Making Terrorists

If nothing else, the Sept. 11 attacks have demonstrated the folly of the longstanding U.S. policy of supporting the world's worst, most fanatical, most retrograde Islamic regimes as opposed to the radical secularists and socialists. If Osama bin Laden was behind the attacks, it means the Saudi regime must have been behind them as well.

U.S. commitment to Saudi Arabia is as fanatical in its way as the doctrine of any Wahabbi ulema. In the 1960s the United States supported Saudi Arabia against Egypt's Gamal Abdel Nasser, who believed, perfectly correctly, that the Saudis' fabulous oil wealth needed to be distributed a little more equitably among the millions of Arabs, most of whom were destitute. In 1990, the United States rushed hundreds of thousands of troops halfway across the world to save the Saudis from Saddam Hussein. Yet the Iraqi leader was not pursuing some demented jihad. He just wanted to get his hands on Kuwait's oil.

When it comes to Islamic fundamentalists, Hussein has dealt with them as ruthlessly as he has with all his political opponents. The Saudis, on the other hand, have for years been transferring the money they made off the West's oil consumers into the pockets of Islamist terrorists who long to slaughter those very oil consumers. If Afghanistan has become the paradigm of a new type of regime?one that does not sponsor terrorists but is itself sponsored by terrorists?that is the way the world's two leading sponsors of terrorism, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, wanted it. The U.S. also did its fair share of the heavy lifting to ensure the Taliban's success.

The Saudis have always been committed to exporting their official fanatical Wahabbi doctrine, and the Taliban proved to be apt pupils. From 1994 on, when the Taliban first emerged in Afghanistan, the Saudis lavished money and arms on them. As in the good old days of the anti-Soviet jihad, Pakistan was given the responsibility of funneling the Saudi money. The Saudis bankrolled Pakistan's madrassas, which turned out recruits ready to take up arms on behalf of the Taliban. For the Saudis, Afghanistan was the staging ground for the expansion of the Wahabbi empire into Central Asia. According to Ahmed Rashid's Taliban, the "Saudis sent millions of Korans to Central Asia, funded Central Asian Muslims on the Haj and gave scholarships for their mullahs to study in Saudi Arabia?where they imbibed Wahabbism. These measures only perturbed Central Asia's rulers. Within a few years the rulers of Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan were to call Wahabbism the biggest political threat to stability in their countries."

Osama bin Laden was almost certainly the conduit between Riyadh and the Taliban. He had always been close to Prince Turki al Faisal, chief of Saudi intelligence. It was al Faisal who had asked him to take charge of the recruitment of Arabs to fight the holy war against the Soviet infidel. By 1996 bin Laden had ensconced himself in Afghanistan. Despite repeated U.S. denunciations, he obviously enjoyed official Saudi support. Prince Turki continued to visit Afghanistan frequently. The issue of bin Laden's presence never seemed to come up.

Pakistan also had reason to look favorably upon bin Laden. The Afghan terrorist training camps were producing Kashmiri terrorists. Moreover, Pakistan's military and the ISI have always harbored fantasies of establishing a world Islamist movement. Interestingly, the two intelligence chiefs most intimately involved with Osama bin Laden have both been abruptly dismissed recently. Just a week before Sept. 11, al Faisal was relieved of his position without any explanation. Even more fascinatingly, the Times of India recently reported that former ISI director-general Lt.-Gen. Mahmud Ahmad "lost his job because of the 'evidence' India produced to show his links to one of the suicide bombers that wrecked the World Trade Center."

Then there was the Clinton administration. Just as it intervened in Bosnia and Kosovo to ensure victory for the most gangsterish terrorists, it stepped into the wars of Afghanistan to secure the Taliban's triumph. It went out of its way to make sure that arms did not reach anti-Taliban forces. Pakistan and Saudi Arabia seized the moment to resupply the Taliban and ensure their victory, as the Clinton administration well knew they would.

It seems strange to recall the U.S. government's warm welcome for the Taliban. State Dept. spokesman Glyn Davies declared confidently, "[A]ccording to what they've said so far, that's an indication to us that they intend to respect the rights of all their citizens." The Clinton administration had a pecuniary motive. It wanted the California oil giant, Unocal, to build a giant gas pipeline from Turkmenistan through Afghanistan to Pakistan's Arabian coast. The Taliban were enthusiastic proponents of this project.

Thus did the United States, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia connive in the creation of a terrorist state. One sign of a new attitude on the part of the United States would be a new policy toward Saudi Arabia. The Saudis should be told that since the world has no confidence that they are not secretly financing terrorists, the IMF will appoint someone to oversee Saudi finances. Should the Saudis balk at the idea, Washington could announce that it now believes that it backed the wrong side 10 years ago. Come back Saddam Hussein, all is forgiven.