hat "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 Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is the second Saudi realm to be established across the Arabian peninsula. The first was founded in the mid-18th century by a tribal chieftain named al-Saud, who formed a political and family alliance with Muhammad al-Wahhab, founder of the Wahhabi movement (McMillan).
The first Saudi kingdom was defeated and broken up by the Ottoman Turks in the early 19th century. The current kingdom was established by a descendent of al-Saud, al-Aziz ibn-Saud, starting around the year 1900. By the 1920s al-Aziz had forcibly united most of the Arabian Peninsula under Saudi rule, including the holy cities of Mecca and Medina. (These had formerly been ruled by the Hashemites, now the Jordanian royal family.) Family ties between the Saudi family and the descendents of al-Wahhab remained close, and with Saudi rule came imposition of Wahhabi puritanical strictures (McMillan).
Thus, an essential feature of Saudi domestic policy ...