Interview - Thursday, March 31, 2005

Editor’s Note:

A prescription on “How to Reform Saudi Arabia Without Handing It to Extremists” by Gregory Gause appeared in the September/October 2004 edition of Foreign Policy magazine. 

To survive, the monarchy must battle the militants, reassure the religious establishment, and give the middle class a taste of democracy.

The article by Professor Gause, Director of the University of Vermont Middle East Studies Program, which took the form of a memorandum to Crown Prince Abdullah, formed the centerpiece of a televised panel discussion in Washington on September 16, 2004.  Both the article and the panel discussion were featured in SUSRIS Items of Interest (click for more).

Now, we are pleased to bring an update from Professor Gause on his views of developments in Saudi Arabia.  In an interview, conducted in early February, he discussed progress in the war on terrorism, municipal elections and political reform, and the state of Saudi-US relations.  He includes insights gained during his January visit to the Kingdom.  

Professor Gause was interviewed by telephone from his office at the University of Vermont on February 7, 2005.

Developments in the Relationship:
A Conversation with Gregory Gause

SUSRIS: Thank you for taking time to talk with us today. Let's start with the international counterterrorism conference that was held in Riyadh [Feb. 5-8]. Why was Saudi Arabia the venue for this conference and what were the implications for the war on terrorism?

Professor Gause: What we see the Saudi government doing is consistent with the positions they have taken since May of 2003 -- what some have called Saudi Arabia's 9/11 -- when Al Qaeda attacked housing compounds in Riyadh. The Saudis have been out front domestically and internationally on counterterrorism. I think that this conference is both an effort to advertise that fact internationally and an effort to get their ideas on the table.

The idea that Crown Prince Abdullah has put forward about the equivalent of a counterterrorism "Interpol" is an effort to take an active Saudi role in pushing these issues at the international level. I think there is probably some good substance to it. I imagine there are avenues that this information can be passed through but to regularize it might not be such a bad thing.

I see all this as a continuation of a policy trend that is now almost two years old. So it is nothing new. It's an effort to step up and take a leadership role in counterterrorism issues internationally. And it is to be welcomed.

On the flip side, of course, is the domestic counterterrorism issue. One of the things that struck me when I was there in January was how little anyone was talking about the terrorism issue. That is to say that they seem to think the government is getting on top of the terrorism issue at home. They included people who are critical of the government on a range of other issues. It somewhat surprised me because early January was just one month after the attack on the US consulate in Jeddah and the car bombing outside the Interior Ministry in Riyadh. In fact, the ministry building still had scaffolding in place and bits of the building ripped off had yet to be repaired when I arrived in January. So that fact that across the board people seem to think that the government was getting on top of this was an interesting signal.

SUSRIS: Some analysts noted the nature of the attack outside the interior ministry was so weak and ineffectual as to suggest Al Qaeda in the Kingdom has been disrupted by the government. What is your assessment of their strength?

SUSRIS: What were you hearing about the Saudi Municipal Council elections when you were in the Kingdom?

Professor Gause: The election process is a very interesting development and there was a lot of talk about it when I was in Riyadh in January. One of the interesting facts is that the registration rate in Riyadh was very low. The number of eligible voters that actually registered to vote -- the highest estimate I heard was 30 percent and the lowest was 10 percent -- has not shown a huge outpouring of people wanting to register to vote in Riyadh.

In the Eastern Province, where the registration process had just opened when I was there in January, the rates of registration have been much higher. In fact, the absolute number of people who registered in the Eastern Province is higher than the absolute number of registrants in all of Riyadh province, even though the population in Riyadh province is greater. So there is more acceptance and interest for voting in the Eastern Province. Of course we haven't seen figures from the Hijaz since registration has not opened there yet.

SUSRIS: What were Saudis saying about the first rounds of elections?

Professor Gause: Reaction was across the spectrum. Some people said they didn't register because it was meaningless. Others said this was the first time they could vote and they couldn't understand why people wouldn't want to register, believing they had to start somewhere. It really crossed all lines among the elite educated opinion.

It certainly seems that a lot of the candidates are running on, if you will, are running on family, clan or tribal platforms. I asked one candidate how he got to run for the council and he said some of the tribal leaders came to him and said, "You have an education and you should be a candidate." The process has been that sort of thing for some.

The only thing we can say for sure right now is that there wasn't a great outpouring of interest in Riyadh measured by the level of registration. Who is going to get elected? Will we be able to draw any kind of larger political conclusions from it? I don't know. People aren't really running on ideological platforms as far as I can tell. It could be reaching too much to try to get a reading on the overall ideological picture of the country from the results.

[Ed. Note: See the SUSRIS web site for updated information on the first two rounds of municipal election voting (click here) which occurred subsequent to this interview.]

The other thing about these elections is that we don't know what these councils are going to do. Will they have budget authority? What kind of issues can they address? All this is still up in the air. It remains to be seen just how real their powers will be.

SUSRIS: How has the lack of female participation been an issue for Saudi Arabians?

Professor Gause: I think it is an issue only among small sectors of society that are more liberal. It just doesn't seem to be a big issue but I do believe we will see Saudi Arabian women joining these councils. Perhaps the first will be as appointed members but it will probably come from the top. It won't be bottom-up pressure.

SUSRIS: There was an announcement in January that the Consultative Council [Majlis Ashura] will be given additional powers.

Professor Gause: Yes, and they're going to expand it to 150 members. Again the proof of the pudding will be in the eating. We will see what powers they get and how they use them. But I think it is a step in the right direction.

SUSRIS: What other political reform issues have people's attention?

Professor Gause: There is, in liberal circles, the continued worry that both the counter terrorism push and the lack of interest in Riyadh as reflected in the voter registration turnout, will lead to a stalling of the more liberal elements of the reforms. There is the fact that some of the people, the reformers, arrested last March are still in jail. There is a chilling effect among people who are pushing the envelope toward the more liberal side. I didn't see a lot of enthusiasm or optimism from them.

SUSRIS: What was the reaction among Saudi Arabians you met to President Bush's inaugural address - "the unfinished work of American freedom"?

SUSRIS: So American influence will be negligible?

Professor Gause: It will be, except for from the top. Where American influence exists it exists with the decisionmakers in Saudi Arabia and it will be interesting to see how much the president decides to push.

SUSRIS: There was some "taking it back" in the days after the inaugural - seeming to take the democratization push off the front burner in the Bush Administration.

Professor Gause: One interpretation is "nothing is going to happen" anytime soon. On the other hand President Bush restated the policy in the State of the Union address. He talked explicitly about Egypt and Saudi Arabia again. So it remains to be seen what exactly the Administration will do to try to push this democratization agenda.

We should watch the decision points as they come up. For example, the Commission on International Religious Freedom, created by Congress, is pushing for sanctions -- relatively mild sanctions -- on Saudi Arabia because of religious freedom issues. We are coming up on the six month anniversary of the US Government designation of Saudi Arabia as a "country of particular concern" and there is a push for sanctions on that account.

I would think the administration will resist certain things but they are certainly addressing new issues -- maybe not the "front burner", but they're putting it on "the burner." And we will see what they do with it.

SUSRIS: How much of that is the end of the Cold War?

Professor Gause: Its all "9-11." We had ten years without the Cold War and Washington didn't care about it. You can hardly find a decade when the relationship was closer than the 1991-2001 period.

It is based on a theory that is widely held in Washington -- I don't know if it is accurate, in fact I doubt that it is. The theory held by the administration -- it's held by critics of the administration, columnist Tom Friedman, the New York Times editorial page, the Washington Post editorial page -- is the idea that terrorism is spawned in non-democratic political atmospheres. So, if you want to get at terrorism you have to democratize these places.

I'm a skeptic about that actually being why terrorism happens but I think it is a widely held view in Washington. It's not particular to the "neocons" or the Bush administration. It is widely held and is a direct result of "9-11."

SUSRIS: You touched a little on the "broad sweep" of the historic relationship. Can you talk more about the basis for Saudi Arabia being a fundamental element in US foreign policy? Is it simply "oil for security"?

Professor Gause: You can never separate "oil and security" from the relationship because that is a core elements of it. But it is more than that without a doubt.

We looked to Saudi Arabia during the Cold War as not just a supplier of oil to the West but also as a major player in the Muslim world, promoting an anti-Communist ideology. We partnered with Saudi Arabia in all kinds of anti-Communist activities from Latin American to the Philippines, with Afghanistan being "Exhibit 'A'" during the 1980s.

So it was a lot more than just oil and security. Where is the relationship after "9-11"? It isn't just the post Cold War transition. Even in the post Cold War period we saw the Saudis exercising an ideological influence in the Muslim world that was more beneficial to us than say the Iranian government's version of political Islam.

However, in the post "9-11" period that element, the idea that the Saudis are a force in the Islamic world that is good for us, has ended. So now we are talking about pressuring them to cut back on their involvement and to try to change it. That is a new element in the relationship and that is a part of this idea that Saudi domestic politics are on the agenda now. Their interpretation of Islam and how it is propagated outside their borders is now part of the bilateral US Saudi agenda. It never was before.

SUSRIS: How do you see the relationship evolving in the coming months and years? Have some Saudi thought leaders and decision makers given up on the US Saudi relationship and started to find other partners.

Professor Gause: I think the Saudis are starting to explore those ideas but it is very much at the preliminary stage. Prince Saud al Faisal's speech in Manama in December was, I think, an indication that they are thinking of alternatives. However, there is no getting around the fact that in the short term we and they have common interests on a whole range of issues.

There is no alternative to the United States in the security role. There isn't an alternative multilateral security framework for guaranteeing stability in the Gulf right now. As distasteful as it might be for some people in Saudi Arabia the US is the only show in town.

I think their fear is that we don't care about stability any more, and that, in fact, we are working to destabilize the region. They are looking not just at Iraq, but also our actions toward Iran and Syria. Some Saudis, I think in an exaggerated way, fear that we would like to cause instability in Saudi Arabia. I don't think that's true but there are some in Saudi Arabia who talk that way.

SUSRIS: What should be the focus for observers of the relationship?

Professor Gause: For me the biggest long-term question is the prospect for Saudi domestic politics being on the bilateral agenda, and on how much on the US side are we going to push it. That's the $64,000 question these days.

SUSRIS: Thank you, Professor Gause for sharing your insights with us today.

Professor Gause: It was my pleasure.

About Gregory Gause

F. Gregory Gause, III is an Associate Professor of political science at the University of Vermont, and Director of the University's Middle East Studies Program. He was previously on the faculty of Columbia University (1987-1995) and was Fellow for Arab and Islamic Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York (1993-1994).

His research interests focus on the international politics of the Middle East, with a particular interest in the Arabian Peninsula and the Persian/ Arabian Gulf. He has published two books: Oil Monarchies: Domestic and Security Challenges in the Arab Gulf States (Council on Foreign Relations Press, 1994) and Saudi-Yemeni Relations: Domestic Structures and Foreign Influence (Columbia University Press, 1990). His scholarly articles have appeared in Foreign Affairs, Middle East Journal, Washington Quarterly, Journal of International Affairs, Review of International Studies and in other journals and edited volumes. He has testified on Gulf issues before the Committee on International Relations of the U. S. House of Representatives.

Professor Gause received his Ph. D. in political science from Harvard University in 1987, and studied Arabic at the American University in Cairo and Middlebury College.