‘Don’t Worry,’ Saudi Prince Tells U.S.

OVER THE ARABIAN PENINSULA — Prince Bandar ibn Sultan, ambassador to the United States, son of the defense minister, nephew of kings and grandson of the great Abdulaziz ibn Saud--who by his wiles and steel unified the warring tribes to create Saudi Arabia--twirled a huge cigar as he rode in his private Boeing 707 and explained why his country is unfazed by Islamic extremists, despite two recent bombings.

Look at Egypt, he said. There, the secular government and the extremists are far apart on matters of religion. He held the palms of his hands a foot distant. Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak says he will meet extremists halfway, but that is still too far for peace, Bandar said.

In contrast, in Saudi Arabia, the government and extremists are only this far apart, he said, holding his palms an inch from each other. When the government says it will meet them halfway, that may not be enough to satisfy radicals. But to most people, he said, the differences are minuscule. The people say, “Come on-n-n, you want us to fight over that?” the prince related, his eyes twinkling.

So, to Americans, the prince has this message: Don’t worry.

But after last week’s bombing of a U.S. military housing complex, where 19 service personnel were killed, many in the United States have fears.

Saudi Arabia sits astride one-quarter of the world’s proven oil reserves, providing a major share of the petroleum that fuels Japan, Europe and the United States. American troops went to war to protect the Saudi oil fields in 1991. About 5,000 of those soldiers remain in the country. It is one of the few places in the world that is labeled, officially, a U.S. “vital interest.”

Lately, Western concerns about Saudi Arabia have multiplied. Besides the external threats posed by Iraq and Iran, two bombings in seven months seem to point to a potential for violent, internal opposition to the regime--an opposition that could be aided by religious fanatics at home and various exile groups abroad.

At the same time, the ruling family faces a period of transition after King Fahd, its 75-year-old monarch, suffered a stroke in November. Diplomats say he seems healthier now than he did a few months ago. But some responsibilities already have been ceded to Crown Prince Abdullah, his likely successor.

Bandar, at 47 a representative of the next generation of Saudi leaders, said concerns about his country’s stability have been exaggerated. He sees no truth to parallels sometimes drawn between the Saudi regime and the Shah of Iran. The difference, he insisted, is that the Saudi ruling family has never lost touch with its people.

Saudi Arabia’s rulers understand “all politics is local,” Bandar explained to two visitors in his jet’s spacious cabin recently for a two-hour flight from Dhahran on the Persian Gulf to Jiddah on the Red Sea.

Middle Eastern monarchs live daily knowing that their opponents may rise up at any time--and there’s no cushy retirement and pension for the ousted. For them, it’s “au revoir, goodbye, no second chance,” the prince said.

Therefore, the Saudi dynasty keeps its hand on the pulse of the nation, knowing when any event occurs, he said, that “what counts is, How does it read in downtown Riyahd?”

No one should be surprised, he observed, that Saudi leaders eschew Western influences that offend their society’s values: “Saudi Arabia probably is the most adherent, strict country in administering Islamic law as a way of life, not just as religion.”

Women are veiled from head to toe, unmarried people of the opposite sex may not sit in the same car, and censors go through each copy of Time and Newsweek inking out photographs of the scantily clad. Criminal justice here is swift and harsh, and includes public beheadings, lashings and amputations. All of this occurs in a country that boasts superhighways, high-tech hospitals, computer software stores and cellular telephones.

“We want to modernize, but that doesn’t necessarily mean Westernize,” said Bandar, a former fighter pilot and lieutenant colonel in the Saudi air force, who, on this flight, could supervise the takeoff without leaving his seat via digital speed and altitude readouts and a television screen in the cabin. The shah’s mistake, he asserted, was to “mix the two. . . . He forgot he was not the Shah of America or the Shah of England or the Shah of France--he was the Shah of Iran.

“We never forget,” he said, drawing out his words in emphasis. “We are the leaders of Saudi Arabia, a Muslim Arab country. And we act accordingly.”

But Bandar--over a lunch from McDonald’s and Pizza Hut, microwaved burgers and pizza--emphasized that Saudis, on the whole, support the Americans and were repelled by the recent bombings on their own soil.

“The ‘anti-American’ image that we saw in the Far East or in Europe and so on has not been portrayed in this country,” he said.

And, while the bombers may have hoped to alter a close U.S-Saudi relationship, that will not happen, he said, adding: “Otherwise, they would win. And we cannot allow terrorists to win.”

Appointed ambassador to the United States in 1983, Bandar in many ways personifies the close U.S.-Saudi relationship. He played a major role as an envoy in engineering the two nations’ noteworthy cooperation during the Persian Gulf War. He still functions as a de facto national security advisor and international trouble-shooter for the king.

In the interview, Bandar disputed reports portraying Fahd as feeble, losing his memory and unable to govern. On the night last week that the U.S. Air Force facility was bombed, he said, he attended a crisis meeting with the king that lasted from 1 to 5 in the morning.

“Now, these are not the working hours of someone who is not healthy, or sick,” Bandar said. “He is in good health. He is in charge of his responsibilities, and he’s discharging them. . . . I wish he would take more time to rest, but he is a hands-on leader.”

Although religious critics say the government blasphemed Islam by admitting Americans into the country, the birthplace of Muhammad, Bandar contends that most Saudis are more likely to recall how six years ago, they were protected from Iraq, a fellow Arab country, by U.S. forces.

“They know that they are not here in spite of us--they are here because we want them,” he said.

He was equally dismissive of Saudi opposition groups abroad that criticize the government and his family for the country’s lack of democracy and human rights.

“In fact, the contrary is true: Those extremist people believe democracy is a Western, sacrilegious behavior and they believe that we are too loose,” he argued. “They are so extremist they think we are not good Muslims. And yet our friends in Western media attack us as being too Muslim--so you can’t have it both ways.”