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  • Right Royal

    RIGHT ROYAL

    The Economist
    Oct 2nd 2008

    THE Saudi kings have been a mixed bunch, ranging from the savvy to
    the dissolute. But by common consent the one who set his country
    on the road to modernity was Faisal, who reigned from 1964 until
    his assassination by a nephew in 1975. It was Faisal who created a
    bureaucracy, organised the oil industry and launched a development
    plan that included the radical innovation of schools for girls.

    Joseph Kéchichian is an American scholar of Lebanese-Armenian descent.

    Though no stylist, he knows Arabia and its princes well. His portrait
    does not dwell on Faisal the man--the frugal figure who lived in a
    modest house, drove himself to the office and displayed an almost
    puritan disdain for princely profligacy--but on Faisal the policy
    practitioner. Hence two episodes dominate the story.

    The first is Saudi Arabia's bitter quarrel with Nasser's Egypt, in
    particular over the civil war in Yemen, in which they took opposing
    sides.

    The second is the crucial period of 1973-74, when the habitually
    cautious king threw in his lot with Egypt and Syria as they launched
    their war on Israel, in the full knowledge that this would severely
    strain his ties with America. The war and the subsequent oil embargo
    brought to the Middle East a reluctant secretary of state, Henry
    Kissinger, whose relations with Faisal were less than cordial.

    Mr Kéchichian doe s not gloss over the rifts within the House of Saud
    which accompanied Faisal's ascent to the throne. Only when the family
    and the ulema (religious establishment) finally lost patience with
    his spendthrift brother, King Saud, did Faisal replace him. His task
    was to restore unity to the family, order to the kingdom's finances
    and consistency to policymaking. The author also deals candidly with
    internal unrest, in particular the coup attempts by air-force officers
    and others inspired by Nasser's pan-Arabist gospel.

    But in other respects the book verges on hagiography. Faisal may indeed
    have been a wise leader with a noble vision, but Mr Kéchichian is
    rather too fulsome in saying so. Moreover he states categorically that
    Faisal was not an anti-Semite, despite the testimony of Mr Kissinger
    and others who were obliged to sit through royal rants about the
    communist-Jewish conspiracy.

    For those left hungry for more, a biography of Faisal by a Russian
    Arabist, Alexei Vassiliev, is due out next year.

    --Boundary_(ID_1mbFHXVIrKV+XJt05FfOCA)--
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