IT'S BEEN A ROUGH FEW MONTHS for the Saudi embassy in Washington. First there were the money embarrassments. On April 4, the Washington Post noted: "A federal probe has turned up $36 million in unreported withdrawals [from Riggs Bank] by Saudi Arabia's ambassador to Washington and his wife, including million-dollar cash withdrawals reportedly made by the embassy chauffeur." Revelations eventually forced Riggs to acknowledge years of inadequate monitoring of suspicious financial transactions by the Saudis and others, and in late May the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency hit the bank with a record $25 million fine. Strapped for cash, the Saudi embassy was unable to pay the 2,600 people on its U.S. payroll that month, according to reports in several English-language Saudi news-papers.
Less attention-grabbing but also no doubt unwelcome to the Saudis are some quiet developments on Capitol Hill. The Saudi Arabia Accountability Act--a bill introduced last November that would impose sanctions on the kingdom unless the president certifies that Riyadh is making maximum efforts to fight terrorism--continues to garner sponsors. And on May 13, two members of Congress--Senator Susan Collins and Representative Dan Burton--announced that the General Accounting Office would investigate "Saudi support for an ideology promoting violence and intolerance globally."
Coming on top of the expulsion of dozens of Saudi diplomats late last year, the GAO investigation probably means new headaches for the beleaguered Islamic Affairs Department (IAD) of the Saudi embassy. This office has two functions, one familiar, the other unusual for a foreign embassy. It provides public information on Islam--that is, on the strict Saudi variant of Islam. And it supports the Saudi effort to evangelize the United States. Lately the IAD has been getting into trouble.
As well it might. For the past 20 years, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has been engaged in a sustained push "to spread Islam to every corner of the earth," in the words of the Saudi royal family's website (www.ain-al-yaqeen.com). This missionary enterprise is known as dawa. To aid dawa in the United States, the Islamic Affairs Department of the embassy undertakes activities that range from sending Americans copies of the Koran to importing Saudi clerics to conduct seminars or serve in mosques in North America.
One thing that has attracted the interest of politicians and journalists is the IAD's website (www.iad.org). It preaches jihad and martyrdom, explains the necessity for discrimination against Christians and Jews in Muslim societies, and sometimes belittles American culture. Here are some current gleanings from the website:
* The Muslims are required to raise the banner of Jihad in order to make the Word of Allah supreme in this world. . . . If Muslims do not take up the sword, the evil tyrants of this earth will be able to continue oppressing the weak.
* Dhimmis [non-Muslims living in Muslim lands] must be discriminated from Muslims in their attire. They are not allowed to display any abominable deed or gesture that could go in conflict with Islam such as the cross or bell. Observation of the above mentioned rules promotes amity among Muslims and removes all traces of enmity and hatred.
* Today's false idols, which dominate over the entire world, are democracy, capitalism, socialism, and communism. Islam instead calls for Khilafa (Caliphate) . . .
* In the American society many times when relations between husband and wife are strained, the husband simply deserts his wife. Then he cohabits with a prostitute or other immoral woman without marriage. . . . The [American] male is very polygamous, getting away with not taking responsibility for the families for which he should be responsible.
In late 2003, the expulsion from the United States of IAD official Jafar Idris, a leading cleric and lecturer on Islam who had worked in America for decades, triggered a flurry of bad publicity for the Saudis. In response, there ensued a classic instance of obfuscation, with Saudi spokesmen saying one thing in English for American consumption, and the opposite back home.
