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This morning, the first email I received was from my good friend in South Africa, who asked me my opinion on the legacy of King Fahd and differences between him and the \"Crown Prince,\" Abdullah<\/a>. At that moment, about 9 am, I hadn\u2019t realized that King Fahd had died<\/a> (again), and that Abdullah had succeeded him<\/a> as the latest king of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia<\/a>. (We can do du\u2019a that he will be the last.) <\/p>\n You see, in 1995, King Fahd suffered a severe stroke that left him incapacitated, so that instantaneously he resembled the Saudi Arabia he had hemorrhaged into insolvency, increasing instability and impotency. Rumors circulated then that Fahd had in fact died \u2014 he certainly looks dead in this picture<\/a> \u2014\u00a0 but, because of the succession struggle, between conservatives and liberals (these adjectives have miniscule meaning when applied to Saudi Arabia\u2019s slothlike monarchy), no agreeable successor could be found and so the charade of his \"incapacitation\" was pursued. (If you think that\u2019s ridiculous, I think Saudi Arabia having an independence day is a similarly ridiculous proposition, but there it is.)<\/p>\n To many, the legacy of King Fahd<\/a> is mixed; in my opinion, rather negative. (He looks dead in that picture, too. Either that or he just realized how much Gulf War I<\/a> cost him.) Taking the throne in 1982, he presided over a wealthy, rapidly modernizing but nevertheless devout and insular kingdom<\/a>, which was seriously challenged by the 1979 Iranian Islamic Revolution. <\/p>\n Always eager to present itself as a vanguard Muslim nation, among the leaders \u2014 if not the<\/em> sole leader \u2014 of the Islamic world, Saudi Arabia was of course thrown off by Khomeini\u2019s radicalism and populism, which Fahd, and the legacy he inherited \u2014 especially of close and questionable relationships<\/a> with the United States \u2014 could not dare match. To restore his position, Fahd launched a series of initiatives aimed at retaking the Islamic spotlight, such as boosting aid and cooperation in the anti-Soviet jihad (blessed be the death of Communism), and increasing the influence of conservatives within the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and these are, of course, not mild-mannered conservatives, but among the most radical and narrow-minded Muslims one can find. For Fahd, who was a modernizer, and the troublesome legacy of a playboy youth, that was a bad calculation, which would come to haunt him within the decade.<\/p>\n But the most controversial decision taken by the Custodian of the Two Holy White Men was to agree to let US troops into the country, following on Saddam Hussein\u2019s August 1990 invasion of the petty oil-rich racist statelet of Kuwait. (In other words, the US based its troops in one Arab dictatorship, in order to free another Arab dictatorship from the grip of yet another Arab dictatorship, the latter which it had been arming and financing for the previous eight years, encouraging the continuation of a bloody and horrific conflict with Iran, during which time the US, to say the least, looked aside from Iraqi use of weapons of mass destruction. [We couldn\u2019t find them in 2003 because they had used them in the 1980\u2019s, on revolutionary Iran]). <\/p>\n It wasn\u2019t, mind you, just \"radical\" and \"extremist\" Islamists who were upset by this decision: That the Muslim holy land of Saudi Arabia, which holds two of the three Islamic holy cities, Makkah and Madinah, had to appeal for help to an outsider, against an uncertain and, in this blogger\u2019s opinion, unlikely threat \u2014 considering Saddam\u2019s military incompetence and his drained coffers, how could he launch an invasion of a huge desert country like Saudi Arabia? \u2014 was an unwelcome reminder of the pitiful state of the Muslim world, and the abject subservience of its leadership (remember, Saudi Arabia liked, and to some degree still likes, to tout its \"Islamic credentials<\/a>\"). <\/p>\n Indeed, of our three holy cities: Makkah and Madinah suffer a dictatorship<\/a> that has bankrupted what could and should have been one of the world\u2019s wealthiest, most prosperous countries, while (East) Jerusalem is occupied by Israel. <\/p>\n In other words, Arab people, and Muslim people, also have a bruised sense of self-respect, and by agreeing to host American troops in what would become a savage and lopsided conflict, against an already drained and exhausted Iraqi population, forced into wars it probably didn\u2019t want and obviously couldn\u2019t bear to fight \u2014 remember how quickly Iraqi soldiers surrendered, even to journalists? \u2014 Saudi Arabia assured itself not just the ire of radicals such as Bin Laden, who went on to become a hysterical lunatic and apologist for mass murder, but also bankrupted itself. America agreed to defend Saudi Arabia, if Saudi Arabia paid the bills. As such, Saudi Arabians quickly lost the privileges they had so quickly become used to. Now, Saudi Arabia is a shadow of itself from the 1980s\u2026 with ever more members of a top-heavy, disliked and Islamically offensive \"royal family\", which hides behind supposed interest in the affairs of the Islamic world. (\"See, we pay for hajj, and make sure foreign workers in our country, who helped build it for us, are robbed<\/a> of their rights<\/a>. Allahu Akbar!\")<\/p>\n I did think Abdullah could have<\/a> produced a much better Kingdom, had he taken over in 1982 after Khaled\u2019s brief (seven-year) reign. But now, in the post-9\/11 environment, with Saudi Arabia already so emptied by Fahd\u2019s disinterest in pursuing a reasonable and pragmatic foreign policy \u2014 that is, actually building meaningful relationships in Saudi Arabia\u2019s neighborhood, and promoting a productive, educated and participating citizenry \u2014 what can Abdullah really get done? How can he improve Saudi Arabia or help it embark on an independent foreign policy? What will he do if Iraq continues to show no signs of improvement? How will he handle threats of extremism, violent rhetoric and violent action<\/a> within his borders? He can make changes, but baby steps, at best, all competing against oil supplies that will likely be more and more strained as time goes on. (Not to mention, he is only three years younger than Fahd, who died at the age of 84.)<\/p>\n <\/i><\/p>\n Haroon Moghul, a prolific writer and essayist, graduated New York University in 2002 and is currently doing language studies in Islamabad, Pakistan. His first book, \u201cMy First Police State<\/a>,\u201d is a comedy and a commentary on Saudi Arabia that weaves Islam\u2019s failures, fundamentalism and philosophies into an ever-closer narrative. He is a regular contributor to altmuslim.com, Muslim Under Progress<\/a>, and more of his writings can be found at his own weblog, Avari-Nameh<\/a>.\n<\/p>\n <\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" King Fahd’s 10-year incapacitation resembled the Saudi Arabia he had hemorrhaged into insolvency, increasing instability and impotency.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2247","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-commentary"],"yoast_head":"\n