Professor Madawi Al Rasheed

The American invasion of Iraq in 2003 was perhaps the most difficult challenge facing the Saudi government since the Gulf War of 1990-1.  The invasion was unprecedented, unprovoked, and lacking in wide Arab and international support and in the name of threats --WMDs, links to al-Qaidah--which proved to have little credibility. Official Saudi Arabia wished to see Saddam and the Ba’th regime go, but feared the aftermath. It opted for an indecisive position, hiding behind a confused rhetoric of open objections to the war in regional Arab meetings and forums and implicit approval, and even important co-operation in allowing US military command centres to conduct the war from its own territory. The ramifications of the swift collapse of the Ba’thist regime as a result of military intervention, without UN sanctions, has set up a precedent which could have serious consequences for Saudi Arabia and the whole of the Middle East. 

I. THE DETERMINANTS OF SAUDI POLICY:

Saudi Arabia and Iraq: an Uneasy Accommodation
The Saudi position vis a vis the war on Iraq, has to be put in the context of the historical rivalry between the two states--rooted in sectarian differences between a predominantly Sunni Saudi Arabia and Shia majority Iraq; the al-Saud-Hashemite rivalry over leadership in the Arab world;i and the clash between the pro-Western Saudi orientation and the revolutionary rhetoric of the various Iraqi leaderships after 1958. ii When revolutionary Iran’s revolutionary rhetoric threatened Saudi Arabia, Riyadh financed Saddam’s war but this was a temporary alliance of necessity, with Saudi Arabia hoping that the Iran-Iraq war would destroy both contestants for the position of ‘Gulf regional power.’ When Saddam invaded Kuwait, Saudi Arabia hosted America’s ‘Desert Storm’ against him, and in the 1990s supported international sanctions against Iraq while allowing its territory to be used by the British and American military to monitor the no-fly zones over Iraq, involving periodic attacks on Iraqi targets. Yet after 2000 the Saudi government began to pursue a policy of ‘rehabilitating’ the Iraq leader, now that he was exhausted and crippled by almost a decade of international sanctions,iii a stance accelerated by the strains in its relations with the US.

The Domestic Consequences of the First Gulf War:
In the first Gulf War (1990-1), there had been an overwhelming consensus within the Saudi government over the need for the liberation of Kuwait, although public opinion was divided on the means to achieve this goal.  Saudi Arabia co-operated fully in the US war effort and financed the military operations. This had, however, undesirable consequences. It was a tremendous economic burden and resulted in mounting debt to the USA.iv At the domestic political level, Saudi co-operation unleashed an indigenous Islamist opposition whose seeds had been sown in the country prior to Saddam’s invasion of Kuwait.v One of the reasons behind the strengthening of the Islamist opposition was Saudi Arabia’s complete reliance on foreign troops, mainly Americans, to liberate Kuwait and defend itself against what was considered an imminent Iraqi attack. Saudi Islamists considered their government’s acceptance of American military presence religiously and politically unacceptable given Saudi Arabia’s ‘sacred’ status as the land of the two Holy Mosques.vi Most Islamists regarded the presence of American troops as symbolic of the greater dependence on this superpower to the detriment of Saudi Arabia’s independence and sovereignty. 

Strains in the US-Saudi Alliance
Another challenge facing Saudi Arabia was the strains introduced into its long standing strategic alliance with the United States by the attacks of 11 September, 2001. That the attack was sponsored by Osama bin Laden, a Saudi national, using 15 young Saudis stimulated American suspicion of and even hostility towards the Saudi regime. US pundits criticised not only individual princes but also the country’s political structure, economic opaqueness, educational programme, religious curriculum, social and cultural tradition, lack of religious freedom, and treatment of minorities and women.vii This criticism was accompanied by open accusations of sponsoring terrorism, princely connections with charitable organisations listed as ‘with connections to al-Qaidah’, a law suit against several high ranking Saudi princes by the families of the victims of the 11 September attacks, the expulsion of several Saudis with diplomatic status from Washington and more than one hundred Saudis imprisoned in Guantanamo Bay. Following the attack, the USA began preparing for reducing its military presence in Saudi Arabia in favour of the small neighbouring Gulf states. viii Key American figures, researchers and journalists accused Saudi Arabia of the abuse of human rights and lack of religious freedom. Saudi Arabia’s main patron-protector was turning into a threat.
The US led war on Afghanistan in 2001 caught Saudi Arabia between the need to appease its US patron and Islamic opinion. While Saudi Arabia was more than happy to see the demise of the Taliban regime and the weakening of Bin Laden’s al-Qaidah base, the government was reluctant to openly declare its full support for the onslaught on Afghanistan, although US military bases in Saudi Arabia were used as launching ground for military operations throughout the autumn of 2001.ix Support for the US war on Afghanistan was ‘implicit’ at the official level as the government impatiently awaited the capture or killing of Bin Laden who more than any other opposition in the history of the Saudi state represented a serious threat to the continuity and stability of the Saudi regime.x Bin Laden’s Islamic rhetoric and actions have combined to create a volatile political climate in Saudi Arabia where his popularity was evident among some religious scholars, and the youth of the country.xi

II. THE OFFICIAL SAUDI POSITION ON THE WAR

As the US invasion of Iraq became inevitable, the question of whether Saudi Arabia wanted the Ba’th regime replaced by a pro-Western government ‘pumping oil in greater quantities than Saudi Arabia’ posed a dilemma for the Saudi government.xii Furthermore, Saudi Arabia worried about the possibility of a pro-Iranian Shia government installed at its doorstep, following the demise of Saddam’s Sunni regime. Saudi Arabia’s responses to the war had to be handled carefully so that the US-Saudi strategic alliance did not further suffer, while at the same time maintaining the semblance of Arab solidarity against American aggression to appease its own indigenous population.
In the summer of 2002 the question of Saudi Arabia’s co-operation with the US in the war against Iraq became urgent. In an interview, Saudi Foreign Minister, Prince Saud al-Faysal, confirmed that ‘it is...only wise to give the diplomatic solution a chance before going to war and this is what we are asking the United States to do’. When asked whether Saudi Arabia would allow more American troops to be placed on Saudi soil, the Foreign Minister replied, ‘under the present circumstances with no proof that there is a threat imminent from Iraq, I don’t think Saudi Arabia will join in’.xiii
In October 2002 Saudi Arabia declared that the use of Saudi military facilities to attack Iraq would be allowed providing there was UN approval for a military campaign; but on 4 November 2002, Foreign Minister Saud al-Faysal told CNN that it would not be allowed.xiv In the same month, during a televised address on Saudi television, Crown Prince Abdullah insisted that ‘our armed forces will, under no circumstances, step one foot into Iraqi territory’ and added that ‘we do not accept that this war should threaten Iraq’s unity and sovereignty or that its resources or internal security should be subjected to a military occupation’. Abdullah called for ‘a united free and independent Iraq, a principle that we refuse to negotiate or discuss’. xv By March 2003 it became clear that Saudi Arabia would ‘not play a pivotal role in case the US attacks Iraq. Saudi Arabia will play a secondary role. The Saudi government has been pressuring the US not to show to the outside world that they are using Saudi Arabia as a take off point for its attack’.xvi
The contradiction and ambiguity of the Saudi position reflected the regime’s desperation both to appease Washington and not be seen providing a territorial base for the US attack.  It also reflected a lack of consensus among senior members of the royal family, mainly Crown Prince Abdullah, Minister of Defence and Aviation, Prince Sultan and the Foreign Minister, Prince Saud al-Faysal. Saudi Arabia continued throughout the tense months before the war to call for a diplomatic and peaceful solution to the crisis, by allowing the inspectors more time and urging Saddam to co-operate with the UN inspectors team and implement U.N Resolution 1441.  This was in line with the formal Arab position in the 2002 Arab League Beirut summit which declared that an attack on Iraq ‘would be an attack on the national sovereignty of all Arab states’.xvii
This rhetoric was a direct response to Saudi domestic opinion which was overwhelmingly anti-war and anti-US, following US accusations against Saudi Arabia of directly or indirectly ‘sponsored terrorism’.  The regime gave the green light to its own intellectuals, religious scholars, international lawyers, writers, and journalists to respond to the US media onslaught.xviii Hundreds of Saudis enthusiastically took up this window of opportunity after decades of being censored by the government as they evaluated American policies towards their own country, American military presence in Saudi Arabia and American bias in favour of Israel in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.xix
The official position was declared on 18 March 2003 by Prince Saud al-Faysal: ‘1-under no circumstances will the Kingdom participate in the war against the brotherly nation of Iraq, 2-we expect the war to end upon implementation of the Security Council Resolution 1441 to eliminate weapons of mass destruction, 3-we avoid engaging in a reckless adventure that endangers the safety of our country and people’.xx Yet, while no American troops directly arrived in Iraq from Saudi territory, the government let American forces use military bases for directing planes and monitoring war efforts. During the war, Faysal proposed a cease fire ‘that allows for diplomacy to work’xxi while Saudi Arabia called upon Saddam to save his country by stepping down.

III. SAUDI SOCIETY’S POSITION ON THE WAR
An accurate assessment of Saudi opinions on the war is difficult in the absence of opinion polls and given the ban on public protest. However, no less than in the rest of the Arab world, in Saudi Arabia the so-called Arab street was overwhelmingly anti-war and anti-American. The US justification for war, the threat of WMDs, lacked credibility, given Washington’s endorsement of Israeli WMDs. Yet Saudis also remembered the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990 and the scud missiles that landed in Riyadh as the liberation of Kuwait from Saudi soil began. The majority of Saudis rejected the US military intervention as a matter of principle, but agreed on the need for regime change in Iraq as long as this change was carried out by Iraqis. Saudis differed on the interpretation of the events and the means needed for achieving regime change in Iraq.
The US war on Iraq was rejected by a broad cross section of Saudi intellectuals, professionals, and writers, including nationalists, Ba’thists, Nasserites, leftists, liberals and independents. A petition against the war was published by a group of liberal Saudis, associated with the call for islah, or reform of the Saudi political system. The list of names also included Shia activists and religious scholars, for example Sheikh Hasan al-Safar. On 13 March 2003, more than 50 Saudis signed and published a petition in the form of a letter to president Bush. They welcomed democratic change in Iraq and most definitely in their own country but insisted that it could not be brought about by an ‘unjust war.’ They stated,

‘We regard your threats to use force in countries like Iraq, Iran, Lebanon, North Korea, Indonesia and Palestine as reflecting the law of the jungle and [believe it] will undermine human civilisation… We reject your foreign policy, which is based on...war and undermining the stability of governments and even overthrowing them. We object to your unilateralism and your inability to participate in the international community as an equal partner…You are selective in your application of justice. Israel, a country, which regularly challenges international law, kills Palestinians, and possess weapons of mass destruction, does fit your description of terrorist states. Your aggression in Iraq will bring you the wrath of people not only in Saudi Arabia but also in the whole world’. xxii
Yet some Saudi liberals who were critical of the US especially after its post 9/11 attacks on Saudi Arabia and were initially hesitant in supporting the war openly, applauded the capture of Saddam. Writing in English, a Saudi writer remarked that “President Bush, wrong on just about everything else, is right on this one.” xxiii Similarly, Abdul Rahman al-Rashid, editor (resigned in 2003) of the daily newspaper al-Sharq al-Awsat wrote 56 articles on the war over a period of six months (December 2002-May 2003) which were highly critical of Saddam Hussein and appreciative of his removal.xxiv
Perhaps the strongest anti-war attitude was expressed by Saudi Islamists. On this issue, groups ranging from radical Jihadis, centrist Islamist reformers, religious scholars and exiled Islamists converged on total rejection of the war, interpreted as a ‘Christian-Zionist imperialist plot’ and a ‘New Crusade’.xxv There was also an overwhelming rejection of Saddam Hussein, who they saw as the ‘other face of American imperialism’. One Saudi religious scholar, Nasir al-Omar, wrote an extended essay entitled, waylun lil arab min sharin qad iqtarab’, Arabs, Beware of an Approaching Evil. He raised seven points relating to the Iraqi crisis:

1- The war is not [just] between Bush and Saddam ...[but] is yet another episode in the series of crusades announced by Bush. The first of such episodes took place when America used Saddam to hit Iran, followed by the Gulf War of 1990, followed by the American invasion of Afghanistan.
2- Our enmity with Saddam and his atheist regime is not a justification for the war.
3- The war on Iraq is an unjust crime and Sunni Iraqis will bear the heaviest loss.
4- It is an Islamic obligation to support our brothers in Iraq rather than support the regime.
5- A serious disaster stems from the relationship between the Muslim umma and its illegitimate governments, which have supported American interests throughout the modern period.
6- The responsibility for resisting this invasion falls on Muslims, who should abandon their preoccupation with trivial matters and concentrate on the real issues, that is resisting the invasion.
7- American strategic plans for the Muslim world are long-term. America will use all means available to dominate the Muslim world. Therefore, Muslims should resist by applying all means to, including education, military confrontation, economic pressure, and social and psychological force.xxvi

Similar to the statement of the Saudi liberals, mentioned earlier, Saudi Islamists issued a joint declaration whose signatories included Muslim scholars and professionals from Pakistan, Sudan, Yemen, Morocco, and Palestine. The declaration summarised their position:

‘America’s objective in this war is to destroy the Muslim identity of the region and replace it with American culture. America seeks to control the economic wealth of the country to cover up its failure in Afghanistan. It also aims to occupy the region with more war and unrest to protect the security of Israel and destroy the Palestinian uprising’.xxvii

The overwhelming Islamist consensus concealed latent divisions within the outspoken groups over whether religious scholars would issue a fatwa, religious opinion, supporting jihad in Iraq, as was done against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Hardline Islamists, often working abroad or clandestinely, exposed contradictions in the official Saudi position and among the established ulama, none of whom called publicly for a jihad in Iraq. A London based Saudi dissident argued that ‘the American invasion of Iraq will drag the US into the heartland of the Arab world and will eventually lead to fierce resistance by the Islamists and eventual expulsion of Americans’. xxviii
A survey of official Saudi print media between December 2002 and May 2003 indicates that 90% of articles published during a period of three months before the war started supported the Iraqi people against outside aggression by the USA while 73% of the articles were against Saddam Hussein and the Ba’th regime.  91% of articles published in one daily newspaper (al-Sharq al-Awsat) were extremely negative in their evaluation of Saddam and the Ba’th party.  In general 90% of articles were anti- American reaching a 100% level in weekly magazines (al-Majala, al-Yamamah and Iqra’ magazines).  As the war started, 98% of published articles in one newspaper (al-Yum) adopted a positive tone towards Iraq. Negative opinions of the USA and Britain also reached a high level of 95% in some publications.xxix

A CONFUSING WAR LIKE NO OTHER WAR
An understanding of the confused and some would say contradictory official Saudi responses to the war on Iraq needs an assessment of the local historical moment of Saudi Arabia, both state and society. Long regarded as one of the most stable countries in the region and one of the most resilient monarchies in a turbulent area, Saudi Arabia entered the twenty first century with apparent domestic problems, compounded by an unprecedented and overtly hostile American attitude.  If the government fully supported American war efforts, it risked antagonising its own local population, which was increasingly becoming impatient not only with American policies, but also with their own leadership, seen by many Saudis as corrupt, unjust, lacking political wisdom and totally under the influence of the USA. If the government openly rejected the war, it risked antagonising an American administration already critical and even hostile. These dilemmas explain the contradictory statements of the Saudi government before and during the war.
Since the official cessation of American military operations in Iraq in May 2003, followed by the beginning of the Iraqi resistance against the coalition forces, Saudi position reflected a desire to ‘live with’ the occupation of Iraq, hoping it would be short. Official Saudi Arabia feared several outcomes: a spill over, ie. a wave of internal instability and increased demands for internal reforms; increasing demands for religious freedom and equal rights from the Shia community in the Eastern Province; and increased terrorist attacks and low intensity warfare with al-Qaidah activists and sympathisers, motivated not only by local grievances but also by Saudi ‘impotence’ during the Iraqi crisis. Unfortunately for the Saudi government these fears materialised Saudi liberals and Islamists intensified their activities and demanded greater and substantial reforms. In April 2003, the Saudi Shia issued a petition demanding reform of their minority status. Finally, two major terrorist attacks (May and November 2003) targeted residential compounds inhabited by foreign and Arab residents, while a low intensity warfare between security forces and al-Qaidah was on-going in almost all major cities. The discovery of hidden weapons and several cells resulted in Saudi Arabia publishing the names of 26 most wanted terrorists with financial rewards offered for information leading to arrests. 
If the Gulf War of 1990-1 had crystallized outspoken Islamist opposition, advanced the politicisation of citizens, and led to serious economic difficulties, the invasion of Iraq in 2003 only deepened the crisis. It coincided with the maturity of Saudi opposition forces and confirmed the government’s confusion in coping with an increasingly volatile constituency at a time when Saudi Arabia cannot take for granted its status as a strategic ally of the USA. 

Notes

i Throughout the first half of the twentieth century, this rivalry was crucial to the way Saudi Arabia dealt with the Palestinian crisis.
ii On Iraq, see Charles Tripp A History of Iraq (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press) 2000. In the 1970s Ba’thist Iraq welcomed Saudis who shared its ideological orientation. On this phase of the Saudi-Iraqi relationship, see Falah al-Mudayris al-ba’thiyuun fi al-khalij wa al-jazirah al-arabiyyah (Kuwait: Qurtas Publishing, 2002), p. 51-60.
iii On sanctions against Iraq, see Sarah Graham-Brown Sanctioning Saddam: The Politics of Intervention in Iraq (London) 1999.
iv On this turbulent episode in Saudi history, see Anthony Cordesman Saudi Arabia: Guarding the Desert Kingdom (Boulder: Westview) 1997.
v See Madawi Al-Rasheed ‘Saudi Arabia’s Islamist Opposition, ’ in Current History 95/597: 16-22, 1996, and ‘La Couronne et le tuban: l’etat saoudien a la rechereche d’une nouvelle legitimite,’ in Basma Kudmani-Darwish and Mai Chartouni-Dubarry (eds,) Les Etats arabes face a la contestation islamiste (Paris: Armand Collin) 1997. See also Hrair Dekmejian ‘ The Rise of Political Islam in Saudi Arabia ‘ Middle East Journal 48/4: 627-43, 1994, and Mamoun Fandy Saudi Arabia and the Politics of Dissent (Basingstoke: Macmillan) 1999.
vi The Saudi government secured a fatwa from the highest religious authority in the country at the time Sheikh Abd al-Aziz ibn Baz legitimising the invitation to foreign troops. However, several young religious scholars regarded the invitation illegitimate. For further details, see Madawi Al-Rasheed a History of Saudi Arabia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press) 2002, pp. 163-187.
vii On current challenges facing Saudi Arabia, see Daryl Champion The Paradoxical Kingdom: Saudi Arabia and the Moment of Reform (London: Hurst) 2003, and Pascal Menoret L’Enigme Saoudienne: Les saoudiens et le monde 1744-2003 (Paris: Editions La Decouverte) 2003.
viii Details of American policy vis a vis Saudi Arabia after the 11 September are outlined in Gregory Gause III ‘The Approaching Turning Point: the Future of U.S Relations with the Gulf States,’ Analysis paper 2. The Brookings Project on U.S. Policy towards the Islamic World, The Brookings Institution, Washington DC, May 2003.
ix Before the US war on Afghanistan, Saudi religious scholars expressed objection to the war and to their government assisting the US in its war efforts. The fatwa of Sheikh Humud al-Oqla al-Shu’aybi on the illegitimacy of ‘assisting the US against the Muslim Afghans’ was one such reaction. See http://www.aloqla.com/mag/index.php/sections.php?artld=42
x Bin Laden’s attitude towards the Saudi regime became more radical in the second half of the 1990s. This was also reflected in the increase of terrorist attacks on Saudi soil. Two devastating attacks (the May and November 2003 bombings in Riyadh) took place after the US occupation of Iraq.
xi Several opinion polls conducted after 11 September 2001 indicated that Bin Laden’s popularity was very high immediately after the attacks. Some sources hinted that as many as 90% of young Saudis admired Bin Laden.
xii Simon Henderson, Weekly Standard, 13 may 2002.
xiii Interview with Saudi Foreign Minister, Prince Saud al-Faysal, 11 August 2002 Iraq Watch.
xiv http://cnn.worldnews.printthis.clickability.com/pt/cpt?action=cpt&ti..
xv Ibid.
xvi Interview with John Sfakianakis, ABC News on line 4 March 2003. http://www.abc.net.au/cgi-bin/common/ptintfriendly.pl?http://www…
xvii Iraq Watch.
xviii In response to American media hostility towards Saudi Arabia, the government used an American public relations company to polish its image in the USA.
xix Throughout 2003 Saudi Arabia witnessed a quasi-press freedom which allowed journalists writing in newspapers owned by the state or individual members of the royal family to attack the USA for its support for Israel.  This openness was mistakenly understood by local and foreign observers as ‘freedom of speech’.
xx Statement by Prince Saud al-Faysal Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 18 March 2003.
xxi Interview with Prince Saud al-Faysal, Saudi Foreign Ministry March 31 2003. 
xxii The full Arabic text of the petition is in Shuun Saudiyyah April 2003, p 14. Issue 3.
xxiii Muhammad al-Rasheed ‘We are the Problem and not America’, Saudi Gazette 30 November 2003.
xxiv Al-Sharq al-Awsat 11 January 2004, p. 16.
xxv For a Saudi Islamist view on the war, see bayan hawla al-tahdidat al-amrikiyyah lil mintaqah, http//www.islamtoday.net/Iraq2/byan.htm
xxvi Nasir al-Omar waylun lil arab min sharin qad iqtarab in http://www.islamtoday.net/articles/show_articles_content.cfm?i…
xxvii See bayan hawla al-tahdidat al-amrikiyyah lil mintaqah, http//www.islamtoday.net/Iraq2/byan.htm
xxviii Interview with Muhammad al-Masari, London, 24 November 2003
xxix Statistical analysis of media reporting on the American occupation of Iraq in the Saudi press appeared in al-Sharq al-Awsat 11 January 2004, p.16.