Will Saudi Arabia end their reign of terror they unleashed on the world for their own survival in order to survive the Islamic world that created?
The year 1979 was a key moment in the Islamist wave that has crashed across the world:
The [1979] attempted takeover of Mecca was a defining event in my country, mainly because of what happened next. Saudi rulers, fearing Iran’s revolutionary example, decided to give more space to the Salafi clerical establishment in hope of countering the radicals. Traditional Salafi preachers are neither violent nor political, but they hold a rigid view of Islam. Their legal rulings and attempts to police morals made the kingdom increasingly intolerant, setting back the gradual opening up that had occurred in the 1960s and ’70s.
The recovery by Saudi security forces of the Grand Mosque that was seized by Islamists included French special forces, if I recall correctly.
The plan assumed that Islamists would be content to reign in social areas while not challenging government authority:
The policy makers’ idea was simple: Give the political Islamists and their Salafi affiliates room to influence educational, judicial and religious affairs, and we will continue to control foreign policy, the economy, and defense. Saudi rulers were handling the hardware, while radicals rewrote the nation’s software. Saudi society, and the Muslim world, is still reeling from the effects.
That was an error. And the non-Islamic world is also, if not uniformly reeling, suffering as collateral damage in the Islamic civil war that has been raging over who defines Islam.
And now Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the heir apparent, is on a personally dangerous course to end the reign of terror his country unleashed on the world.
He deserves our help. This won't leave lasting positive changes as long as progress relies on one man.
The Saudi author of the WSJ piece says the genie can't be put back in the bottle. But the bottle can be shattered and the genie beheaded. So don't assume this first tentative step can't be stopped in its tracks.
