IT'S BEEN A ROUGH FEW MONTHS for the Saudi embassy in Washington. First there were the money embarrassments. On April 4, the Washington Post noted: "A federal probe has turned up $36 million in unreported withdrawals [from Riggs Bank] by Saudi Arabia's ambassador to Washington and his wife, including million-dollar cash withdrawals reportedly made by the embassy chauffeur." Revelations eventually forced Riggs to acknowledge years of inadequate monitoring of suspicious financial transactions by the Saudis and others, and in late May the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency hit the bank with a record $25 million fine. Strapped for cash, the Saudi embassy was unable to pay the 2,600 people on its U.S. payroll that month, according to reports in several English-language Saudi news-papers.
Less attention-grabbing but also no doubt unwelcome to the Saudis are some quiet developments on Capitol Hill. The Saudi Arabia Accountability Act--a bill introduced last November that would impose sanctions on the kingdom unless the president certifies that Riyadh is making maximum efforts to fight terrorism--continues to garner sponsors. And on May 13, two members of Congress--Senator Susan Collins and Representative Dan Burton--announced that the General Accounting Office would investigate "Saudi support for an ideology promoting violence and intolerance globally."
Coming on top of the expulsion of dozens of Saudi diplomats late last year, the GAO investigation probably means new headaches for the beleaguered Islamic Affairs Department (IAD) of the Saudi embassy. This office has two functions, one familiar, the other unusual for a foreign embassy. It provides public information on Islam--that is, on the strict Saudi variant of Islam. And it supports the Saudi effort to evangelize the United States. Lately the IAD has been getting into trouble.
As well it might. For the past 20 years, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has been engaged in a sustained push "to spread Islam to every corner of the earth," in the words of the Saudi royal family's website ( www.ain-al-yaqeen.com). This missionary enterprise is known as dawa. To aid dawa in the United States, the Islamic Affairs Department of the embassy undertakes activities that range from sending Americans copies of the Koran to importing Saudi clerics to conduct seminars or serve in mosques in North America.
One thing that has attracted the interest of politicians and journalists is the IAD's website ( www.iad.org). It preaches jihad and martyrdom, explains the necessity for discrimination against Christians and Jews in Muslim societies, and sometimes belittles American culture. Here are some current gleanings from the website:
* The Muslims are required to raise the banner of Jihad in order to make the Word of Allah supreme in this world. . . . If Muslims do not take up the sword, the evil tyrants of this earth will be able to continue oppressing the weak. * Dhimmis [non-Muslims living in Muslim lands] must be discriminated from Muslims in their attire. They are not allowed to display any abominable deed or gesture that could go in conflict with Islam such as the cross or bell. Observation of the above mentioned rules promotes amity among Muslims and removes all traces of enmity and hatred. * Today's false idols, which dominate over the entire world, are democracy, capitalism, socialism, and communism. Islam instead calls for Khilafa (Caliphate) . . . * In the American society many times when relations between husband and wife are strained, the husband simply deserts his wife. Then he cohabits with a prostitute or other immoral woman without marriage. . . . The [American] male is very polygamous, getting away with not taking responsibility for the families for which he should be responsible.
In late 2003, the expulsion from the United States of IAD official Jafar Idris, a leading cleric and lecturer on Islam who had worked in America for decades, triggered a flurry of bad publicity for the Saudis. In response, there ensued a classic instance of obfuscation, with Saudi spokesmen saying one thing in English for American consumption, and the opposite back home.
Thus, a Saudi embassy official told the Washington Post on December 7, "We are going to shut down the Islamic affairs section in every embassy." Two days later, however, the official news site of the government of Saudi Arabia reported that Minister of Islamic Affairs Saleh bin Abdul-Aziz bin Muhammad al-Sheikh had denied reports that the kingdom would close the Islamic Affairs Departments "following revelations that they espouse extremism." And in an interview in Arabic with the Saudi daily al- Riyadh on December 10, when asked whether the IADs would be closed, Al-Sheikh explained, "This information was published in an article in the Washington Post and it is not true. [The religious centers] still operate, and it is a part of the kingdom's message." On December 12, after Senator Charles Schumer pressed for investigation of the IAD, a spokesman for the Saudi embassy told the New York Post that he could not explain the discrepancy as to whether or not the IAD would be closed. It has remained open.
As for Jafar Idris, in a revealing interview in the Saudi daily Al- Sharq Al- Awsat of January 30, 2004, he explained why he had been asked to leave--"The State Department claimed that I was involved in activities unbefitting my diplomatic position"--and expressed regret at being forced to withdraw from the United States, which he deems "one of the most fertile countries for Islamic missionary activities." Idris continued, "It could be that the Americans are predisposed [to accepting Islam]. . . . I always remind our brothers the missionaries not to confuse the official policies with the positions of the people: Americans, British, Japanese, or any others. Our missionary messages to the people are directed to elements that exist in every nation, and without these positive elements none of them would have converted to Islam."
Fittingly, Idris thanked his superior, the Saudi ambassador in Washington, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, for his praise and support. He remains firmly committed to dawa. Neither in the interview nor in the writings on his website ( www.jaafaridris.com) does Idris betray any understanding that religious evangelism--quite apart from the association of Saudi Wahhabi Islam with extremism--is outside the American definition of a diplomat's work.
Nor do the Saudis accept this. They reacted to last year's expulsions of Idris and other government employees involved in dawa work by threatening to expel American diplomats in retaliation. Ambassador Ahmad bin Abdulaziz Kattan, the deputy chief of the Saudi diplomatic mission in the United States, warned in an interview with the Saudi Press Agency, "The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has the right to implement the principle of reciprocity."
But the Saudis may not want to push this line of reasoning. Reciprocity isn't something they really have any interest in considering. They are not about to permit Christian missionaries to rent halls and deliver sermons and otherwise proselytize freely in Saudi Arabia--much less build churches and open Christian schools with U.S. government support. The thought is ludicrous, and not only because the U.S. government does not fund churches and religious schools: The Saudis themselves do not allow non-Muslim houses of worship within their borders at all.
The Saudi view was memorably stated by Prince Sultan, defense minister and a brother of King Fahd, in remarks at a press conference reported by the Associated Press on March 12, 2003. The advocates of building churches in Saudi Arabia, Sultan said, "are church people and they are, unfortunately, fanatics. . . . We are not against religions at all . . . but there are no churches--not in the past, the present, or future, and I am saying this and I am responsible for what I say. Whoever said this must shut up and be ashamed."
Reciprocity is foreign to this mindset. Once the GAO completes its report, it seems likely that the case for unilateral action by the United States to shut down the Islamic Affairs Department will only be stronger.
Steven Stalinsky is executive director of the Middle East Media Research Institute (www.memri.org).