tan, the measure would surely have drawn wide public support.
However, the official response with respect to Saudi Arabia has been strikingly unlike the response to the Taliban in Afghanistan, or later to Saddam Hussein's Iraq (which had no significant connection to al-Qaeda or the 9/11 attack. Within days of the terrorist strikes, while civil air traffic across the United States will still grounded, the government arranged a special airlift to return a number of Saudis to their homeland, with only cursory examination by the FBI. Among those repatriated were a number of members of the (very large) bin Laden family (Krugman).
Favorable official treatment of the Saudi government and of Saudi Arabia as a whole has continued. The Bush Administration barred publication of, reportedly, some 17 pages of a joint Congressional report on the 9/11 attack that dealt with Saudi connection. It is widely suspected among intelligence analysts that "much of al-Qaeda's finances come from private Saudi sources" (Khan 1). Nevertheless, the gentle treatment of Saudi Arabia has continued. Significantly, as will be seen below, support for this treatment is not limited to the Bush Administration, but appears to be widely endorsed by the foreign policy establishment.
The following discussion will first outline the historical background of the Saudi connection to the 9/11 attack. It will then examine the central role of oil in Saudi-American relations, and explore the perspectives of the foreign policy community. In conclusion it will evaluate the grounds for the remarkable post 9/11 treatment of Saudi Arabia.
At the heart of the increasingly tense relationship between the United States and Saudi Arabia lies the close connection of the Saudi government to the Wahhabi sect, one of the most puritanical and intolerant strains within Islam (Calabreze 1). The historical roots of this connection go back more than two centuries. The current Ki...