I am not and never was a friend of Saudi Arabia. They hate Jews and Christians and they advocate an austere religion that produces many zealots - among them Osama bin Laden. So what should the U.S. do? Declare war on Saudi Arabia as it did on Iraq?
War comes easily to those who are highly competitive. They feel they are right and if they cannot get their way through discussion or bullying they declare war. This is why the U.S. is now in Iraq. This is also why it is difficult to establish order there, let alone democracy.
A more cooperative attitude is needed. It is too late to be applied to Iraq, but U.S. can be more cooperative in its dealings with other Arab countries, such as Saudi Arabia. You do not need to agree on everything in order to find a common cause you can pursue cooperatively.
Start with Alwaleed bin Talal, an outspoken Saudi prince in favor of reform. Alwaleed said, believe it or not:
"They were trying to come up with these conspiracy theories or that maybe Israel was behind it [9-11 catastrophe] or some other Jewish organization. It just doesn't make sense."
More important, he said with reference to the 9-11 terrorists:
"You have to ask the simple question. Why 15 Saudis? You can't just say it happened by coincidence. Clearly there's something wrong with the way of thinking here, with the way people are raised."
This billionaire is influential. We in the U.S. should help him any way we can. But here's the key point: Instead of suggesting to him what to do - Americans are good at this - wait for him to ask you how you may help. HE is in charge. Follow HIS plan.
In other words, U.S. does not need to formulate a huge plan. It must be ready to support plans of reformers as they happen.
I know that such a cooperative approach goes against the grain for many Americans. But why not try it? What do we have to lose?
As I have said before, you cannot produce peace through competitive aggression. Peace is achieved through cooperative helpfulness.
