Quotes of the Day

In Saudi Arabia last week, a camel named "no to terrorism" finished second in the annual race that begins the Janadriya cultural festival. That was probably heartening for Crown Prince Abdullah, who watched the race, since it reinforced the message of his current antiterrorism propaganda campaign. The word is everywhere. There are electric billboards in downtown Riyadh flashing slogans like islam is moderation and say no to terrorism. Indeed, after the camel race—and a banquet featuring tables groaning with whole lambs (one animal for every 10 diners, I estimated)—there was an opera celebrating the royal family, climaxed by a scene in which the Saudi people mourn the terrorist attacks of the past few years. "How can Muslims do this?" the chorus wailed. "This is not Islam."

Muslims have done this, at least in part, because they were funded by Saudi charities and educated in radical Islamist schools around the world designed by Saudi clerics, as was Ahmed Omar Abu Ali, the Saudi American charged last week with plotting to assassinate President George W. Bush. Crown Prince Abdullah would have us believe that those days are over, and there is some evidence to support him. The Saudis launched a major campaign to roll up local al-Qaeda cells after terrorists brought the war home to Riyadh, attacking housing compounds and killing 34 on May 12, 2003. U.S. diplomats believe that a significant effort has also been made to control the private Saudi charities that fund Islamist radicalism. A temporary ban has been placed on donations going overseas, with recent exceptions only for tsunami relief and the crisis in Darfur. "The ban is outrageous!" a Saudi politician screamed in a private meeting. "Why are you Americans insisting on this? Thousands of children all over Africa are going without food and clothing because of this."

The antiterrorism campaign is encouraging, but its impact is unknowable. I spent a week visiting with government officials, scholars and business people as part of a small delegation organized by the Council on Foreign Relations. The Saudis were uniformly charming, distressed by their post-9/11 reputation in the U.S. and impatient about the pace of reform in their society. "We made a mistake," a Saudi official told me. "We thought that when teachers cursed Christians and Jews, that it was just words and there would be no impact. It is said that communists take control of a country using trade unions and Arab nationalists take control through the military.

Well, the Islamists take control through the schools. We gave them free rein starting in the 1960s. They have penetrated everywhere, and it is difficult to roll back."

It is difficult because a great many Saudis, including prominent members of the royal family like Interior Minister Prince Nayef bin Abdul Aziz, may not want to. These are the sort of people who don't sip cardamom tea with delegations from the Council on Foreign Relations. Their influence is seen not only in the schools—which don't produce many employable workers, according to business leaders—but also in the streets, where local traditions are mistaken for Islamic law. "I don't mind that I'm not allowed to drive here," a Saudi woman with a valid American license told me. "What I really mind is that I need my husband's written approval for everything, even if I want to go to Bahrain. I am not considered the legal guardian of my children. They need my husband's signature to go on a school trip." The agony of the elites appears to be real, even if it is usually accompanied by the reflexive blaming of Israel for everything, including the recent assassination of Lebanese leader Rafiq Hariri.

There is anger at President Bush's attempts to unilaterally impose reform from afar, but it is followed by grudging acknowledgment of the problem. "We know we have to change," a businessman said in one of our meetings. "Please keep pushing us."

All right, I'll push. A year ago, a dozen prominent intellectuals who signed a petition calling for a constitutional monarchy were arrested for trying to hold a public meeting. All but three were released after pledging not to organize an opposition movement. The three who refused—a poet, an Islamist scholar and a political-science professor—are still in jail. Last week I visited their lawyer, a cautious young man named Khalid Farah al-Mutairy, who joined the case because the political scientist had been his mentor. "I was surprised when he decided not to sign the pledge," al-Mutairy said with some dismay.

A government official privately dismissed the three academics as an ex-communist, a radical Islamist and an extreme Arab nationalist.

"What nonsense," said Ibrahim al-Mugaiteeb, spokesman for Human Rights First Saudi Arabia. "How extremist can they be if they're willing to work together? When these people submitted their petition, the Crown Prince said, 'Your project is my project.' But nothing happened. If the government really wants to say no to terrorism, it must say yes to greater democracy."

• Joe Klein
• Anti-terrorism and democracy in Saudi Arabia