home. Legend has it that King Fahd’s administrator for the palace near Antibes
once made a proposal to the government that is still talked about in France today: to move the
Paris-Nice railroad track away from the palace. It didn’t matter that the existing line didn’t
run all that near the palace, or that moving it would cost millions. Fahd, the administrator
explained, would be annoyed to hear even the distant sound of passing trains while strolling in
his garden. The French officials shook their heads in disbelief - they knew the king hadn’t
visited his Antibes palace in over a decade.
IN THE EARLY 1970S, the Al Sa’ud’s Riviera frolicking came to an abrupt
end after Fahd lost in one sitting a reported $6 million at a Nice casino and was photographed
with a phalanx of young beauties. The royal family had to find a new playground. As soon as
King Hassan of Morocco heard that the Saudis were in the real estate market, he phoned Riyadh
to offer up Morocco. Hassan had no choice; he was stone-cold broke. With no oil of his own and
the remittances from Moroccans working in Europe just not cutting it, how else could he afford
the upkeep on his twenty palaces?
So it was that King Hassan allowed dozens of Saudi princes to build
secluded estates in Morocco, many in the rugged mountains around Tangier. The area, called the
Rif, was wild and lawless - a perfect place to hold an orgy or go on a drinking binge, away
from the prying eyes of the Wahhabis back home and the Western press in Europe’s old watering
holes. A journalist trying to get a story or picture risked being kidnapped or having his
throat cut. When I was in Morocco, the CIA picked up a rumor that a Saudi prince with
well-placed friends in Washington had bitten off the breast of a young Moroccan girl in a
drunken frenzy. King Hassan swiftly had the incident covered up. The girl’s family was paid
off, and she was told she would keep her mouth shut or spend the rest of her life in jail. The
strong-arm tactics worked; the incident never saw the light of day.
In return for Morocco’s delicate diplomacy, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf
Arabs dumped loads of money into the country. It’s impossible to calculate precisely how much,
but there are tantalizing hints. In 1998 Saudi defense minister Sultan secretly bought Société
Anonyme Marocaine de l’Industrie du Raffinage (SAMIR), Morocco’s oil refinery, for $420
million. The transaction was handled through a cascade of nominees, shelf companies, and
middlemen to keep Sultan’s name out of the press. Saudi Arabia also poured almost a reported
billion dollars into the huge Casablanca mosque. But that was merely the public face of Saudi
aid.
IF YOU’VE FOLLOWED THIS devil’s logic so far, then it’s a small step to
the conclusion that we in the West and the Saudi rulers themselves are in serious trouble. All
the ingredients of upheaval are in place: open borders, the availability of arms, political
alienation, the absence of a rule of law, a completely corrupt police force, a despised ruling
class, plummeting per capita income (and fabulously wealthy rulers to remind the poor exactly
how poor they are), environmental degradation, surly neighbors, and a growing number of young
home-grown radicals who care more about righteous murder than they do about living. The
kingdom’s schools churn out fanatics faster than they can find wars to fight. Burma, Vietnam,
Cambodia, Nicaragua, Angola, Somalia, and Sierra Leone succumbed to chaos under less volatile
conditions. Why should Saudi Arabia escape this fate?
3. A Consent of Silence
WITH THIS KIND of rot, you’d think that every map in official
Washington would have a red flag planted on the dot labeled “Riyadh” to remind the bureaucrats
that Saudi Arabia is on life support. The truth is just the opposite. As I write this in early
2003, Washington still
once made a proposal to the government that is still talked about in France today: to move the
Paris-Nice railroad track away from the palace. It didn’t matter that the existing line didn’t
run all that near the palace, or that moving it would cost millions. Fahd, the administrator
explained, would be annoyed to hear even the distant sound of passing trains while strolling in
his garden. The French officials shook their heads in disbelief - they knew the king hadn’t
visited his Antibes palace in over a decade.
IN THE EARLY 1970S, the Al Sa’ud’s Riviera frolicking came to an abrupt
end after Fahd lost in one sitting a reported $6 million at a Nice casino and was photographed
with a phalanx of young beauties. The royal family had to find a new playground. As soon as
King Hassan of Morocco heard that the Saudis were in the real estate market, he phoned Riyadh
to offer up Morocco. Hassan had no choice; he was stone-cold broke. With no oil of his own and
the remittances from Moroccans working in Europe just not cutting it, how else could he afford
the upkeep on his twenty palaces?
So it was that King Hassan allowed dozens of Saudi princes to build
secluded estates in Morocco, many in the rugged mountains around Tangier. The area, called the
Rif, was wild and lawless - a perfect place to hold an orgy or go on a drinking binge, away
from the prying eyes of the Wahhabis back home and the Western press in Europe’s old watering
holes. A journalist trying to get a story or picture risked being kidnapped or having his
throat cut. When I was in Morocco, the CIA picked up a rumor that a Saudi prince with
well-placed friends in Washington had bitten off the breast of a young Moroccan girl in a
drunken frenzy. King Hassan swiftly had the incident covered up. The girl’s family was paid
off, and she was told she would keep her mouth shut or spend the rest of her life in jail. The
strong-arm tactics worked; the incident never saw the light of day.
In return for Morocco’s delicate diplomacy, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf
Arabs dumped loads of money into the country. It’s impossible to calculate precisely how much,
but there are tantalizing hints. In 1998 Saudi defense minister Sultan secretly bought Société
Anonyme Marocaine de l’Industrie du Raffinage (SAMIR), Morocco’s oil refinery, for $420
million. The transaction was handled through a cascade of nominees, shelf companies, and
middlemen to keep Sultan’s name out of the press. Saudi Arabia also poured almost a reported
billion dollars into the huge Casablanca mosque. But that was merely the public face of Saudi
aid.
IF YOU’VE FOLLOWED THIS devil’s logic so far, then it’s a small step to
the conclusion that we in the West and the Saudi rulers themselves are in serious trouble. All
the ingredients of upheaval are in place: open borders, the availability of arms, political
alienation, the absence of a rule of law, a completely corrupt police force, a despised ruling
class, plummeting per capita income (and fabulously wealthy rulers to remind the poor exactly
how poor they are), environmental degradation, surly neighbors, and a growing number of young
home-grown radicals who care more about righteous murder than they do about living. The
kingdom’s schools churn out fanatics faster than they can find wars to fight. Burma, Vietnam,
Cambodia, Nicaragua, Angola, Somalia, and Sierra Leone succumbed to chaos under less volatile
conditions. Why should Saudi Arabia escape this fate?
3. A Consent of Silence
WITH THIS KIND of rot, you’d think that every map in official
Washington would have a red flag planted on the dot labeled “Riyadh” to remind the bureaucrats
that Saudi Arabia is on life support. The truth is just the opposite. As I write this in early
2003, Washington still
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