THERE was nothing new in the interview that Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah gave American TV this week — and yet everything was new. The ideas expressed — on Saudi Arabia’s determination to crush militants, that Al-Qaeda is evil, that oil prices are too high, that the Kingdom has serious questions over US policy in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Middle East, even that women will one day be able to drive — have been stated many times by the king. It was new because, for the first time in a long time — at least for American viewers — it was the king of Saudi Arabia who was saying it, not the crown prince, as he used to be. For them, that makes all the difference in the world. Americans are used to pronouncements coming from the top. They focus on the person who holds top office. In the US, they focus on what the president says or does, rather than on his assistants and deputies. So too abroad. It is what monarchs, presidents and prime ministers say that matter.
Here then was the chance for US viewers to gain an insight into the mind of King Abdullah, even though he has been to the US many times and has spoken to the US media on innumerable occasions. It was a chance to be brought face to face with the ruler of a country they know to be of crucial importance to them — the world’s principal oil exporter, a leading power in the Middle East, a neighbor to Iraq where their forces are bogged down — but about which they have the most naive fantasies. Saudi Arabia remains for most Americans a “desert kingdom”, “oil rich” beyond belief, cradle of Islam but also, they have been led to imagine by a no less credulous media, cradle of terrorism. It is a fantasy half way between Hollywood and a Thousand and One Nights.
The King’s words, while there was nothing new in them, ought to go some way to unravel those fantasies. The total commitment to crush Al-Qaeda and the terrorists, women to be allowed to drive at some point in the presumably near future, the need to cut the oil price because even though the Kingdom is doing very nicely as a result, it hurts developing economies; all these will go down positively in the US. They tune in with the ideas of most Americans, regardless of where they are on the political spectrum. The message of the interview is that, far from being the unchanging, mysterious desert kingdom, Saudi Arabia is internationally responsible and committed, progressive, and concerned about the well-being of others less fortunate — in short, everything the average American and the average man everywhere would approve.
The question is whether the US media — the facilitator and controller of public opinion — will take this on board or go back to continue to peddle the existing Hollywood image of the camels and Cadillacs. It will be no surprise if they fail to rise to the challenge.
