U.S. soldiers: Cannon fodder for Saudi Arabian feudalism?

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'Saudi Arabia is an absolute monarchy. The nearest approach to a parliament are informal meetings of senior Without a vote by any elected body, President Bush has condemned thousands of American soldiers to an indefinite stay in one of the most inhospitable regions on earth. They are enduring hellish heat and blowing sand, loneliness, and the gnawing anxiety an uncertain future brings.

They must also confront a peculiar time warp in which a medieval society embraces the high technocracy of the 20th century. They are in a land where almost any camel driver can buy a car, but no woman may drive one. It is a land where criminals are beheaded in the public sauare , while crime statistics are stored in computers.

Other undeveloped countries have had to make a forced march to absorb the technology of the West, but they usually had a generation or two to adapt. Because of particular circumstances, the Saudi people had less than 50 years to leap from the Middle Ages to the age of the jet plane and the TV screen. Slavery was not abolished until 1962!

Foremost among the special circumstances was the desert, and the poverty and isolation it ensured. Until Bush came along, no Western power cared to risk their soldiers' lives in the endless burning sands.

The British nibbled at the Arabian coast mainly to safeguard their route to India. They drew arbitrary lines in the sand to carve out emirates and sultanates with puppet regimes. The interior deserts of Arabia held few attractions. The Ottoman Turks, who were nominally in control, were easily pushed out of Arabia after their defeat in World War I.

The House of Saud Not so easy was creating a nation out of the numerous tribes wandering about the desert. Their loyalty was limited to family and tribe. It took a very strong tribe with a particularly gifted leader to unify a score of fractious tribes into a single nation. It took Abul Aziz, better known as Ibn Saud, of the House of Saud, over 10 years to overcome all rivals and establish the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The nation was not formally recognized until 1932.

The House of Saud is like no other royal family. First is its vast size. In Saud sired 45 sons by 22 different wives. His eldest son fathered at least 55 sons and 55 daughters. Today the royal family numbers over 4000, all princes and princesses entitled to royal stipends that maintain them in luxury.

Saudi Arabia is an absolute monarchy. The nearest approach to a parliament are informal meetings of the senior princes. Saudi Arabia is also a theocracy. The Muslim faith dominates the lives of all believers from the moment they awake until they retire.

The holy city of Mecca happens to be located in Saudi Arabia, intensifying the hold of religion. The ulema (clergy) of the most puritan sect, the Wahhabis, stand at the king's right hand, while other zealots (Ikwan) patrol the streets watching for violators of Islamic law.

World crisis in oil For 1300 years, the social order on the Arabian peninsula changed very little. Goat herding, a little agriculture, and income from the yearly pilgrimage of thousands of the faithful to Mecca, produced an income slightly above the poverty level.

Then on March 20, 1938, Standard Oil prospectors struck oil and changed life in Saudi Arabia forever. Oil has been found in many parts of the world, but never in such abundance. The average well elsewhere produces less than 100 barrels a day. The daily output of a Saudi well is measured in thousands of barrels.

Saudi wells will continue to produce for a long time. After selling 30 billion barrels to the West, the Saudis still have three times more known oil reserves than 20 years ago.

The discovery of oil did not produce instant riches for the Saudis. The Depression, and then the war, slowed development. The king often had to borrow money from ARAMCO during these years. The American oil companies in the ARAMCO consortium were happy to oblige, believing this would tighten their grip on the House of Saud.

princes.' They had pushed out the British, and intended to enjoy the Arabian bonanza all by themselves.

Then on Oct. 20, 1973, ARAMCO and the United States got a rude shock that changed Saudi-U.S. relations considerably. On that day, President Nixon asked Congress for $2 billion to help Israel in the Six Day War. ARAMCO warned Washington this might annoy the Saudis. The objection was brushed aside.

King Fahd wasted little time arguing. For five months, he simply turned off the tap feeding oil to the American market.

The Nixon administration issued ominous threats. In an interview, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger declared the U.S. would contemplate using military force if faced SAUDI ARABIA SAHAE TO TRAD TANNEN wooden box.

Billions have been spent to build the infrastructure of a modern state. Smelling huge profits, hordes of corporate carpet baggers descended on the Saudis. For outrageous fees they built telephone systems, airfields, and office buildings.

The clergy looked askance at these radios and telephones. They were even more disturbed by the hundreds of thousands of foreign workers brought in to build and maintain the new facilities. With nearly 2 million guest workers in the country by 1980, the priests wondered how the purity of the faith could be maintained.

The House of Saud had to perform a delicate balancing act to reassure the ulema, and yet give capitalist enterprise freedom to develop. Awkward compromises evolved. The Koran forbids usury, getting interest by money lending. So the princes used the euphemism "return" in place of "interest" and collected millions in "returns" from all over the world.

Women are forbidden to talk to any man, except a close relative. So taking most jobs was out of the question. But there was now a need for thousands of Arabic speaking office workers. A woman who took a job described how she was locked in a closet with a typewriter. Papers were passed to her under the door. Other women describe how the Ikwan would raid a business establishment and chase all the women out.

Oil glut in the 1980s So long as the golden tide of petrodollars kept piling up, the Saudis could absorb the huge cost of modernizing. But by 1983, an oil glut developed. Saudi exports fell from 7 million barrels a day in 1982 to 3.5 million in 1983; and the prices fell.

The bonanza that seemed to have no end— ended. It was time to cut back on many construction projects. Even the princes were put on rations. Limits were put on many of the social benefits the masses enjoyed. It was not a return to poverty, but the euphoria of limitless wealth faded.

Now the insecurity of the House of Saud began to show. Having taken credit for the largess they had doled out, they now had to take the blame for the shortfall. The Royal Family feared both domestic and foreign eremies.

As guardians of the holy cities, the Saudis should have taken the lead in the Pan-Arab movement that was stirring the Arab people from Morocco to Zanzibar. But the House of Saud feared the changes this kind of Arab nationalism would bring.

First, Gamel Nasser of Egypt proclaimed the rise of an Arab nationalism with populist features. He had kicked King Farouk off the Egyptian throne and set the masses in motion. Such ideas were anathema to the absolute monarch of Saudi Arabia. So Egypt became enemy Number One.

Later, Nasser was replaced by the Ayatolla Khomenei of Iran who called for a jihad, (holy war) led by the Shiite Muslims. This threatened the Wahhabis and Sunnis of Saudi Arabia, who had suffered the embarrassment of an armed attack in 1979 on the holiest mosque in Mecca by dissident fanatics.

Saddam Hussein became a bosom buddy of Saud and the U.S. when he fought a bloody, pointless war against Iran. Now Iraq is the enemy, and the position of Iran is uncertain.

But the biggest enemy of the Saudis among all these shifting alliances is the state of Israel. The wounds the Zionists inflict on the Palestinians are felt by every Saudi. "The friend of my enemy is no friend of mine. So why are 150,000 American soldiers parked in our desert?" many Saudis are bound to ask.

Bush hopes to maintain the status quo by using military might in Arabia. But he is weakening the House of Saud every day the troops remain. All the disaffected Saudis will raise their voices.

The Bedouins will resent the foreign tanks tearing up their beloved desert. The Wahhabi fundamentalists will condemn the King for permitting this invasion of infidels. The new technocrats will demand a voice and vote on the future of their country.

Women chafe at their oppression. Everyone resents the opulent lite styles of the princes. All these resentful Saudis will shake the House of Saud as they cry, "Send the invading armies home!"

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with "some actual strangulation of the indus- trial world." Defense Secretary James Schles- DIGGING IN IS NOT THE PROBLEM, SIR! ITS HOW DO WE GET OUT?