JEDDAH, 21 April — An extraordinary visitor will arrive at the White House in a few days. For various reasons, which we will mention later, he is the strongest of all Arab visitors. The visitor is of course Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah. As he is himself extraordinary, his talks will also be extraordinary and will be distinguished by their frankness and truth.
Naturally from the White House he expects responses characterized by the same frankness and credibility. If the crown prince hears something that is less than credible or less than frank, then all of us may miss a golden opportunity for peace in the Middle East. In such a case, things would only become even more complicated than they are at present.
This particular visitor to the White House draws his strength from many sources, with the most important being from the fact that he represents the world’s one-and-a-half billion Muslims. Five times every day, these people turn their faces to his country where Islam’s holiest sites are located.
The visitor is the equal of the resident of the White House. He is not going there to ask for financial assistance as the Kingdom sits on a quarter of the world’s total oil reserves. Unlike some rulers, he does not need US support to bolster the pillars of his government. His recent meetings with groups of citizens have shown that the Saudi government enjoys popular support and that this support is stronger than any foreign protection or treaty.
The visitor’s country also draws strength from its moderate policies, its respect for international charters, agreements and resolutions and its support for the United Nations as well as for its unconditional aid to a number of developing countries.
The uniqueness of Saudi policy is evident by its not jumping on the bandwagon of those who call for using oil as a weapon. Slapping an oil embargo on the West was once an important weapon and one which we used some 30 years ago. The situation has now changed. Western countries are now well prepared to confront an embargo; most of them store oil in large enough quantities to last two years. They have also not only increased their own oil production but they also search ceaselessly for alternative energy sources. At the same time, the need of oil-producing countries for oil revenues has increased considerably; they have their own requirements resulting from their growing populations and their support for their own national projects and aid programs to less fortunate nations.
In the light of these things, the visitor to the White House will focus on a specific topic: the Palestinian issue. The United States may once have played the role of a neutral mediator but those days seem to be a thing of the past. The recent visit of the US Secretary of State (whom a Palestinian official described as a reserve general in the Israeli Army coming to inspect his positions on the Northern Front and refusing to visit Jenin) is an example of what we mean. There is no room for doubt that it was the United States which gave the green light to Sharon for carrying out the massacres which were disgracefully disguised as part of the war on terrorism. No one knows when this war on terrorism will end or where it will take us. The absence of any international agreement on the definition of terrorism is also an important part of the problem.
The crown prince will try to influence the role played by the United States to that of a neutral mediator. In case his efforts fail, both Arab and non-Arabs, who have already taken to the streets to express their anger at the Zionist aggression, will then enter into a direct confrontation with Washington. It cannot be ruled out that these people might then ask their rulers to reject US mediation and advice and to select a genuinely neutral mediator in its place. The people of the world will also demand the liberation of the United Nations from the hegemony of the US and its close allies and the shifting of the organization to a neutral country.
If the people of the world move together, it will definitely have a strong impact. Such an impact was seen recently in Venezuela where the people brought back a deposed president within 48 hours of his leaving office! Neither should we overlook the possible role of such a sleeping giant as China. After all, it recently showed its strength at meetings of the World Trade Organization when it banged the table and proclaimed: “We are China; you must listen to what we say.” And everybody was quiet and listened.
Crown Prince Abdullah is strong and straightforward and his visit is significant. He is the best possible answer to the unjust campaign against his country in the American media and the obstacles being manufactured in certain quarters to transform his visit into a failure.
(Ali Al-Shiddi is a Saudi writer based in Riyadh e-mail: [email protected])
