Good News In the "War on Terrorism?"

In a little noticed development this past week, the senior Wahhabi cleric in Saudi Arabia issued a fatwa--a religious edict. It didn't call for Muslims to kill anyone!

But, that's not the real news. Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdel-Aziz Al-Asheikh's edict in effect prohibited Saudi men from leaving the Kingdom for the purpose of joining the jihad. Considering the large number of Saudi natives documentably involved in both the Iraqi and Afghan wars, this is a significant development.

Both the motivation behind the fatwa and its potential effectiveness are open to debate.

The cynic (for "cynic" the Geek has no objections if one uses the word "historian) might well argue that the primary motive is quite probably damage limitation by the Saudi royal house. Historically, Saudi Arabian personnel and money have been heavily involved in both the spreading of Islamist ideology and the conduct of terrorist and paramilitary operations. This reality was brought home to Americans on 9/11. The majority of the individuals who executed the attacks were Saudis.

Ever since the current administration declared its "Global War on Terrorism," US diplomatic efforts have sought without any notable success to involve the Saudi government as an effective ally. Admittedly, the US has not been able to use any real diplomatic leverage on the ever-so-reluctant Wahhabist worthies of the Kingdom.

The primary reasons that we have not been able to put any meaningful pressure on the House of Saud are two: oil and fear. The oil consideration is self-evident. The US and the West need plentiful and reasonably cheap oil. The Saudis are the front porch dog in OPEC. Need more be said?

The fear reason is not quite so obvious. It's there. It's the same fear that propelled both the US "tilt" to Iraq during the Iraq-Iran War of the Eighties and US involvement in the First Persian Gulf War in 1991. The policy of the US is firmly against the rise of a regional hegemonic power in the Gulf region. It doesn't matter to Washington if the potential hegemon is Iraq or Iran.

To make it short: The US is and has been playing classic balance of power politics in the region. Right now Washington is afraid of Tehran. True, the mullahocracy has made it easy, very easy for Uncle Sam to quake in his boots. The Revolutionary Islamic Republic of Iran has left no button unpushed, no lever unpulled in an attempt to scare the US.

Part of the American response to the climate of Tehran induced fear is to seek to strengthen the military capacity of Saudi Arabia. The most dramatic indication of this is the recently concluded arms sale to the Kingdom.

The House of Saud has its own fears. The Saudi royal family and its numerous hangers-on have their own fears. Mainly of these anxieties focus on the stability of the country and the current regime's capability to hang on to power. It is these fears that have lain behind the ongoing Saudi intransigence concerning its efforts to sever Saudi money and personnel from the global Islamist movement generally and jihadism in specific.

For the Saudi regime the situation is lose-lose. If it exposes, severs, or even partially admits the intimate connection between Wahhabist mosques from Pakistan to the US and the spread of virulent Islamism, it threatens internal destabilization. If it doesn't at least partially interdict the flow of money and personnel from Saudi Arabia to the several loci of jihadism, the regime risks something even worse.

No. Not the cut-off of US military assistance or something truly rational such as the inauguration of a genuine, realistic, effective crash program for alternatives to Arab oil.

The risk run by Saudi Arabia is real, up close, and personal. The regime risks the return of the jihadists from Iraq and Afghanistan.

The effectiveness of the "surge" in Iraq has had several results. Deaths of Iraqi civilians are down. Deaths of US troops are also down. The initiative has passed in several regions from the insurgents to their opponents.

How does this effect the the Riyadh worthies?

Simple. It is less and less fun to be a jihadist in Iraq. Perhaps you remember a slogan from the Vietnam War years. "Bring the war home!"

This is exactly what scares the burnooses right off the Saudi power elite. The return of the jihadists means that the jihad will be brought home to the Kingdom.

All the high-tech US weapons systems won't help the House Built On Sand then. Nor, considering the political dynamic in the US this election cycle, can any scared, somewhat reality oriented Saudi be utterly sure that the US cavalry would ride to the rescue--or that the rescue wouldn't be worse than the alternative of going it alone.

Glory be to the Whoever! There is an alternative. A third option between risking instability through counter-jihadist transparency and seeing the jihad brought home.

Enter the Grand Mufti and his new fatwa. Remember, there has been a long-standing, intimate relationship between the Wahhibis and the House of Saud. They came to power together. They conquered the land of Saudi Arabia together. They must stand--or fall--together.

The Grand Mufti's edict is an act of enlightened self-interest for both the sect and the regime. If it works, the US will be happy. If it works, the number of jihadists will decrease--perhaps before it has reached a critical mass. If the fatwa is followed, money may be less plentiful for Islamists and jihadists alike.

Perhaps the Saudi regime is finally getting a grip, an indirect grip certainly but a grip nonetheless, on the critical problem confronting it. How to stay in power. The fact that the problem is one compounded of Saudi history and the galloping ineptitude of the House of Saud is of no concern.

All that counts is keeping the jihad far from the Kingdom of Sand and Oil. That's what the fatwa is all about. Maybe it will work.

That's for some future historian to decide.