The oil connection

The Saudi Arabian authorities made two pledges yesterday immediately after the conclusion of the terrorist attack in the eastern oil city of Khobar. The first, issued by the country's de facto ruler, Crown Prince Abdullah, was to eliminate the Islamic militants "with an iron fist". The second, delivered at an emergency meeting with Western oil executives, was to continue to "provide a reliable supply of oil to meet world energy demand". Whether the royal regime can deliver on the first promise is open to doubt, and the very fact that the second one needs to be made is a confession of uncertainty. The Khobar attack comes just under a month since a similar assault at Yanbu: in both cases, armed terrorists were able to emerge without prior detection in an area supposed to be under tight security, and to roam for some time with impunity before being contained. All this was still possible a year after Riyadh had ratcheted up its own "war on terror" amid high publicity and must raise questions about the ability of its security services to gather reliable intelligence and take effective action.

As for the oil, while the militants have not yet struck at the kingdom's energy infrastructure, they have identified a vulnerable target in the large expatriate community which services the industry. Beyond the immediate effect on foreign confidence, the most important effect is to raise a much larger question about the long-term viability of the Saudi regime. In a situation where no one has the slightest idea what might, or should, replace that regime, who can guarantee that the tap will always be turned on for 8m barrels a day?

Such doubts have of course been raised before, not least after September 11, when the Saudi connection with the hijackers led to widespread disenchantment with Riyadh among the neo-conservatives in the US administration. Although the assault on Iraq would have been launched anyway, the prospect of securing unencumbered access to an alternative oil source strengthened the pro-war argument. Not only has that prospect become a mirage, but the failure to restore peace in Iraq has destabilised Saudi Arabia further. While Saudi claims that its neighbour is now the source for insurgency against the country may be exaggerated, the Iraq debacle has at the least provided vivid "negative lessons" which inspire young militants to take up arms at home.

In spite of yesterday's claims of responsibility by al-Qaida, it is far too simple to see this attack, or the previous ones, as the product of some master plan devised in the Tora Bora. There are probably close connections between Saudi terrorists and the most infamous Saudi-born terrorist leader: some of them fought with him in Afghanistan (and with western approval) against the Soviet occupation. Yet in a country where a corrupt and privileged elite presides over rising unemployment and diminishing incomes, where there is no room for liberal voices and the only organised opposition is more conservative in religious terms than the regime itself. Extremism has its home-grown rationale.

The western contribution has hardly been helpful: except rhetorically, the US and Britain are committed to a crude relationship of mutual need long based on oil and arms sales. If they really want to help the Saudis move forward, then they need to change the regional environment which far from encouraging democracy is now fertile ground for much worse violence. It is also time to reconsider the West's oil-driven diplomacy - and not only because it provides an open target for terrorism by making Saudi Arabia the guarantor of stable prices at the pump. By focusing less on energy supplies and more on energy saving, we might begin to convince the people of the Middle East that it is not "all about oil".