long derived from what, by any standard, has been and
remains a special relationship, one long envied by virtually every other
country in the world. Indeed, President George W. Bush�s father, former U.S.
president George H. W. Bush, in a speech given at Tufts University on 26
February 2003, stated that:
| in certain quarters here in the United States, there�s a certain ugly
stereotyping concerning Saudi Arabia that emerged, maybe for understandable
reasons, but emerged after 9/ 11. This stereotyping offends me, and concerns
me. And our president has spoken out against it several times. It suggests
that because most of the hijackers were Saudi citizens, the Saudi government
and the Saudi people were also anti-American. And in my view, nothing can be
further from the truth.
We
have different systems. But, with the exception of a small fringe element that
frankly exists in every society�remember Timothy McVeigh�a lot of people
were going �Oh, he�s probably an Arab terrorist.� Jumping to
stereotypical conclusions only to find that he was a right wing nut. And the
Saudi�s are our staunch allies and friends, and I don�t like it when some
of the great newspapers in this country try to make enemies out of Saudi
Arabia.
|
From
a more clinical, detached, and less politically nuanced perspective, it can be
said that Saudi Arabia, for decades, has had one of the lowest crime rates of
any country. At the same time, the incidence of widespread substance abuse,
and of violent political, civil, or industrial unrest, has consistently been
among the lowest registered anywhere in the world. It is often pointed out
that the extent of violent crime in an American city such as Miami, Florida,
in a single month is the equivalent to such crimes in all of Saudi Arabia in
the span of a decade. A reason for this low occurrence of murder, mayhem, and
other crimes of violence has little to do with a pacifistic nature among the
citizenry. The phenomenon is attributable far more to the law-abiding nature
of most Saudis, among the indigenous population and expatriates alike.
An
additional source of the largely moderating effect that Saudi policies and
positions have had on the immediate region is rooted in the government�s
distinctive leadership within a range of regional and international
organizations. Indeed, only Egypt comes close among Arab and Islamic nations
to the extent to which membership in key rule-setting institutions has made a
difference in the conduct of international affairs generally.
Saudi
Arabia, for example, is a founding member of the United Nations, League of
Arab States, Organization of the Islamic Conference, Organization of Petroleum
Exporting Countries (OPEC), Organization of Arab Oil Exporting Countries, Arab
Monetary Fund, Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), and Peninsula Shield [Dar al-Jazirah],
the symbolic collective defense force of the six GCC countries, stationed in
the Kingdom�s northwestern area near Kuwait.
Acting
in close concert with the members of these organizations, as well as with
great-power countries further afield, Saudi Arabia has made a major difference
in helping to end the Iran-Iraq War (1980�1988); to end the Soviet
occupation of Afghanistan (1979�1988); to conduct the war against terrorism
in Afghanistan and elsewhere; and to settle the Arab world�s longest
undemarcated border, between the Kingdom and Yemen (2001), as well as to
successfully settle border disputes with practically all of its thirteen
neighboring countries.
Within
OPEC, Saudi Arabia�s stewardship since the mid 1970s has been unparalleled
among major oil producers. At its own considerable expense Saudi Arabia has
maintained what no other country in the world could do: namely, an excess
production capacity of more than 2 million barrels a day. The strategic
objective in so doing has been to act as a moderating force upon what would
otherwise be far greater upward pressure upon oil prices.
Despite
increased strains in the bilateral relationship following the terrorist
attacks on the United States, the Kingdom has been consistent in reassuring
what would otherwise have been far more nervous consumers in oil-importing
countries that it would remain a stable and secure source of energy. Saudi
Arabia has also introduced and kept on the table a proposal to further assure
the international marketplace of its responsible stewardship in matters
pertaining to energy. To this end, the Kingdom has proposed to pay for the
building of an international energy information center, to be based in Riyadh.
Representatives of the oil-producing and oil-importing countries would post
select personnel to staff the organization. The purpose would be for them to
remain in constant communication and consultation with one another so as to
avert any crisis in the industry.
In
these and other ways, Saudi Arabia has consistently played an outsized role in
regional and world affairs. Notwithstanding the penchant for the mainstream
American media to focus upon the negatives in any bilateral relationship, most
economic and political strategists acknowledge that at no other time in recent
history has the United States been as much in need of a friend, such as Saudi
Arabia has been and remains, in the war on terrorism.
Not
least among the Kingdom�s contributions to regional peace and stability has
been Crown Prince Abdullah�s bold, far-reaching, and historically
unprecedented proposal for settling peacefully the long-festering Arab-Israeli
conflict. At an Arab League heads of state summit in Beirut, Lebanon, on 30
March 2002, there was unanimous acceptance by all twenty-two members of his
proposal that addressed virtually every major concern that Israeli national
leaders had articulated to the Arab world since 1948. The proposal called on
the Arab countries to recognize Israel and its right to exist within secure
borders in exchange for Israeli withdrawal from Arab lands it occupied in the
June 1967 war and its recognition of an independent Palestine with Jerusalem
as its capital. Therefore, in many different areas related to the Middle Eat,
Saudi Arabia has been a moderating force and has provided an element of
stability over the years in a region that has experienced little of it in
recent times.
Dr.
John Duke Anthony is President and CEO of the National
Council on U.S.-Arab Relations, Publisher of GulfWire
and Saudi-American
Forum, and Secretary, U.S.-GCC Corporate Cooperation Committee.
All three are Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit and nongovernmental
organizations dedicated to educating Americans and others about the Arab
countries, the Mideast, and the Islamic world.
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