All roads in the crisis of the Arab and Muslim world eventually lead back to Riyadh. There the roadblock to Arab modernity is situated and it is that lack of modernity that ultimately imperils the international peace, not Palestinian-Israeli relations. The Saudi ruling family, de facto owners of the world’s largest oil reserves, are caught in a cruel historical vice. To buttress their hold on power, internally and externally, they have encouraged and funded the extremist Wahabbi Islamic sect for decades. It is this religious current that has fomented anti-Western feelings from Afghanistan to Bradford.
All roads in the crisis of the Arab and Muslim world eventually lead back to Riyadh. There the roadblock to Arab modernity is situated and it is that lack of modernity that ultimately imperils the international peace, not Palestinian-Israeli relations. The Saudi ruling family, de facto owners of the world’s largest oil reserves, are caught in a cruel historical vice. To buttress their hold on power, internally and externally, they have encouraged and funded the extremist Wahabbi Islamic sect for decades. It is this religious current that has fomented anti-Western feelings from Afghanistan to Bradford.
The more reformist-minded members of the Saudi dynasty would like to reduce their links with the Frankenstein monster they have created, but cannot do so without provoking unrest at home or encouraging violent militant factions such as that of Osama bin Laden. An example concerns a recent fire in a girls’ school in Riyadh. The Wahabbi religious police drove the fleeing girls back into the burning building because their heads were uncovered. The Saudi ruling elite were appalled, mostly because they were worried about foreign opinion. But proposals to curb the religious police were hastily withdrawn in the wake of criticism from the Wahabbi mullahs, who have extended their influence over thousands of unemployed young men in the ailing Saudi economy.
http://www.thescotsman.co.uk/leaders.cfm?id=546792003
