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Saudi Arabia's King Fahd Dies; Abdullah New King
Topic Started: Aug 1 2005, 07:48 AM (295 Views)
gvok
Unregistered

source

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August 1, 2005
Saudi Arabia's King Fahd Dies; Abdullah Named New Leader
By DOUGLAS MARTIN
King Fahd, the absolutist monarch of Saudi Arabia who guided his desert kingdom through swerves in the oil market, regional wars and the incessant, high-stakes scrimmage between Islamic tradition and breakneck modernization, died today, the Saudi royal court in Riyadh said. He was 84.

King Fahd ibn Abdul Aziz al-Saud, the fifth Saudi sovereign, transcended his early reputation as the playboy prince to become a leader of Arab states in the Persian Gulf region, a friend to the United States when that was not always easy and, most recently, though in a debilitated state due to repeated and deepening health problems, a principal in the war against terrorism.

King Fahd, who suffered the first of several strokes in 1995, was overweight, diabetic, and long suffered maladies from arthritis to gallbladder surgery to a blood clot in his eye. He used a cane or a wheelchair. His brother, Crown Prince Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz, ultimately assumed many executive responsibilities, and was today appointed the country's new monarch.

Overall, King Fahd's reign, which in effect began with the long illness of his predecessor, King Khalid, was characterized by immense change.

He oversaw the exploitation of the kingdom's oil wealth, the expansion of its private sector and sent a generation of Saudis to be educated in the West. He let hundreds of thousands of American troops be based in Saudi Arabia during the first war against Iraq despite heated criticism from other Arab countries.

His influence ranged from helping the Reagan administration orchestrate and finance its complicated, illegal operation to sell arms to Iran while aiding Nicaraguan rebels; to giving hundreds of millions of dollars to Palestinians fighting Israel, to establishing religious schools, some of which have been described as breeders of terrorists, throughout the Islamic world.

The power and prestige of controlling the world's biggest pool of oil, a quarter of the planet's reserves, spoke for itself. But depressed petroleum prices during much of King Fahd's reign, which began in 1982, engendered economic pressures unthinkable during the high-flying 1970's. As population surged and employment opportunities dwindled, the kingdom's per capita income sunk to a third of what it had been at the time of King Fahd's coronation.

The king nonetheless used his ability to pump more oil almost at will as a damper on oil prices so as not to damage the world economy. But he understandably worried when prices fell too low to pay the kingdom's bills, and in 1986 sacked his famous oil minister, Ahmed Zaki Yamani, for allowing crude prices to fall to $10 a barrel from $30. (Some have also suggested the royal family tired of the charismatic oil minister's news media attention.)

In 1986 King Fahd boldly declared his other source of power by naming himself Custodian of the Two Holy Places, referring to the Saudi cities of Mecca and Medina, Islam's most sacred sites. But it was exactly this religious role that was most challenged during the latter part of his reign as Islamic conservatives derided the royal family as corrupt and the government's closeness to the United States as near satanic.

It was thus of high significance that in December 2003, an edict in King Fahd's name ordered religious scholars to marshal doctrinal arguments to fight Islamic terrorists. Wyche Fowler Jr., ambassador to Saudi Arabia in the Clinton administration, and Edwin S. Walker Jr., a former assistant secretary of state, wrote that this "may well turn out to be the most important step in winning the war on terror."

In 1994, the king stripped Osama bin Laden of his Saudi citizenship because of his activities against the royal family. The king's other antiterrorist actions, many probably actually performed by Prince Abdullah, included removing more than 2,000 radical preachers from their mosques.

Other than the principality of Lichtenstein, Saudi Arabia is the only country named after a family. King Fahd's Saud family has ruled since 1932 when his father, King Abdul Aziz al-Saud, formed what was actually the family's third kingdom on the Arabian peninsula.

Each time, beginning in the mid-18th century, the Sauds claimed religious authority as legitimacy for their rule. This derived from their alliance with the Wahhabi sect of Muslims, led by the al-Sheikh family. In return for the endorsement of the ultra-strict Wahabbis, the Sauds act as their protectors and enforcers.

But the resultant stability had a price. King Fahd could pursue modernization initiatives, like educating more women, only to the extent they did not provoke his critical religious base.

Moreover, he owed clerics policies that they truly liked. These included the development of universities that taught little beyond Islamic doctrine and ended up spewing thousands of theology students into an already cramped labor market. The conservatives applauded his support of Muslims fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan, but the policy ended up fostering development of a radical current close to Mr. bin Laden's positions.

The challenge has been to create farms and skyscrapers in the desert, while still allowing Wahabbi enforcers to wander public places with sticks to enforce Islamic law in matters like women's dress. Even as Saudi Arabia became a regional superpower on the strength of billions of dollars in arms purchases from the United States, conservatives criticized this dependency.

The State Department, the British Foreign Office and private human rights monitors, meanwhile, persistently criticized Saudi Arabia's treatment of non-Muslims, women and prisoners.

Where once there were only Bedouin, the legendary desert wanderers, King Fahd had to balance a gaggle of powerful constituencies. These included a new technocratic middle class, an estimated 5,000 princes, a legion of foreign workers and, to be sure, some still-extant Bedouin.

It sometimes added up to contradictory policies: King Fahd was a champion of educating females from the time he was named the kingdom's first education minister in 1953, but only in his last years, under considerable Western pressures, did he make serious efforts to get them jobs.

Beginning in 1992, King Fahd instituted reforms in government to create a consultative council to advise royalty, decentralize some powers and widen the pool of candidates eligible to become king. But his absolute powers remained absolute, and he took pains to emphasize that the reforms were in no way a move toward western-style democracy, but rather a reflection of the Koran.

He made no attempt to hide his status as one of the world's richest men. Even when following the traditional Arab passion of visiting the desert, he made the trip in a fleet of 18-wheel Mercedes trucks. In "The Saudis: Inside the Desert Kingdom" (Norton, 1987), Sandra Mackey said he "built one elaborate palace after another," including an exact replica of the White House in Washington, D.C. (He never moved in because of the political repercussions of a Saudi king's imitating an American president.)

In "The Arabs" (Random, 1987), David Lamb reported that King Fahd employed the Washington artist who designed the floating space city in "Star Trek" to refurbish his Boeing 707 with gold-plated hardware, a three-story elevator and plastic chandeliers. His yacht was the size of a luxury liner.

Fahd Ibn Abdul Aziz al-Saud was born in Riyadh in 1923, according to his official website (www.kingfahdbinabdulaziz.com). His mother, Hassa bint Ahmed al-Sudairi, was the most favored of his father's many wives and came from the powerful Sudairi clan. King Saud married at least three Sudairi women, including Hassa, as well as 14 women from other clans. He consolidated his kingdom through such intertribal marriages.

King Fahd and his six younger brothers were often called the "Sudairi Seven," and became the strongest force in their nation's economic and political life, from oil to defense to national security. The seven were a close-knit group and long met weekly, often at the home of Lu'Lu', their eldest full sister.

Fahd, whose name means jaguar or leopard was a favorite among King Saud's 45 sons. The father called the son a "fox, rather than a jaguar," and taught him to ride, shoot straight and speak the truth.

Dr. Rashad Pharaon, once personal physician to King Saud, compared Fahd to his brothers, saying he came "nearest to his father in outlook and general qualities wisdom, ambition and the will-power to achieve those objectives for which the Saudi house stands."

Still, King Saud was strict. In an interview in the early 1970's, then Prince Fahd recalled the time his father locked him in a room for over two hours because he had had a fight with a neighbor's son. The King knew the other boy had provoked the quarrel, but wanted to show impartiality, Fahd said.

Prince Fahd attended what was called the palace school with other princes and studied Islamic history and religion, traditional politics, the Arabic language and desert lore. As a teen, he liked waiting outside his father's office so he could slip inside when advisors were summoned. Eventually, at his mother's urging, the king made Fahd a member of his advisory board.

In 1945, his father sent him to the founding convention of the United Nations in San Francisco, where he became enamored with America. His first governmental post was as a regional governor

When King Saud died in 1953, his eldest surviving son, also named Saud, became king, and his second son, Faisal, was declared heir apparent. The new king appointed Fahd education minister. Fahd used the new gusher of oil revenues to build hundreds of secondary schools and numerous universities. In 1962, he was promoted to interior minister.

In 1964, King Saud was deposed and Prince Faisal became king. King Faisal in 1967 made Fahd second deputy prime minister, greatly increasing his powers.

Prince Fahd began to develop a reputation for moderation, and was reported by The New York Times and The Washington Post as having initially opposed the 1973-74 Arab oil embargo.

In 1975, King Faisal was assassinated by a nephew and another brother, Khalid, came to the throne. The new king quickly named Fahd crown prince, putting him next in the line of succession. The royal family chose him despite his reputation for high living.

Whether reality or rumor, many press accounts claimed that then Prince Fahd drank alcohol, enjoyed the company of European women and once lost $6 million gambling in Monte Carlo. In 1974, he spent the holy month of Ramadan in Europe, offending conservative Muslims.

Ms. Mackey wrote in her book that King Fahd's rakish reputation "all but fatally tarnished" him. She said many Saudis regarded him as "a high-living captive of the West."

But he was capable of bouts of furious work. Reuters reported in 1998 that his ministers complained of being summoned to sudden meetings with midnight phone calls.

After the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in 1979, King Fahd joined with the United States to aid Afghans fighting the Russians. Hume Horan, a former United states ambassador to Saudi Arabia, wrote in a 2004 article for the American Enterprise Institute that William J. Casey, then director of the Central Intelligence Agency, visited the king in 1987.

The American brought a shiny, detailed Kalashnikov. Its stock featured a brass plaque saying that the weapon had been taken from the body of a Russian officer.

"Mr. Casey might as well have been giving the keys to the Kingdom of God itself," Mr. Horan wrote. "The king rose, flourished the weapon, and struck a martial pose."

King Faud often showed agility in dealing with complex issues. For example, he several times in the 1980's and 1990's suggested he might recognize Israel if it made sufficient territorial concessions. Other Arab countries, not to mention Saudi conservatives, were sharply dismissive.

When Iraq invaded Kuwait in August 1990, King Fahd faced a thorny problem. During the war between Iraq and Iran in the 1980's, Saudi Arabia gave Iraq $25 billion in aid. The king first urged negotiations to encourage Iraq to retreat.

Then Defense Secretary Richard Cheney visited the king to make the case that Saudi Arabia stood a good chance of being Iraq's next victim. He displayed satellite photos of Iraqi missiles aimed at Saudi Arabia and other threats.

The king huddled with his advisers, Michael R. Gordon and Bernard E. Trainor wrote in their book, "The General's War: The Inside Story of the Conflict in the Gulf" (Little, Brown, 1995). The authors said the king won over his doubters by pointing out that the Kuwaitis who had fled had been put up in luxury hotels in Saudi Arabia. He asked what country would put up the Saudis in their hotels.

Saudi Arabia allowed the Untied States to station troops in the kingdom. Judith Miller in her book "God Has 99 Names" (Simon & Schuster, 1996) said the king built a consensus for the controversial action partly by convincing one of the country's most respected religious scholars, Sheikh Bin Baz, to issue a fatwa, or order, to sanction the use of force to evict Iraq.

But Ms. Miller said the king was disappointed that the United States ended hostilities before Saddam Hussein was destroyed. She said the disgruntled Saudis briefly prolonged the war by delaying their translation of the surrender document.

In 2003, Saudi Arabia was less helpful when the United States attacked Iraq. The kingdom's rulers again tried, and again unsuccessfully, to convince the United States to use diplomacy, not war. This time, only 10,000 troops were based in the kingdom compared with 550,000 during the first war. The smaller force was quietly removed soon after Mr. Hussein's defeat.

But by this time, Prince Abdullah was probably almost totally in charge. The situation was often likened to Prince Fahd's leadership during King Khalid's seven years of ill health.

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gvok
Unregistered

I wonder how this will affect the situation in the middle east.
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Admiralbill_gomec
UberAdmiral
gvok
Aug 1 2005, 06:49 AM
I wonder how this will affect the situation in the middle east.

No one will give a rip. Abdullah has run the country since 1996 anyway.

It is only a formality now.

Of course I'd be willing to bet that oil prices rise today... any excuse.
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Wichita
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The Adminstrator wRench
My condolences to the family ....

While figures this controversial tend to elicited varied responses even from their won families, my guess is that there is at least one granddaughter or grandson heartbroken today.
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somerled
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Admiral MacDonald RN
He was a parasite , who happened also to be a despotic dictator.

Good ridence to him.
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Dr. Noah
Sistertrek's Asian Correspondant
Perhaps the next dictator may be more open to reforming human rights espeically given the close relationship with the US. Depends on how much pressure he get from either end I suppose.
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Hoss
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Don't make me use my bare hands on you.
The Saudi Royal family have painted themselves into a political corner between dependency on the support of the US government and using anti-jewish, anti-american propaganda to keep their people from focusing on their lousy situation. So they can't be too vocal in supporting us and they can't be too unsupportive of us. The good thing is that the royal family is utterly dependent on us and al qaida hates them (and they hate al qaida).

I expect more of the same.
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Dr. Noah
Sistertrek's Asian Correspondant
Maybe we should just invade and set up a democracy. They'll welcome us as liberators.
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Hoss
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Don't make me use my bare hands on you.
Deleted, one enflamatory post, that is all.

Your Transient Moderator
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Hoss
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Don't make me use my bare hands on you.
Accepting the premise that the Security of the USA is of Primary Importance and all other things are secondary, would it be wize to buy off dictatorships and such like Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Egypt and then use diplomatic pressure and military power to accomplish the rest?
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Mainiac
Lieutenant Commander
The new King is 81. I wouldn't expect him to initiate any sweeping reforms. If he can steer his kingdom through a stable transition of power to the next generation we will be ecstatic...

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Mainiac
Lieutenant Commander
Admiralbill_gomec Posted: Aug 1 2005
08:25 AM
Of course I'd be willing to bet that oil prices rise today... any excuse.



And today's Sistertrek Award for Prescient Prognostication (SAPP) goes to...



;)
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Swidden
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Adm. Gadfly-at-large; Provisional wRench-fly at large
"Meet the new boss, same as the old boss."

Abdullah has pretty much been the guy dealing with things since Fahd had a stroke about 10 years ago. I don't expect to see any radical changes for what the West would consider the better any time soon.

Maniac
 
The new King is 81.


From the reports I heard, Fahd was 84. I don't know exactly what age Abdullah is, but he's probably a bit younger than this... Unless Fahd was a lot older than I thought...
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Mainiac
Lieutenant Commander
^ I might be wrong on the exact age. :huh: I think he's one year younger than his deceased brother. Anyways, he is comfortably in control and has been for some time. And still record gas prices today. :shrug:
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Hoss
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Don't make me use my bare hands on you.
[Don King's Voice]Everyone give a big hand for Abdullah tha Rulah.[/Don King's Voice]
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