Saudi Arabia: The Ceaseless Quest for Security 9781501718557

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Saudi Arabia The Ceaseless Quest for Security

SAUDI ARABIA The Ceaseless Quest for Security

NADAV SAFRAN

CORNELL UNIVERSITY PRESS ITHACA AND LONDON

Copyright © 1985, 1988 by Nadav Safran All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or parts thereof, must not be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher. For information, address Cornell University Press, 124 Roberts Place, Ithaca, New York 14850. First published, Cornell Paperbacks, 1988 by Cornell University Press. Second printing 1991. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Safran, Nadav. Saudi Arabia : the ceaseless quest for security I Nadav Safran. p. em. I. Saudi Arabia-National security. 2. Saudi Arabia-Defenses. 3. Saudi Arabia-Armed Forces. 4. Saudi Arabia-Military policy. I. Title. 355'.0330538-dc 19 87-26016 UA853.S33S24 1988 ISBN 0-8014-9484-2 (pbk.: alk. paper) @l The paper in this book meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences-Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984.

To Liz, Abby, Nina, and Anita

Preface to the Paperback Edition

I set out to write this book about Saudi Arabia in 1978 because I have been a lifelong student of the Middle East and international politics, and Saudi Arabia came to occupy an important place in both. My reasons for choosing to focus on the issue of security and adopting the approach I did are explained in the Introduction. When I began my work, I could not think of a better place to do the work than my home institution, Harvard University, whose resources and facilities continue to amaze me after more than thirty years of using them. No field research was necessary for my subject, except perhaps in certain spheres that are usually barred to academic investigators even in countries that have "right to know" laws. After living with my subject for more than five years and completing a satisfactory draft, I did feel the urge to visit the Kingdom, to get something of its Oavor at first hand. When I was ready to go, however, I could not, and when I received an invitation to attend an academic conference, time and circumstances were not convenient. I still hope to visit the Kingdom in the future. There is a notion abroad that "having been" to Saudi Arabia is a warrant of validity for one's work, regardless of what one did when one was there. I like to think that other qualifications, such as familiarity and empathy with the culture, coupled with the methods used by certain types of historians and social scientists, can be far more important than a visit or a sojourn in yielding an understanding of the country's recent history. I leave it to the reader to assess the validity of this proposition. I am gratified that the reviews of the first edition have generally confirmed it.

viii

Preface to the Paperback Edition

For the academic year 1979-1980 I was awarded a Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship, which afforded me the leisure to advance my project to the point of no return. The Rand Corporation provided substantial support for research, which led to a preliminary paper on defense and security allocations and Saudi defense concepts. In 1982, three years into my project, the research branch of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency offered me a grant aimed at accelerating the progress of my work by buying me free time and research assistance. I checked the university's policy on the matter and, after complying with the relevant requirements and satisfying myself that the integrity of my work would be secure, I accepted the offer and submitted the contract to the Dean. The agency provided no material of any sort, classified or open, made no suggestion regarding substance or conclusion, and exercised no censorship of any kind during the process of research and writing. The contract contained a standard clause requiring agency permission to publish, but amendments that I had secured satisfied me that this would be no more than a mere formality. Such proved to be the case, as permission was tacitly granted by the lapse of thirty days without agency response to my request. I submited the result of my work to Harvard University Press and along with it notification of all the support funds I received, including the agency's. Shortly after Harvard University Press published the book, a stir developed about the funding from the CIA, in the course of which many unfounded allegations were made. The Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences conducted a thorough inquiry, and the results, which were made public in January 1986, vindicated my actions. I am grateful to all the institutions that supported my long effort, but I bear sole responsibility for the content and form of the book. I am most heavily indebted to generations of students, graduate and undergraduate, Saudi and other, who participated in my seminars and contributed through their perspectives and insights much more than they realized. Of these students, four who became my assistants deserve my most profound gratitude. Gary Samore has since earned a doctorate for his work on the Saudi royal family; Lauri Mylroie has earned hers for work on security in the Persian Gulf; and Gregory Gause for work on Saudi Arabia and the Yemcns. Arie Ofri has done his reserch in the general field of security policy analysis, for which he, too, earned a doctorate. Though not a Middle East specialist, he was a wizard at ferreting out and making available to me declassified documentary material I did not suspect existed. The dedi-

ix

Preface to the Paperback Edition

cation and enthusiasm of these young collaborators sustained me in the inevitable moments of ncar despair. The long labor on this book deprived my family of much of my time and attention to which they were rightfully entitled. Their quiet unwavering support during the tribulations that followed its first appearance was invaluable. In gratitude, I rededicate this book to them. NADAV SAFRAN

Cambridge, Massachusetts

Contents

Conversion of Hijra years and fiscal years to Gregorian dates, xvii 1380-1400 HY. Map of Saudi Arabia XX

Introduction

Part One

1

The Origins of Saudi Arabia

1 The Rise and Fall of the First Two Realms The First Realm 9 The Second Realm 14 Lessons from the First Two Realms

7

9

20

2 The Third Realm: Creating an Empire, 1902-1932

28

Early Reconquests 29 Overpowering Peninsular Opponents 36 Mastering the Ikhwan and Rounding Off the Empire 49 Observations on the Creation of the Third Realm 55

3 Preserving the Empire, 1932-1953 Defense and Foreign Policy during the Lean Years Defense Establishment and Strategy 68 Defense and Security Allocations 69 Conclusions 71

57 58

Contents

xii

Part Two 4

6

The Reign of Faisal, 1964-1975

Strivings and Probings, 1964- 1973 Consolidating Power 117 Managing the Yemen Conflict 119 Dealing with Proliferating Problems

113 117

122

The October War and Its Aftermath, 1973-1975 The Embargo 152 Saudi Arabia after the Embargo 167

151

7 The Defense and Security Perspective, 1963-1975 Defense Allocations: F1uctuations, Trends, Significance Strategic-Military Concepts and Programs: Scope, Aims, Results 196 Conclusions 212

180 180

Part Four The Reign of Khaled, 1975-1982 8

A Time of Change: Overview Changes at the Power Center 217 Strategically Relevant Domestic Developments 220 Political-Strategic and Strategic-Military Developments: Two Stages 227

9

The Arab-Israeli Arena, 1975-1979: The Cairo and Damascus Connections Sinai II 241 The Lebanese Civil War 245 The Geneva Project 251 Sadat's Initiative and the Egyptian-Israeli Peace 256

10

73 77

Tribulations under the First Successor Muddling Through 77 Facing the Contradictions 88 Defense Establishment and Policy 103 Defense and Security Allocations 107 Conclusions 110

Part Three 5

The Reign of Saud, 1953-1964

The Gulf Arena, 1975-1979: Balancing Baghdad and Tehran

215 217

240

265

Contents

11

12

xiii

The Yemens, Oman, and the Horn of Africa, 1975-1979: Accommodation and War

282

The American Connection, 1975-1979: Shifting Interdependence

295

Successful Management of the New Relationship Mutual Disappointments and Strains 298 Crisis and Seeming Collision Course 303

296

13 The Arab-Israeli Arena, 1979-1982: Opposite Pulls Family Reconciliation and Policy Compromise 311 Attempting American-PLO Dialogue 313 Averting Baghdad-Core Pressures: The 1979 Tunis Summit The Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan and Arab Polarization The Gulf War and Arab Polarization 322 Keeping Egypt at Arm's Length 324 Strategic Consensus, U.S. Arms Deal, and Sequels 327 The Fahd Plan and Fiasco 332 Coping with the 1982 Lebanon War 341

309

315 318

14 The Gulf Arena, 1979-1982: Crosscurrents and Uncertainty Initial Redefinition of Positions 353 Setbacks and Adjustments 357 Gulf War Perils, Relief, Opportunities New Perils and Anxious Temporizing

352

364 375

15 The Yemens, 1979-1982: Living with the Problem

386

16 The American Connection, 1979-1982: Ambivalence, Improvisation, Drift

3 98

Crisis and Turning Point 401 Hawed Reconciliation 403 Faltering Strategic Cooperation 406 Open Strategic Cooperation in the Face of Danger Reversion to Ambivalence as the Danger Subsides Opting for Syria and Relapsing into Improvisation

17

410 412 416

The Defense and Security Perspective, 1975-1982 Defense Allocations: Trends, fluctuations, Significance Strategic-Military Concepts and Programs: Scope, Aims, 430 Results

420 420

xiv

Contents

Conclusions: Retrospect and Prospect Khaled's Reign and the Quest for Security 456 Prospects for the 1980s

449 449

Appendix. Sample of a Summary of a Saudi Budget Notes Bibliography Index

461 465 491 509

Tables

1. Revenues and defense and security allocations, fiscal 1948, 1952, and 1953 2. Revenues and defense and security allocations, fiscal1955-1965 3. Revenues and defense and security allocations, fiscal1963-1976 4. Comparative allocations to Ministry of Defense, army, internal security, and National Guard, fiscal 1963-1976 5. Annual revenues and allocations to defense and security instruments, with percent change from previous year, fiscal 1963- 1976 6. Comparative allocations to defense and security instruments, fiscal 1965 and average fiscal1966-1967 7. Comparative allocations to defense and security instruments, fiscal 1971 and average fiscal1972-1974 8. Comparative allocations to defense and security instruments, fiscal 1974 and average fiscal 1975-1976 9. Salary allocations for defense and security instruments, with percent change from previous year, fiscal 1963-1978 10. Major defense acquisition programs, 1964-1975 11. Order of battle and inventory of weapons, 1969 and 1975 12. Saudi oil revenues, 1972-1982 13. Revenues and defense and security allocations, fiscal 1976-1982 14. Comparative allocations to internal security and army, fiscal 1977- 1982 15. Annual revenues and allocations to defense and security instruments, with percent change from previous year, fiscal 1975- 1982

70 108 182

184

186 190 193 194 196 198 210 221 421 422

423

xvi

Tables

16. Comparative allocations to defense and security instruments, fiscal 1977 and average fiscal 1978-1979 17. Comparative average percent change in allocations to defense and security instruments, fiscal 1978-1979 over fiscal 1977 and fiscal 1980-1981 over fiscal 1978-1979 18. Percent change from previous year in total and salary allocations for defense and security instruments and to Ministries of Agriculture and Health, fiscal 1976-1981 19. Major defense acquisition programs, 1975-1982 20. Order of battle and inventory of weapons, 1975 and 1982

425

426 428 434 444

Figures 1. Abridged genealogy of Saudi Arabia's rulers 2. Percent change from previous year in revenues and defense and security allocations, fiscal 1962- 1977 3. Percent change from previous year in revenues and defense and security allocations, fiscal 1975- 1982

11

188 424

Conversion of Hijra years and fiscal years to Gregorian dates, 1380-1400 HY. Hijra year (Muharram through Dhu al-Hijjah)

Starting Gregorian date

Hijra fiscal year (1 Rajah through 30 Jumada II)

Starting Gregorian date

1380 1381 1382 1383 1384 1385 1386 1387 1388 1389 1390 1391 1392 1393 1394 1395 1396 1397 1398 1399 1400

June 25, 1960" June 14, 1961 June 4, 1962 May 25, 1963 May 13, 1964• May 1, 1965 April 21, 1966 April 11, 1967 March 30, 1968• March 19, 1969 March 9, 1970 February 26, 1971 February 15, 1972• February 4, 1973 January 23, 1974 January 13, 1975 January 2, 1976• December 22, 1977 December 11, 1978 November 30, 1979 November 19, 1980•

1380-81 1381-82 1382-83 1383-84 1384-85 1385-86 1386-87 1387-88 1388-89 1389-90 1390-91 1391-92 1392-93 1393-94 1394-95 1395-96 1396-97 1397-98 1398-99 1399-1400 1400-1401

December 19, 1960 December 9, 1961 November 28, 1962 November 17, 1963 November 5, 1964 October 25, 1965 October 16, 1966 October 4, 1967 September 23, 1968 September 12, 1969 September 2, 1970 August 22, 1971 August 10, 1972 July 30, 1973 July 19, 1974 July 9, 1975 June 28, 1976 June 16, 1977 June 6, 1978 May 26, 1979 May IS, 1980

Source: Richard Nyrop et a!., Area Handbook for Saudi Arabia, 3d ed. (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1977). a. Leap year.

How long halt ye between two opinions? 1 Kings 18:21

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Introduction

This study analyzes the national security policy of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia from the perspective of its rulers since the creation of the Kingdom through 1982 in order to provide insight into the rulers' modus operandi and the country's behavior in the international arena. The importance of that behavior was demonstrated beyond doubt by the 1973 oil embargo, which shook the foundations of the Western alliance as no Soviet campaign has since the onset of the Cold War; and by the Saudi action and inaction on oil prices in 1974 and 1979, which affected the world economy and distribution of wealth more than any single acts by any other power. The centrality of regime and national security as a determinant of Saudi behavior is suggested by a few facts of geography and history and is indicated by dear evidende of the Saudi rulers' perceptions and actions. Saudi Arabia is a vast, desolate country with a relatively sparse population. It forms a rough rectangle more than 1,000 miles long and 800 miles wide, comprising about 860,000 square miles- approximately the size of the United States east of the Mississippi River. There are no rivers or significant perennial streams, and rainfall is scarce except in the southwest; less than 1 percent of the country is suitable for settled agriculture. Most of the country consists of great sand deserts-the RuH al-Khali, stretching across the entire south; the Dahna in the east, between Najd and the Persian Gulf coast; and the Nafud, across most of the north. The rest is wilderness covered by gravel or jumbled lava beds. The size of the Saudi population is something of a mystery; the best

2

Introduction

estimates put it at some 5-6 million indigenous Saudis in 1980, plus more than 2 million foreign workers and their dependents (for a discussion of this subject, see Chapter 8). The population is distributed along three belts that correspond to geographic and historical divisions. About half the population lives and moves in the Hijaz and ~ir regions, which form a mountainous belt along the Red Sea. This area, conquered in the 1920s, includes the holy cities of Mecca and Madina and the ports of Jidda and Yanbo. The second belt of population consists of an archipelago of oases extending from Ha'il in the north to beyond Kharj in the south. This is the Najd power base of the House of Saud and includes Riyadh, the Saudi capital. The third belt begins on the coast of the Persian Gulf near Qatif, a Shi'ite population center, and extends south and west to the oasis of Haradh. This region, known as the Eastern Province, was conquered in 1913 and is the site of Saudi Arabia's main oil fields and facilities, the Dhahran airport and military base, and the new port of Jubail. The three belts are separated from each other, and each in turn is surrounded and split by vast thinly inhabited spaces, resulting in a multitude of subregions that historically supported the division of the population into some twoscore major tribal groupings and many more subgroupings. The vastness of the country, its topography, its ecology, and its poverty have made it extremely difficult for any central power to hold it together for any substantial length of time. Indeed, the area occupied by the present Kingdom was politically united only twice before in historical times, in the seventh century and at the turn of the nineteenth, and for only brief periods, before the centrifugal tendencies inherent in the environment reasserted themselves. Since the 1940s, oil revenue has provided the wherewithal for attempts by the rulers to mitigate those tendencies; but these efforts have so far not been decisive and have generated their own problematic consequences. In addition to vastness, fragmentation, and sparse population, critical features of Saudi geography in terms of defense include the specific location of the Kingdom's oil wealth and the vulnerability of its lines of communication with the outside world. Most of Saudi Arabia's oil-producing capacity derives from five fields and 475-odd wells clustered in a core area 250 miles long and 50 miles wide on the Persian Gulf coast and offshore. In 1979 these fields produced about 65 million barrels a day (mbd) out of a total daily production of 9 mbd. 1 Terminal facilities serving all Saudi oil fields occupy a 50-mile arc along Tarut Bay between Ras Tannura and al-Khobar. All Saudi oil was loaded at Ras Tannura until recently, when the additional terminal of Ju'ayma became operative. The entire area is studded with power plants, pumping stations, gathering places, and tank farms that provide targets for prodigiously damaging sabotage or air attacks, and hostage objects for small hostile forces. Although Saudi Arabia has a coastline of 1,300 miles on two seas, it has

Introduction

3

access to the open sea only through two choke points on the Red Sea and one on the Persian Gulf. The 20-mile-wide Strait of Bab al-Mandeb, adjacent to South Yemen, controls passage between the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, while the Suez Canal links the Red Sea to the Mediterranean. The Strait of Hormuz, 30 miles wide at its narrowest point and bordered by Oman on one side and Iran on the other, links the Persian Gulf to the Arabian Sea. Until recently, nearly all Saudi oil exports had to go through the Strait of Hormuz. The completion of the 750-mile cross-Arabian pipeline from the Ghawar oil field across the Kingdom to Yanbo on the Red Sea has provided an alternative outlet for about 2 mbd but has also increased the Kingdom's dependence on the Suez Canal and Bab al-Mandeb. Nearly all Saudi imports are vulnerable to blockage of the choke points. Ironically, these facts did not matter much when imperial Britain controlled all three passages; access became a problem for the Saudis only when indigenous neighboring governments took over, in 1955, 1967, and 1971. History and geography have also combined to produce yet another major security problem. Saudi Arabia was created by recent conquest, and conquest almost always leaves unresolved boundary problems. In the case of Saudi Arabia, the nature of the terrain of the Arabian Peninsula makes precise demarcation of boundaries virtually impossible. A much more serious problem is that the Kingdom is surrounded by a dozen states that are either too strong or too weak: the former threaten aggression, and the latter invite it, especially since several of both are also extremely rich; and vital Saudi interests can suffer in the process. Again, until the end of World War II, Britain's control or strong influence over nearly all these neighbors permitted an understanding between it and the Kingdom wherein Britain restrained the stronger powers in exchange for Saudi self-restraint vis-a-vis the weaker powers. That understanding began to lapse as British control and influence waned in the 1940s and 1950s, and came to an end when Britain pulled out of Aden in 1967 and the Persian Gulf in 1971, leaving the Saudis to confront problems around their entire perimeter. These basic vulnerabilities have helped make defense and security a primary concern for the rulers of the present Saudi realm. For instance, in 1952, when one of the first rudimentary state budgets was issued, the founder of the Kingdom devoted 30 percent of the $210 million total revenue to defense and security. Twenty-nine years and profound changes later, in 1981, the Kingdom's revenues had increased 383 times, to about $79 billion; but allocations to defense and security had multiplied 415 times, to $25 billion, or 32.4 percent of the state's revenue. The amounts allocated by the Saudis to defense and security in 1981 were exceeded only by the defense allocations of the United States, the Soviet Union, and China. On a per capita basis they were by far the

4

Introduction

highest in the world, twice as high as Israel's, the next highest, and more than three times as high as those of the United States, the third in rank. In absolute amounts, the Saudi allocations were equivalent to four times the combined defense spending of India and Pakistan, with their 760 million population and their thirty-five years of strife, or about twice the combined defense budgets for that year of Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, and Israel- the principal antagonists in the Arab-Israeli conflict. 2 Just as striking as the extremely high level of Saudi allocations to defense throughout the years is the relatively small military establishment that these have generated so far. With between one-half and the same amount of defense spending as Saudi Arabia in recent years, the five Middle Eastern countries last mentioned could field in 1981 about 60 divisions, 10,000 tanks, and 2,000 combat aircraft. In the same year Saudi Arabia could field at most the equivalent of 5 divisions, 500 tanks, and 200 combat aircraft. Except for the air force, this was about the same size military force that Jordan could muster in 1981, with less than onesixtieth of Saudi Arabia's defense allocation for that year. The reasons for this seemingly fantastic low cost effectiveness include the multiplication of defense and security instruments; the lack of an initial infrastructure; the lavish scale on which that infrastructure was developed; scarce, underdeveloped, and underutilized manpower; the extreme slowness of the process of training personnel for a modem force; and false starts, waste, and spoilage. The ratio of the amounts spent on hardware to amounts spent on construction, training, and personnel over the last decade has been 1:3 or 1:4. The disparity between the real and perceived vulnerability of the Kingdom, on the one hand, and its rather limited military capability, on the other, made the thrust of this inquiry clear from the outset: foreign policy- the endeavor to neutralize or deter threats through alliances and alignments, diplomatic maneuverings, foreign aid, and so on- was bound in the case of Saudi Arabia to be at least as important as the military component of national security. Moreover, foreign policy was likely to be more reactive than active; thus an understanding of Saudi reactions would require attention to actions by others and would involve discontinuities in tJ'e Saudis' own policies. Finally, as in the case of other countries, analysis of Saudi national security would have to refer to the domestic dimension, including shifts in the structure of power and in the resources at the command of the rulers, relevant changes in the political and social systems, and modifications in demographic and even geographic factors. Although the broad parameters of this study were thus clear, its execution presented difficulties. Until 1973 the literature on the Kingdom in general and on Saudi defense and foreign policy in particular was thin.

Introduction

5

To all but the personnel of interested oil companies and a few foreign service specialists, adventurers, explorers, and scholars, Saudi Arabia was much like the Yemen Arab Republic today- a remote, exotic part of the Middle East hinterland that occasionally made news in connection with the antics of some of its princes or with the impact on it of developments originating in other parts of the region. The indifference of outsiders accorded well with the Kingdom's strong religious-cultural isolationism, the secretiveness of its rulers, and a traditional political system that lacked even the kind of forums for the articulation of policy and opinion that have existed in other restrictive Middle Eastern countries. The result was that Saudi Arabia remained essentially terra incognita, and the behavior of its rulers remained much as Winston Churchill described that of the Kremlin: "A riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma." Since 1973 there has been an explosion of literature on the Kingdom, but most of it deals with oil issues and other more or less technical subjects. In the area of defense and foreign policy, more information became available as outsiders poured into the Kingdom in connection with its massive development projects, as Congress pressed successive administrations to justify and account for the greater American involvement with the Kingdom, and as the world media began to report more extensively on the expanded regional and international role of the Kingdom itself. However, no comprehensive study of the subject has been produced, except for one imaginative and useful wmk in Arabic by the Lebanese political scientist Ghassane Salameh. A few articles and monographs have shed some light on various facets of the subject, but vast areas remain obscure. The long list of works cited in the Bibliography is somewhat deceptive. Many are either too general or too formal, too impressionistic or too spotty; most are tediously repetitive, reflecting more the greatly increased demand for knowledge about the Kingdom than any increased supply of it, either through the tapping of new sources or the application of new methods. To execute this study, it was therefore necessary to assemble and present the accessible data as well as to analyze and synthesize them, and to pursue a strategy that combines several approaches and techniques. One is historical and traces the security problems from the simpler times of the Kingdom's inception to the complex present. Because of the traditional nature of the Saudi political system, the analysis proceeds in terms of reigns, to underscore the centrality of the royal family and of power relations within it. Within this framework each reign is also examined in terms of stages, defined by domestic and external strategic problems or opportunities and the rulers' responses to them. If a particular stage spans two reigns, the analysis does likewise. This study also uses a structural approach that is calculated to make

6

Introduction

the most of scarce data about the rulers' policy decisions. The method places strategic problems facing the rulers in the context of carefully constructed analytical frameworks that depict the alternative courses theoretically available to deal with these problems and assesses the implications of the various options on the basis of logic and the historical record. Once that matrix has been constructed, an act or a statement by the rulers often suffices to give a clue not only about the course they probably chose but also about the attendant considerations that affected their choice. This approach may yield equivocal results in individual instances; but when it is applied to scores of cases in historical sequence, as is done in the following chapters, it becomes possible to test inferences by sequels, "predictions" by subsequent events, and thus to validate the analysis. At the point when the scope of the Kingdom's security policy expands as a result of new problems or opportunities, a spatial or functional differentiation is introduced in the analysis. Thereafter Saudi security policy is examined in the context of several "theaters," such as the ArabIsraeli arena, the Gulf, south Arabia, and in terms of the Kingdom's American connection. Detailed analysis of developments in each arena includes general discussion of related developments in the other arenas, as necessary. This examination of some of the same problems from different perspectives in varying degrees of detail, though involving some repetition, provides a useful check on the overall analysis and approximates the situations that the Saudi policymakers confronted. Finally, at all stages a study of Saudi defense policy parallels the analysis of foreign policy. The defense analysis proceeds along two lines. One focuses on the evolution of the defense and security establishment, including concepts, strategies, development programs, orders ofbatde, and capabilities; the other involves a systematic, detailed analysis of defense and security allocations over time to the various defense and security instruments. Because the defense studies use different data from those used in the foreign policy analysis, the two sets serve as counterchecks to each other and reinforce confidence in the validity of insights and conclusions on which they both converge. The book is divided into four principal parts and eighteen chapters, all of which open with more or less extensive overviews. The conclusions to each part assess the Kingdom's security standing at that point and seek to identify enduring structural developments and recurrent patterns of behavior of the Saudi rulers. The final set of conclusions attempts to use some of the findings of the entire study to cast some light on the future and to cite some general implications for American policy, as Saudi Arabia continues its ceaseless quest for security.

PART ONE

The Origins of Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia as presently constituted is barely fifty years old. The present king and other senior officials are the sons of the remarkable man who created the Saudi Arab Kingdom 1 -Abd al-Aziz ibn Abd al-Rahman AI Faisal AI Saud, 2 generally referred to as Ibn Saud. Ibn Saud started his empire-building endeavor with a handful of followers from an exile base in Kuwait in 1902 and completed it with a victory over the Yemen in 1934 that unified nearly 900,000 square miles. His success, however, depended in large measure on the fact that ht:: had set out to recover a realm that his ancestors had created, ruled, and lost, and that his grandfather had recreated before his uncles and father lost again. The first two Saudi realms gave legitimacy to Ibn Saud's restoration effort and endowed it with a source of potential power that increased and became actualized pari passu with his successes. Moreover, the record of the first two realms is highly relevant to an understanding of the formation and evolution of the third, not only because Ibn Saud was guided in his endeavor by some acutely sensed lessons derived from that record, but also because many of the factors that affected the history of those realms continue to affect the present Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. For these reasons this study of the Kingdom begins with a concise history of the first two Saudi realms, including some reflections relevant to understanding aspects of present-day Saudi Arabia. Chapters 2 and 3 furnish a more elaborate narrative of Ibn Saud's creation of the third realm. Part One concludes with reflections on features of his accomplishments that have relevance to the present and future of Saudi Arabia.

1 The Rise and Fall of the First Two Realms

The First Realm, 1744-1818 The origin of the first Saudi realm was an encounter in 1744 between two men and two ambitions in a desert townlet called Dar'iyya. One of the men was Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab, a religious preacher possessed of a sense of mission such as arose from time to time in the lands of Islam and left their mark on the course of history. Substantively, ibn Abd alWahhab's message was neither novel nor radical in Islamic terms. It was indeed a reiteration of the teachings of the great fourteenth-century revivalist Ahmad ibn Taimiya, who in turn was inspired by the great ninth- century founder of one of the four orthodox schools of Islamic jurisprudence, Ahmad ibn Hanbal. Ibn Abd al-Wahhab called for areturn to the simple and pure beliefs, austere living, and strict application of the law of early Islam and condemned prevalent saint worship and animistic rituals, indulgence in "luxuries" such as smoking, music, and the wearing of silk, and laxity in the application of the Ooranic prescriptions and penalties. What was new was the length to which he carried his message. Ibn Abd al-Wahhab regarded the practices he denounced not as mere sins and shortcomings of imperfect believers, but as departures from the central belief in the absolute unity of Allah and the mission of His Prophet, which were tantamount to apostasy and merited the maximum penalty. Like other prophets, ibn Abd al-Wahhab found few disciples in his own town. He encountered some success elsewhere before being driven out, and in 1744 he landed in Dar'iyya in search of a new base of support.

10

The Origins of Saudi Arabia

The other man in that encounter was Muhammad ibn Saud, the shaikh 1 of a small clan of one of the large tribes that had settled for several generations in two agricultural villages that had grown into the town of Dar'iyya. At the time of ibn Abd al-Wahhab's visit, the Sauds and their domain were one of the less important of several Najd shaikhdoms, none of which matched the realm and power of the sharifs (a title borne by descendants of the Prophet Muhammad) of the Hijaz, the Banu Khalid of Hasa and the coastal district, the Sadun of lower Iraq, the Sadat of Najran, the imams of Yemen, or the sultans of Oman. Yet, after meeting ibn Abd al-Wahhab, Muhammad ibn Saud concluded a compact with him in which he undertook to defy and fight one and all powers for the sake of God and empire. Ibn Saud had sought explicit assurance that ibn Abd al-Wahhab would not ask him to forgo taxes on his subjects, and the latter had agreed and promised that if ibn Saud exerted himself and held fast to the doctrine of God's oneness, "the Almighty will hopefully conquer your conquests and recompense you with spoils of war far more ample than your present revenues." 2 The first expedition out of Dar'iyya consisted of seven camel riders who fell on an unsuspecting company of bedouins and brought home booty. During the next fifteen years or so, the combination of additional successes, the desire of some tribes to avoid exposure to Saudi-Wahhabi raiding and to share in the loot from raiding others, and the appeal of the Wahhabi religious message enabled ibn Saud to bring much of Najd, excluding Riyadh, under his control. These successes, however, brought the Wahhabis into conflict with the powers beyond the Najd region- the lords of Hasa, Najran, and the Hijaz. A critical moment occurred in 1764, when, after many skirmishes and battles, the Hasa and Najran leaders mounted large combined expeditions from the east and the south to put an end to the movement. Muhammad ibn Saud's son set out to meet the forces advancing from Najran but his forces were crushed not far from Dar'iyya. Fortunately for ibn Saud, the leader of the Najran forces agreed to come to terms with him and returned home. When the Banu Khalid arrived on the scene, they withdrew after learning that their Najrani allies had made peace. One y~ar later Muhammad ibn Saud died and was succeeded by his son Abd al-Aziz (r. 1765-1803). Under Abd al-Aziz, the Wahhabi jihad gained new momentum, and the Wahhabi forces, ably led by Abd al-Aziz's eldest son, Saud, were victorious in all directions, reaping vast booty and often sowing terror along their way. To the east, the Wahhabis captured Oatif, an oasis inhabited by sectarian Shi'ites, and destroyed their places of worship. They also conquered Hasa, subjected Bahrain to their suzerainty, submitted what are now called the United Arab Emirates to Wahhabism, and reached the Arabian Sea. The sultan of Muscat (part of the

The First Two Realms

11

present Oman) was intermittently forced to pay tribute but was able to escape subjugation by seeking and receiving timely support from British, Persian, and other Arab allies. To the south, the Wahhabis reached the great Empty Quarter and made descents into the Hadramaut beyond it although they were unable to annex that region. The leaders of the ~sir tribes joined the cause and from there the Wahhabi movement spilled down into the lowland of the Tihama along the Red Sea, reaching as far south as the ports of Yemen, although in the highlands of Yemen the Zaidis (a Shi'ite sect) preserved their independence. To the north, the Wahhabis advanced into the Iraqi and Syrian deserts, subduing tribes and harassing settled areas and cities. In 1801 a force of 10,000 men on 6,000 camels broke into Karbala, site of the tomb of the Prophet Muhammad's martyred grandson, Hussein, and one of the holiest places of Shi'ism. In an eight-hour orgy of violence they indiscriminately massacred some 5,000 people, wrecked Hussein's mosque-tomb, looted the city, and then pulled out with 200 camels loaded with treasure. 3 On the Syrian side, the Wahhabis raided in the vicinity of Damascus and further north.

I. Muhammad ibn Saud - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - T h u n a v v a n (1742- 65)

I

2. Abd ai·Aziz - - - - - - - - Abdallah ibn Muhammad (1765- 1803)

I

3. Saud (1803 -14)

I

4.Abdallah- Abd ai·Rahman - - 8 . Khalid (1814-1R) (1840-41)

5. Turki (1824- 34)

I

6. Mishari (1834)

11, 14. Abdallah (1865- 71, 1875- 89)

I

7. 10. Faisal (1834- 38, 1843-65) 12. Saud (1871- 75)

9. Abdallah ibn Thunayyan (1841-43)

13, 15. Abd al-Rahman (1875. 1889- 91)

I

16. Abd al-Aziz (Ibn Saud) (1902- 53) 17. Saud 18. Faisal (1953- 65) (1964-75)

Muhammad

19. Khaled (1975- 82)

20. Fahd (1982-)

Figure 1. Abridged genealogy of Saudi Arabia's rulers (with years of reign)

12

The Origins of Saudi Arabia

To the west, the Wahhabis culminated a fifteen-year struggle with Sharif Ghalib by capturing Ta'if and massacring its inhabitants in 1802, and then marching into Mecca in 1803. Before the victorious Abd al-Aziz, the 'ulama of the holy city declared their acceptance of Wahhabism, and Ghalib accepted Saudi sovereignty; but after Abd al-Aziz returned to Dar'iyya, Ghalib reoccupied the city. Shortly thereafter Abd al-Aziz was assassinated in his capital while performing the Friday prayers in the mosque. The assassin was a Persian whose three sons had been massacred in Kamala. He had pretended to convert to Wahhabism and had wmked in the Wahhabi capital for a year awaiting an opportunity to avenge his children. 4 Abd al-Aziz was followed by his eldest son, Saud (r. 1803-1814), whose succession had been secured as early as 1787 by Shaikh ibn Abd al-Wahhab. The Shaikh himself had died in 1792 but had left four sons who continued his wmk and further tightened the alliance with the Saudi dynasty. Saud was an enthusiastic Wahhabi and a most capable military leader; he was responsible for most of the conquests during his father's lifetime, and during his own reign he brought the movement to the height of its power. He recaptured Madina the following year and extended the frontiers of Wahhabism in all directions. In 1808, 1810, and 1812 Wahhabi forces threatened Baghdad. In 1810 a large force sacked dozens of villages immediately south of Damascus and later that year exacted taxes from tribes forty miles south of Aleppo. Internally, Saud institutionalized Wahhabism and dealt severely with tribal lawlessness. Over a century later, King Ibn Saud liked to tell of how when Imam Saud had imprisoned some shaikhs from the Mutair tribe, a party of the tribe's leaders came to remonstrate with him and became threatening. 5 Saud ordered the heads of the prisoners to be cut off and dished up on the table before their kinsmen, whom he then ordered to proceed with their meal. 6 Saud left Sharif Ghalib in charge of the Hijaz so as not to provoke the Ottoman sultan, Ghalib's suzerain and the self-proclaimed Guardian of the Two Holy Places (that is, Mecca and Madina). But he antagonized the sultan and Muslims everywhere by ordering Ghalib to remove the domed tombs of saints and by interfering drastically with pilgrim traffic to enforce Wahhabi standards against long-established customs. The effective loss of the holy cities was more than the Ottoman sultan could countenance. After failing to engineer counterattacks from Iraq, Sultan Selim appointed Muhammad Ali of Egypt viceroy of the Hijaz with orders to combat the Wahhabis. Muhammad Ali first took time to consolidate his rule in Egypt, but in October 1811 he sent a force of 1,000 Albanian infantry, which landed in Yanbo and was joined two weeks later by 800 cavalry who had marched overland through Sinai and Aqaba. In January 1812 the expeditionary force, under the command of Muhammad

The First Two Realms

13

Ali's son Tusun, advanced on Madina but was ambushed by Saud's forces and nearly destroyed at the Judaida pass. In October 1812 the reinforced Egyptian army, supported by tribes that had deserted the Wahhabis, reached Madina and, after a fourteen-day siege, stormed and captured the city. One thousand Wahhabis were killed and 1,500 captured. In January 1813 Mecca was occupied without opposition and Ta'if fell soon after. In August of that year Muhammad Ali himself landed at Jidda with 2,000 cavalry and 2,000 infantry and performed a triumphant pilgrimage. Negotiations between agents of Muhammad Ali and Saud based on Saudi recognition of Ottoman/Egyptian dominion in the Hijaz failed over side issues. Despite Muhammad Ali's obvious strength, Saud, who had kept most of his forces intact, trusted in his ability to use them effectively against regular forces, taking advantage of distances and terrain as he had done at Judaida and was to do again at Turaba in 1814. But in April 1814 Saud died suddenly of fever at Dar'iyya; his death was a grievous setback to the Wahhabi cause. 7 Saud was succeeded by his son Abdallah (r. 1814-1818), a man known for wisdom and intelligence but lacking his father's firmness and military abilities. At the very beginning of his reign he was challenged by his great-uncle, Abdallah ibn Muhammad, who considered that he had a prior claim because he was the son of Muhammad ibn Saud, the founder ofthe Saudi-Wahhabi realm. Abdallah ibn Saud defeated his great-uncle, but dissension had set in and opponents of Abdallah and of the Sauds generally, as well as the fickle bedouin tribes, turned to Muhammad Ali for support. In March 1815 Tusun marched on the Qasim, a region halfway between Madina and Dar'iyya, with a force of 1,000 regulars, plus contingents from the Mutair and Ham tribes, hitherto themselves Wahhabis. In June of that year Abdallah and Tusun reached an agreement wherein the former renounced any claim to Mecca and Madina and recognized Tusun as overlord while the latter agreed to withdraw to Madina; but Muhammad Ali refused to ratify the agreement. Instead he recalled Tusun to Cairo, where the latter died soon after, and sent another of his sons, Ibrahim Pasha, with a fresh force and with instructions to destroy Wahhabi power and lay waste all the territories under their control. He sought to ensure that no aspirant to supremacy over the holy cities should arise for a long time to come. Ibrahim Pasha landed in the Hijaz with 2,000 infantry and 1,500 cavalry in September 1816 and advanced systematically, rallying defecting tribes as he went. In April 1818 he finally appeared before the walls of Dar'iyya with a force of 2,000 cavalry, 5,600 infantry, 12 guns, and a multitude of tribesmen. A rapid assault on the town failed and gave way to a fivemonth siege, after which Abdallah sued for terms including pardon for

14

The Origins of Saudi Arabia

the troops that had remained faithful to him, pardon for his brothers and family, the preservation of the town, and safety for his own person. Ibrahim agreed to the first two requests but would make no promise with respect to the town. As to the fourth request, he would guarantee Abdallah's safety only until he arrived in Cairo, where further decisions would be made. Abdallah complied. He was sent to Cairo and thence to Constantinople, where he was paraded for three days before being beheaded and impaled. Ibrahim Pasha razed Dar'iyya and then swept into all adjacent territories- into Jabal Shammar, Hariq, Hasa, and the borders of Oman. He razed all forts, dismantled every fence, and collected some 400 members of the House of Saud and the Shaikh family whom he deported to Cairo. In 1819 the Egyptian forces pulled back to the Hijaz, leaving only a garrison in the Qasim. They restored Hasa to the Banu Khalid to rule but left central Arabia to be torn asunder as before by its own tribal enmities. Thus ended the first Saudi-Wahhabi realm, seventy years after its modest beginnings and less than twenty years after reaching its zenith.8

The Second Realm, 1824-1891 Muhammad Ali withdrew his forces from Najd because he had accomplished his main object of recapturing and securing Mecca and Madina, because Najd itself was too poor and too restless to tempt him, and because he believed he had completely destroyed Wahhabi power. Within five years, however, a grandson of the founder of the first Saudi realm and son of the pretender defeated by Abdallah ibn Saud, Tur.ki ibn Abdallah ibn Muhammad ibn Saud (r. 1824-1834), established a new SaudiWahhabi power base in Riyadh, south of Dar'iyya. Like his forebears, Tur.ki began by consolidating his rule in Najd through constant campaigning and then proceeded to expand, conquering Hasa in 1830 and exacting recognition ofWahhabi rule along the entire coast of the Persian Gulf by 1833. Unlike his predecessors, however, Tur.ki, though a faithful Wahhabi, was careful not to fan the embers of Wahhabi fanaticism and endeavored to avoid clashing with Ottoman/Egyptian power in the Hijaz and with the increasingly assertive British power in the Persian Gulf and along its shores. The challenge that Tur.ki faced stemmed rather from a combination of tribal lawlessness, rivalry within the Saudi family, and discontent within the religious leadership, which split over the question of responsibility for the 1818 disaster. In 1831, while on a punitive expedition against some tribes, Tur.ki received word that a distant cousin of his, Mishari ibn Abd al-Rahman ibn Saud, whom he had appointed governor of Manfuha, had revolted with the support of some tribal elements. By the time Tur.ki got back to

The First Two Realms

15

Riyadh, Mishari had fled. The latter tried in vain to mobilize additional tribal backing and to enlist the support of the shari£ of Mecca, then submitted to Turki, who put him and his family under some kind of house arrest. In 1834, however, Mishari successfully plotted the assassination of Turki while the Saudi forces under Turki's son Faisal were occupied in a war with Bahrain. Turki was killed while coming out of the mosque on Friday. Members of the Shaikh family remained in the mosque and asked for aman -assurance of safety. When this was given, they acknowledged Mishari as imam. Mishari's rule did not last long. Within forty days Faisal ibn Turki (r. 1834-1838, 1843- 1865) rallied tribal support, marched on Riyadh, defeated Mishari, and had him executed. But the dissensions within the Saudi family encouraged the Banu Khalid of Hasa to revolt and the rulers of Qatar and Bahrain to repudiate Saudi suzerainty. Moreover, in the year that Faisal seized power, Muhammad Ali of Egypt, having broken with the Ottoman sultan, defeated his forces, and brought what is now Palestine, Syria, and Lebanon under his rule, looked to incorporating the entire Arabian Peninsula in his growing empire. The Egyptians began by putting pressure on Faisal to recognize their overlordship over Najd and to assist them in their long-unsuccessful effort to subdue the !ao

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