SYDNEY -- In November 2003, U.S. President George W. Bush described what he termed the third pillar of America's security: "global democratic revolution." If Iraq and Afghanistan were the first "beneficiaries" of this revolution, then it seems almost certain that Saudi Arabia will feature somewhere in Bush's revolutionary plans.
The post-Sept. 11 story portrays Saudi Arabia as the ideological and financial underpinning for global terrorism. Therefore, the only way to secure America is to liberalize and secularize Saudi Arabia.
That such an accusation should be made now -- nearly 80 years after the modern state of Saudi Arabia was founded -- is strange. Saudi Arabia has been run on effectively the same ideological line since its inception.