(2 of 3)
At the heart of Saudi Arabia's problem is the unfinished task of creating a modern state out of a cluster of Bedouin tribes that were unified by Abdul Aziz (Ibn Saud) under the present kingdom in 1932. The royal leadership is worried by the growing polarization of Saudi society; thousands of young Saudis return from the West every year with university degrees, only to chafe under a puritanical, semifeudal system designed to appease the disparate desert tribes. "When the graduates come back, they are given nice jobs with plenty of money," remarks one educated Saudi. "But how long they will remain happy driving fancy cars and drinking whisky at home, God only knows."
For several years, Fahd has contemplated setting up a consultative assembly that would be a quasi parliament composed of both elective and appointive officials. According to the prince's plan, three-quarters of the assembly's members would be modern, educated Saudis, and the remainder would be unschooled but respected tribal leaders.
Saudi Arabia's domestic problems and its oil policy are inextricably linked. Progressive members of the royal family, including Fahd, have argued that current high production levels (9.5 million bbl. per day) are necessary to stabilize the world oil market and assist important allies like the U.S. At the current price of $26 per bbl., Saudi Arabia's oil revenues could surpass $90 billion this year.
But more conservative groups, including religious and tribal elements, have challenged the wisdom of the government's high-production policy at a time when 1) the country needs to produce only 6 million bbl. per day to maintain current budgets and 2) the U.S. has been unable to secure autonomy for the Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip and return the Muslim shrines in the Old City of Jerusalem to
Arab control. These Saudi conservatives argue that high production will not solve the problem of internal discontent, as evidenced not only by the Mecca siege but by sporadic unrest among Shi'ite Muslim workers in the oilfields of the country's eastern province.
The conservative groups also worry about the disruptive influence of some 2 million foreign workers in a country one-fourth the size of the U.S. that has a native population of only 4 million to 5 million. The foreigners include Egyptians, Palestinians, Pakistanis, Thais, Filipinos and Koreans—and about 1 million North Yemenis. The Saudis need the North Yemenis, both as guest workers and as allies, and often talk about the need to defend their country from the pro-Moscow, Marxist regime in South Yemen. Nonetheless, the Saudis know that the Yemenis resent Riyadh's oil wealth, and that a number of South Yemenis were involved in the Mecca siege. They also know that unstable, poverty-stricken North Yemen could link up with South Yemen to form a menacing new radical state on the Arabian peninsula.
During the Islamabad conference of Foreign Ministers from Islamic states, the Saudis led the fight to condemn the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The Saudis' specific fear is that Moscow has embarked on a pincer-like squeeze of the Persian Gulf states by moving into Afghanistan and later, conceivably, Iran, even as the Soviets are buttressing their military outposts in South Yemen and Ethiopia.