Union-Tribune December 22, 2002 A1 In Iraq's shadow - Saudi Arabia Strained alliance   Threat of U.S. action against Iraq further tests key anti-terror ally By MARCUS STERN  COPLEY NEWS SERVICE  JEDDAH, Saudi Arabia – The port city of Jeddah on the Red Sea has Starbucks , McDonald's, Internet cafes and gleaming, glass office buildings that produce at least the semblance of a modern American skyline. But in the shadow of those tall towers there is another side of Saudi Arabia. Here, women must wear black abayas that cover them from head to toe. They are banned from driving. And they can't leave the country without their husband's permission. Children attend schools where screeds against "infidels" are common. Taking photographs in public is forbidden. And the mutawa, or religious police, patrol shopping malls enforcing the puritanical strain of Islam that dominates in Saudi Arabia. Oh, and the Starbucks and McDonald's are carefully partitioned into separate sections for men and women. The terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, focused new attention on one of America's key allies in the Middle East, underscoring both the similarities and differences of the two cultures. Now, the threat of war with Iraq adds even more pressure to the already strained relations between the United States and Saudi Arabia. Just as U.S.-Saudi relations have reached a critical crossroads, so, too, has Saudi society. The oil-rich kingdom is being tugged between modern global influences and conservative Islamic clerics who cling to old and insular ways. It also is facing a demographic time bomb. With 70 percent of Saudi Arabia's population under 21, incomes falling, unemployment rising and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict resonating here more than ever, analysts have likened Saudi society to a large truck going down a long, steep grade. Analysts worry that if the brakes fail, Saudi Arabia could revolt against its royal family the way Iran revolted against its shah. And that, they say, would be bad for U.S. interests. The current governing arrangement, an absolute monarchy, doesn't include elections or political parties. Power is inherited. The royal family holds all of the top government positions and a large share of the nation's wealth. The kingdom has been criticized for human rights violations and is notorious for withholding many basic rights from women. Yet with one-quarter of the world's known oil reserves, Saudi Arabia ensures a reliable supply of oil for the United States and billions of dollars in sales annually for the U.S. defense industry. This critical juncture in U.S.-Saudi relations comes as the Islamic world has begun to hold the United States accountable for what Muslims portray as daily, brutal treatment of Palestinians by Israeli forces. In terms of single-minded fervor, the closest parallel in the United States might be the anti-abortion movement. But even that is a pale comparison. Given that context, the ruling House of Saud will face a real dilemma if the United States pushes the monarchy to assist in another war with Iraq. The 1991 war cost the Saudis $65 billion and led to a recession. The war freed the Saudis of any threat from Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, but it left a bitter aftertaste with them. The heavy Saudi connection to the Sept. 11 attacks has thrown the kingdom further on the defensive, creating a new bitterness toward America by Saudis who feel they have become victims of a smear campaign by the U.S. media. They accuse the U.S. media of generalizing culpability to all Saudis because Osama bin Laden is a Saudi, as were 15 of the 19 hijackers. The most recent irritant was a spate of widely publicized questions raised about whether charitable contributions by a member of the royal family might have gone indirectly to someone associated with the Sept. 11 hijackers. Some worry that U.S.-Saudi relations are near the breaking point. "Right now we have a dysfunctional marriage with the United States and we have to be careful that it doesn't break up," said Khaled A. Al-Maeena, editor in chief of the Jeddah-based Arab News. "If the marriage breaks up, it will be bad for America, bad for Saudi Arabia and bad for the world." Al-Maeena went to great lengths to stress the common bonds and good will between the two countries. Saudis don't hate America, he said. They are simply angry and frustrated with U.S. foreign policy, especially when it comes to the Arab-Israeli conflict. And on that score, even his comments became biting. "How can I be against America?" he said. "I am mad at those ignorant people with IQs under seven who are running America." While Saudis have no great love for Hussein and might abide an attack on him, they could react badly if an attack on Iraq results in a large number of civilian casualties, Al-Maeena said.  But the immediate concern is a perceived U.S. backlash since 9/11. "The Saudis and the Muslim people are not the enemy," Al-Maeena said. "The enemy of the American people is their own ignorance and foreign policy." Terrorist's hometown The walls of old Jeddah city have long since crumbled, as has much of the old city itself. Today the heart of old Jeddah is the neighborhood of Al-Balad, a warren of alleys running haphazardly between buildings made of white coral cut from Red Sea reefs as far back as the 18th century. Al-Balad today is crawling with feral cats and home to emigrants from Africa and the Indian subcontinent. One of the many striking contradictions of Saudi Arabia is that the cloistered, intensely private kingdom should have such a large immigrant population. Almost one in every five Saudis is foreign-born. In Al-Balad, African children play soccer in the shadows of the crumbling coral blocks while their mothers, in long, colorful dresses and veils, move through the sprawling Al Alawi souq, or market. Modern Jeddah has moved north of here. There, you will find tall, thin Saudi men resplendent in white ankle-length robes called thobes, embroidered cloaks called bishts, and red and white headdresses, known as shamals. It is also where you will find the headquarters of the BinLaden Group, the $5 billion corporate empire built by Osama bin Laden's father. Jeddah is where bin Laden spent much of his early life. He worked for the family business there and he eventually became radical as a student at King Abdul Aziz University in the late 1970s. The modern, northern sprawl of Jeddah also is the location of the home of architect Sami M. Angawi. Angawi has incorporated into his house features common to the holy cities of Mecca, where Islam's prophet Muhammad was born in the sixth century, and Medina, where he was buried. "The concept of (Islamic) extremism started in the '60s and '70s and is blossoming now," said Angawi, who has devoted himself to preserving Islamic architectural heritage. The United States needs to be more far-sighted in pursuing its interests in the Middle East and Saudi Arabia's Islamic clerics need to allow greater diversity of thought within the religion, he said. The kingdom has been ruled through a strategic alliance between the royal family – numbering in the thousands – and the clerics of Wahhabism, an austere 18th-century movement that seeks to turn back the clock on Islamic practices to conform with the seventh-and eighth-century rendition. As long as it has been in power, the Saudi royal family has used the strict Wahhabi clerics to keep the kingdom in check. In exchange, the Wahhabi clerics have held the kingdom's religious franchise. They have preserved some of Islam's harsher traditions, including preaching against non-Muslims, referred to variously as kafirs, infidels and the uninformed. Wahhabism now has spread beyond the borders of Saudi Arabia, taking on anti-Western overtones and becoming more sharply focused on the plight of the Palestinians. Today, Angawi suggested, the world is shrinking faster than understanding is expanding. In Saudi Arabia, the modern, secular West is bumping up against seventh-and eighth-century Islam. He said a clash of civilizations can be averted through moderation, cooperation and understanding. One of bin Laden's chief grievances with the royal family has been its decision to allow 5,000 U.S. troops to remain in the kingdom after the 1991 war. Jeddah businessman Yasin Alireza said bin Laden and the religious right in Saudi Arabia use "spurious" religious concepts in arguing that Islam forbids a non-Muslim presence on the Arabian Peninsula, especially an armed presence. And bin Laden is exploiting the Palestinian issue, Alireza said. "He never spoke about the Palestinian situation before," he said. Muslim-only city Jeddah is the gateway to Mecca for 2 million Muslims each year who make the Islamic pilgrimage known as the hajj. The city of Mecca lies 45 miles east of Jeddah. A few miles before reaching the city, the highway splits. Green signs overhead direct non-Muslims to steer their cars into the right lanes to take a fork that completely bypasses Mecca. A ring of small mountains surrounds the city, preventing even a distant view of it. Only Muslims may enter the ring of mountains and the historic and holy city of Mecca. Cars going straight stop at a checkpoint just beyond the signs, where everyone must present documents proving he or she is Muslim. The city of Medina, Islam's second-holiest site, similarly is off-limits to non-Muslims. The road bypassing Mecca turns serpentine, winding up a giant escarpment that parallels the Red Sea for the length of the Arabian Peninsula, just beyond a narrow coastal plain. At the top of the mountain is the resort town of Taif. During the summer months, Taif's cooler weather draws visitors from Jeddah. Taif also was the hometown of Hani Hanjour, who authorities believe piloted American Airlines Flight 77, fully fueled and carrying 64 people, into the southwest wall of the Pentagon on Sept. 11, killing 184 people. Hanjour, who was 19 when he died, is one of three hijackers who spent time in San Diego. On a recent Friday, the call to prayer blared from loudspeakers throughout Hanjour's well-manicured, clean and reasonably affluent hometown. As happens every time the call to prayer is heard during the business day, shopkeepers pulled down their shutters and men throughout the city double-timed in droves to the nearest mosque. Some 2,000 pairs of sandals lined the steps outside King Fahd mosque. Inside, the owners of the sandals were kneeling shoulder to shoulder. Before praying, they listened to the Friday khutba, or lecture, given by the Wahhabi imam. As expected, he exhorted the faithful to rally behind the Palestinians in their struggle against Israel. Hanjour's family initially expressed disbelief at the news their son had piloted one of the planes hijacked Sept. 11. Today, the Saudi government keeps journalists away from the families of the 15 Saudi hijackers. In the nearby village of Shafa, Omar Safeani gives camel rides to children in a park where mothers, completely covered in black abayas, play on the swings with their young children and older boys race around on all-terrain vehicles. "Saudi Arabia and America are like brothers," Safeani said as he walked with his 12-year-old camel, Faran, looking for young fares. Asked what he thought about local boy Hanjour and the other hijackers, Safeani demurred, realizing anything he might say on the subject could get even a lowly camel driver in trouble with the government. "I don't know anything about that," he said. "Ask me how I'm going to feed myself. That's all I think about." Photographer's Nelvin Cepeda's video of life in Saudi Arabia and the first story in this series are available online at SignOnSanDiego, the Union-Tribune's Web site, at www.uniontrib.com.