security force, stood sentry in the outside corridor. The President of France himself poured coffee for his guest from a silver service laid out on a magnificent Napoleonic sideboard.
Prince Nasir complimented the President on the beauty of the piece and was amused when the President replied, “It probably belonged to Bonaparte himself — the Palais de l’Elysee was occupied by Napoleon’s sister Caroline for much of the nineteenth century,”
The highly educated Arabian Prince loved the traditions of France. He not only had a bachelor of arts degree in English literature from Harvard, but also a
“Well, Your Highness,” said the President. “You must tell me your story, and why you wished to have a talk with me in this most private manner, at such very short notice.” He was of course keenly aware of the traditions of highborn Arabs: talk about almost anything else for a half hour before tackling the main subject.
Prince Nasir knew that time was precious at this level. The balding, burly politician who stood before him had, after all, an entire country to run. The Prince decided to speak carefully, but with heavyweight intonations.
“Sir,” he said, “My country is in terminal decline. In the past twenty years the ruling family — my own — has managed to spend over a hundred billion dollars of our cash reserves. We are probably down to our last fifteen billion. And soon that will be ten billion and then five billion. Twenty years ago my people received a generous share of the oil wealth that Allah has bestowed upon us. Around thirty thousand dollars per capita. Today that figure is close to six thousand. Because we can afford no more.”
“But, of course,” replied the President of France, “you do own twenty-five percent of all the world’s oil…”
Prince Nasir smiled. “Our problem, sir, is not the creation of wealth,” he said. “I suppose we could close down modern Saudi Arabia and all go back to the desert and sit there allowing our vast oil revenues to accrue, and make us once more one of the richest nations on earth. However, that would plainly be impracticable.
“Our problem is the reckless spending of money by a ruling family that is now corrupt beyond redemption. And a huge percentage of that expenditure goes on the family itself. Thousands and thousands of royal princes are being kept in a style probably not seen on this planet since…well, the Bourbon royal family’s domination of your own country. I have stated it often enough. Saudi Arabia is like France before the Revolution.
The President’s early left-wing leanings were well known. Indeed he had risen to power from a base as the communist mayor of a small town in Brittany. In a previous incarnation, this particular French President would have stormed the gates of Paris in the vanguard of the Revolution. Prince Nasir realized the word
The President shrugged, a deeply Gallic gesture. And he held out both hands, palms upward. “I knew of course some of the difficulties in Saudi Arabia…but I put it down mostly to your closeness to the Americans.”
“That, too, is a grave problem, sir,” replied Prince Nasir. “My people long for freedom from the Great Satan. But this King is a vigorous globally ambitious man, aged only forty-eight, and under him it would be impossible. We are bound up with the infidels so tightly…even though the majority of Saudis wish devoutly they could be once more a God-fearing nation of pure Muslims. Not terrorists, just a religious people in tune with the words of the Prophet, rather than the grasping material creeds of the United States.
“I tell you this, sir. If Osama bin Laden suddenly materialized in Riyadh and ran for President, or even King, he would win in a landslide.”
The President of France chuckled. “I imagine there are many Saudi Princes who would not agree
“He most certainly would not,” said Prince Nasir, frowning.
“He is a prime example of the endless corruption in my country. There are now thirty-five thousand members of the Saudi royal family, all of them drawing up to one million dollars a month, and spending it on private jets, ocean-going yachts, gambling, alcohol, and expensive women. And if it goes on, we are in danger of becoming a godless Third-World country. To stand in one of our royal palaces is to watch something close to the fall of the Roman Empire!”
“Or the British,” countered the Frenchman, again chuckling.
“More coffee from Napoleon’s sideboard?”
Prince Nasir had always liked the French President, and he was extremely glad to know him better.
“Thank you,” he said. The two men walked across the room toward the silver coffeepot. They were already in step.
“Well, Your Highness, you are outlining to me a very sad state of affairs. And I agree, if I were the Crown Prince of such a nation I, too, would be extremely exercised by the situation. But to the outside world, Saudi Arabia looks very much like the one constant in a turbulent Middle East.”
“That may have been so twenty years ago, but it is most certainly not so today. It is my belief that this corrupt ruling family must be overthrown, and its excesses removed, the lifestyles of the Princes terminated. And the colossal spending on military hardware from the United States ceased forthwith. Everything has to change if we are to survive as the prosperous nation we once were.”
The Prince rose to his feet and paced across the room and back. “Remember, sir, as a nation we are not yet eighty years old. The active members of this family are just a generation, maybe two, from men who grew up in goat-hair tents and followed the rhythms of the great desert, from oasis to oasis, eating mainly dates and drinking camel’s milk…”
“You are surely not advocating a return to those days?” asked the President, smiling.
“No, sir, I am not. But I know we must return part of the way to our Bedouin roots in the desert, to the written creeds of the Prophet Mohammed. I do not wish to see our sons spending millions of dollars on Western luxuries.
“Very probably having the most wonderful time.” The French President smiled. “But I do of course understand. It plainly is not right that there should be thousands of these young men ransacking the Saudi Treasury every month, at the expense of the people. I think you are very probably correct. Something will soon need to be done. Otherwise the people will rise up against the King, and you might be looking at a bloodbath…as we had in Paris in the eighteenth century. And by the sound of it, equally justified.”
Prince Nasir sipped his coffee. “The problem is,” he said, “our King is quite extraordinarily powerful. Not only does he pay all of the family’s bills — none of the young Princes ever sees a bill, for anything. Every charge they incur goes directly to the King, from all over the world. “But he also controls the Army, the Air Force, and the Navy, plus all of the security forces. Only he can pay them. And they are loyal to him alone.”
“How large is the Saudi Army these days?”
“Almost ninety thousand — nine brigades, three armored, five mechanized, and one airborne. They’re supported by five artillery battalions, and a separate Royal Guard regiment of three light infantry battalions. The armored brigades have almost three hundred highly advanced tanks, the MIA2 Abrams from the United States. Of course, one of our armored brigades is entirely French equipped.”
The President nodded sagely, though well out of his depth. “And the Navy?”
“It’s the smallest of our services. Just a few Corvettes in the Red Sea, and a few guided-missile frigates, purchased, you will know, from France. But the Navy is not our greatest strength.”
“And the Air Force?”
“This is our best force. We have more than two hundred combat aircraft in the Royal Saudi Air Force, with eighteen thousand personnel. They are deployed at four key airfields. And their mission is very simply to keep the kingdom safe, in particular to keep our oil installations safe.”
“Well, Your Highness. I would assess that is a
