So why would the Cambridge University Press, one of the most respected publishers on the planet, absolve Khalid bin Mahfouz, his family, his businesses and his charities to a degree that neither (to pluck at random) the U.S., French, Albanian, Swiss and Pakistani governments would be prepared to do?
Because English libel law overwhelmingly favors the plaintiff. And like many other big-shot Saudis, Sheikh Mahfouz has become very adept at using foreign courts to silence American authors – in effect, using distant jurisdictions to nullify the First Amendment. He may be a wronged man, but his use of what the British call "libel chill" is designed not to vindicate his good name but to shut down the discussion, which is why Cambridge University Press made no serious attempt to mount a defense. He's one of the richest men on the planet, and they're an academic publisher with very small profit margins. But, even if you've got a bestseller, your pockets are unlikely to be deep enough: "House Of Saud, House Of Bush" did boffo biz with the anti-Bush crowd in America, but there's no British edition – because Sheikh Mahfouz had indicated he was prepared to spend what it takes to challenge it in court, and Random House decided it wasn't worth it.
We've gotten used to one-way multiculturalism: The world accepts that you can't open an Episcopal or Congregational church in Jeddah or Riyadh, but every week the Saudis can open radical mosques and madrassahs and pro-Saudi think-tanks in London and Toronto and Dearborn, Mich., and Falls Church, Va. And their global reach extends a little further day by day, inch by inch, in the lengthening shadows, as the lights go out one by one around the world.
Suppose you've got a manuscript about the Saudis. Where are you going to shop it? Think Cambridge University Press will be publishing anything anytime soon?
Ultimately, we will have to deal with the House of Saud. Not tomorrow. But one day.
And if we can pull off the stabilization of a free and prosperous Shia-dominated Iraq, liberate the Shia Persians of their mullah overlords, and tamp down that ungoverned south Lebanon where Shia Hizbollah runs the show, we might see a Shia realignment as a pro-American force within Islam:
One day we may need to deal with the hideous ideology that Saudi Arabia has spawned. If the Saudi rulers won't smother the jihadi ideology on their own, we may need to do it for them.
And the Shias could very well be the key to destroying the jihadi perversion of Islam.
And if this comes to pass, perhaps one day we'll manage to split off the Shias in the oil-rich eastern part of Saudi Arabia to form their own country. Shia Arabia might have a nice ring to it. So would an impoverished Wahabbi ideology dying in the desert of a rump Saudi Arabia.
I think partitioning Iraq is a bad idea. But as long as the subject of redrawing maps in the Middle East is open for discussion ...
