CASE STUDY SAUDI ARABIA

Case Study

Saudi Arabia : Getting the house in order

Saudi Arabia

The Saudi response was halting and confused, revealing the embarrassing extent to which the Kingdom has, unlike its detractors, lacked a long-term strategy directed at building public understanding and sympathy among Americans. This is not to say that Saudi Arabia has done nothing. It has opened itself somewhat to the foreign press. It has sent a series of prestigious delegations, led by leading businessmen and including female spokespersons, to the United States. It has reviewed and corrected the most objectionable features of its school curriculum. (Harvard Business School March 2006)

These are useful moves, ably carried out by those entrusted with them. They seem, for the first time, to acknowledge the imprudence of relying on the U.S. Administration and a few powerful American friends to protect the relationship from public scrutiny or criticism. But no long-term strategy of broad Saudi reengagement with the United States through public diplomacy has yet emerged. Almost by default, anti-Saudi views are gaining a currency and reaching audiences in the United States, including among U.S. officials, that would have been unimaginable a few years ago. Trends are running against the restoration of sound Saudi-American ties.

On the popular level, Saudis and Americans are now seriously estranged. Outrageous, albeit uncommon, but widely publicized harassment of Arabs and Muslims by U.S. airline and airport security personnel, as well as by immigration, customs and law enforcement officials, has emerged as a powerful inhibition on Saudi travel to the United States. The frightening possibility of arbitrary detention without access to the legal process is a further deterrent to visitors. (Bergen, Peter 2005)

Freezes of financial assets on the basis of undisclosed evidence of alleged connections with organizations or individuals suspected of terrorism have led to concern about the ...