The Saudi Choice

THE Palestinian suicide bomber didn’t spring out of nowhere in 1993, when he (and eventually she) began showing up at Israeli supermarkets, pizzerias, and discos. The bomber had a pedigree—in the jihadist philosophy of Khomeini’s Iran (which sent young men in suicide waves against Iraq in the Iran-Iraq war and to carry out suicide bombings against American interests in Lebanon); in the cult of revolutionary violence created by Leninism and fascism prior to World War II; and in a tiny northern Arabian village called al-Artawiya in 1912.

It was there, as Robert Lacey recounts in his book The Kingdom, that a band of Wahhabi religious fanatics settled to start a movement that would become known as the Ikhwan (the Brotherhood). The Ikhwan sought to bring their Islamic puritanism to the religiously wayward Bedouins of Arabia, spreading a hatred of all things modern—with the prominent exception of the rifle. It was the genius of the founder of modern Saudi Arabia, Ibn Saud, to realize what a potent force the Ikhwan could be for his political and military ambitions in Arabia. Political turf battles were amenable to haggling and bargains. “But when the question is one of religion,” Ibn Saud’s grandfather, an expert in the family business, once explained, “we kill everybody.”

About the Author

Rich Lowry

Rich Lowry is the editor in chief of National Review.

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THE Palestinian suicide bomber didn’t spring out of nowhere in 1993, when he (and eventually she) began showing up at Israeli supermarkets, pizzerias, and discos. The bomber had a pedigree—in the jihadist philosophy of Khomeini’s Iran (which sent young men in suicide waves against Iraq in the Iran-Iraq war and to carry out suicide bombings against American interests in Lebanon); in the cult of revolutionary violence created by Leninism and fascism prior to World War II; and in a tiny northern Arabian village called al-Artawiya in 1912.

It was there, as Robert Lacey recounts in his book The Kingdom, that a band of Wahhabi religious fanatics settled to start a movement that would become known as the Ikhwan (the Brotherhood). The Ikhwan sought to bring their Islamic puritanism to the religiously wayward Bedouins of Arabia, spreading a hatred of all things modern—with the prominent exception of the rifle. It was the genius of the founder of modern Saudi Arabia, Ibn Saud, to realize what a potent force the Ikhwan could be for his political and military ambitions in Arabia. Political turf battles were amenable to haggling and bargains. “But when the question is one of religion,” Ibn Saud’s grandfather, an expert in the family business, once explained, “we kill everybody.”