home/map
subscribe
about us/contact us
israel iraq iran ethiopia eritrea egypt cyprus bahrain algeria afghanistan
Saudi Arabia

Home to by far the world’s largest proven oil reserves, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is the “swing producer” on the world market, the one country that can singlehandedly inflate or depress oil prices by adjusting its production. From this sheer quantity of petroleum stems the Saudi regime’s strategic importance—especially to the United States—and also its durability.

Saudi Arabia is an absolute monarchy whose concessions to citizen participation are meager even by regional standards. The royal family stakes its claim to legitimacy in its status as the protector of Mecca and Medina, the two holiest cities in Islam. Along with the large royal family itself, then, the king’s domestic political base is the deeply conservative clerical elite. Much of this elite is descended from Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab, the eighteenth-century puritan from whom the austere form of Sunni Islam practiced in Saudi Arabia takes its unofficial name.

Because of the monarchy’s alliance with puritan Islam, public buildings, from universities to government ministries, are segregated by gender, and religious police enforce modest dress and other social norms. The state also metes out a draconian justice very unusual in Muslim countries. Saudi Arabia’s sizable Shiite minority, which is concentrated in the oil-rich al-Hasa province, faces discrimination and intimidation from state and society alike.

Yet the royal family’s religious claim of legitimacy also exposes it to clerical criticism when it takes actions deemed “un-Islamic,” such as allowing US soldiers on Arabian soil with the 1990-1991 Gulf war, the action that triggered Osama bin Laden’s break with the regime. After the 2003 invasion of Iraq, soaring oil prices have shored up the regime’s ability to dispense patronage and, hence, its stability.

The US-Saudi strategic partnership has also survived the September 11, 2001 attacks and the Iraq war, though, even before these events, the royal family had begun to seek partners outside Washington.


Facts and Figures »