Why Blair pleas to Saudis may fall on deaf ears

Tony Blair at last has his invitation to Saudi Arabia. It comes close to gatecrashing. Only days ago, King Fahd and the rest of the Saudi royal family were telling him he wasn't wanted. The Saudi royals are used to being importuned, though, and they appreciate deference. Every day petitioners turn up at whichever of the many royal palaces it may be, kiss hands, and plead for favours and money. Now Blair joins the pressing throng.

One useful thing he could do is obtain pardons for several Britons sentenced to 500 lashes for dealing in alcohol. In addition, Alexander Mitchell faces the death penalty. He is a Scot in prison with two other Westerners, accused of two bombings in Riyadh. On Saudi television Mitchell confessed his guilt, but in a strange and remote manner. Such a choreographed show trial passes for justice over there.

But of course Blair is after a much bigger favour. He wants Saudi support for the Allies at a crucial stage in their action against the Taliban and Osama bin Laden. King Fahd is 79, and suffered a severe stroke six years ago. By all accounts a courteous man, he avoids confrontation and decisionmaking. Around the king are his seven brothers and numerous halfbrothers, who between them hold the country and its future in their hands. And a divided set of princes they are too, each with his own ambition.

Money is the only tool they have. The Saudi army is no fighting force. Power for these princes is a complicated process of trying to have everything both ways, buying friends and buying off enemies. Considering themselves to be exemplary Muslims, they pay huge and unaccounted sums to any adventurer with a claim to be advancing Islam. No need to look too closely at credentials. Unfortunately, friends one day revolve into enemies the next, with the result that Saudi politics ends up paralysed in contradiction.

Mr Blair will find the king and the princes attentive listeners. No doubt they can all agree the United States has the right to defend itself against terror attacks, while everything possible should be done to avoid the clash of civilisations already on the horizon. But after that, Mr Blair is on his own.

The holy cities of Mecca and Medina are closed to non-Muslims and Saudi Arabia does not welcome visitors or expatriates. Imagine the uproar if the Vatican allowed in only Catholics or Canterbury only Protestants - but let that pass. As well as the holy cities, Saudi Arabia has American military bases. Without these bases in the Gulf War, the United States could never have held off Saddam Hussein or liberated Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia might not exist today. The United States now requires these bases for long-term operations in Afghanistan.

One good turn deserves another. But not in Saudi Arabia. The presence of American military bases gives offence to Muslim extremists. In 1996 persons unknown bombed one of the American military installations killing, 19 servicemen. The Saudis have never released to the Americans the results of their investigations into the murder of the very troops that they rely on for protection. They refuse to share wider intelligence about the thousands of Saudis who are now anti-American militants.

One extremist who resents the American presence on holy soil is Osama bin Laden. He is one of the many children of a Saudi billionaire who has the ear of many of those princes. In the old days, he received money to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan. Back home, he was unable to convince the princes to expel the American protectors. So he issued a couple of fatwas promising to destroy the United States and its collaborator, the Saudi royal family.

Spoilt rich kid that he is, an Islamic Che Guevara, Bin Laden was too well-connected to be arrested for sedition. The rulers merely removed his citizenship, whereupon Bin Laden fled, founded his al Qaeda network, settled in Afghanistan with the Taliban and went to war. Trying to have it both ways as usual, some of the princes and billionaires have been subsidising the Taliban, even though the effect was to raise up the force which now threatens them. Also typically, some prince sent his private jet to Texas to fly out the many members of the Bin Laden family who live there, apparently for fear that they might help the CIA.

If such a thing as a genuine opinion poll was conceivable in Saudi Arabia, it would almost certainly show that Bin Laden is now more popular there than the monarchy. The kingdom is rotting. The Saudi economy is in decline, the money is drying up. At least 5,000 princes and their descendants are kept at public expense. Their corruption is notorious. There is one law for them, another for the masses. More and more Islamic extremists want to get rid of the whole lot and think Bin Laden will do it for them.

Bin Laden persuades by means of Islamic rhetoric and willingness to unleash violence. Listening to Mr Blair and his entreaties for a favour, King Fahd and the surrounding princes in the palace will have their minds concentrated by fear of the mob that might come storming in. They are continuing to buy, and to buy off, all sorts of terrorist groups in the Middle East. Outwardly the Saudis have broken with the Taliban, but it appears that some of them are still paying protection money to it.

The Islamic extremists cannot accept the demands of America, and America cannot accept an ungrateful brush-off in return for preserving Saudi Arabia as it is. In so tight a crunch, the Saudi masters of playing things both ways are going to think long and hard before granting Mr Blair any favour.

David Pryce-Jones is author of The Closed Circle: An Interpretation of the Arabs. A new edition will be published next month