[Perang di Afghanistan sudah pasti akan menyebabkan berjuta-juta umat Islam di Timur Tengah dilanda satu gelombang kesedaran. Fenomena ini amat menakutkan pihak Amerika kerana SEMUA regim pro AS akan bergoyang jika tidak bergoncang.
- Editor]

New York Times Service
Isnin 5 November 01

AS takutkan kebangkitan revolusi di Arab Saudi

(Fear of Islamic Revolution Stalks Saudis and U.S.)

Oleh: Elaine Sciolino

Pembentuk dasar di Washington sudah mula membisikkan soalan dan inlah yang semakin lantang diulangi oleh para petugas media: Apakah Arab Saudi berkemungkinan meledak disebabkan revolusi rakyat ala-Iran?

Sejak meledaknya pengeboman pengganas yang mengenai berek tentera di Khobar pada 1996, yang membunuh 16 warga Amerika, puak CIA telah semakin curiga bahawa Amerika Syarikat berkemungkinan kehilangan sekutunya yang paling akrab di Teluk Parsi. Seolah-olah kehilangan itu akan menyerupai kisah AS kehilangan Iran pada 1979 apabila revolusi rakyat yang berpaksikan semangat keIslaman menghumbankan monarki Shah Pahlawi.

'Istana Saudi sudah semakin tertekan,' kata Professor Mamoun Fandy, daripada National Defence University, Washington. 'Kumpulan Islamiah berpendapat, keluarga Saudi telah menjual martabat negara kepada orang Amerika sedangkan Amerika berpendapat Istana Saudi sudah memberi muka kepada kumpulan pengganas.

'Ini yang membuatkan perasaan bercelaru mengenai kepercayaan - kalau anda tidak puashati dengan Arab dan Washington, bererti anda terpaksa bertindak sendirian.'

Tetapi apakah itu sudah boleh menjadi asas akan bangkitnya revolusi popular atas nama Islam?

Terdapat kesamannya antara Istana Saud dengan dinasti Pahlavi di Iran satu ketika dulu.

Seperti zaman pra-revolusi di Iran, Saudi Arabia merupakan satu kerajaan yang autokratik, diperintah oleh satu monarki yang kaya dengan hasil minyak di mana penduduknya beragama Islam. Pemeritnah terkenal kerana korupsi dan pembaziran, tidak menyenangi demokrasi, dianggap mudah membantah kepada tunjuk-ajar Washington. Namun, ia amat bergantung kepada kelengkapan perang Washington, dan dikritik hebat oleh penentangnnya yang hidup sebagai orang buangan dan oleh segelintir kumpulan ulama kerana tidak mengamalkan fahaman Islam secukupnya.

Tetapi, Shah Pahlavi dulu merupakan seorang raja dan pemimpin yang keseorangan, sedangkan Saudi mempunyai kuasa yang diagihkan kepada beberapa keluarga diraja. Ramai di kalangan 7000 ahli istana Saud memegang kedudukan politik penting.

Shah Pahlavi telah taksub menu menukarkan wajah Iran menjadi penjilat kemodenan dan mencetuskan masyarakat yang sekular; sedangkan istana Saud memegang teguh ajaran Islam yang dikatakan berfahaman konservatif.

Iran mempunyai catatan sejarah wujudnya satu tradisi kebangkitan yang aktif bersandarkan semangat nasionalisme. Perkara begini belum muncul di Arab Saudi.

Mungkin secara penting lagi, Putera Abdullah yang kini menjadi Tengku Mahkota Saudi dianggap sebagai orang yang alim, tidak mudah disogok oleh Washington.

'Suara yang paling lantang bersendikan nasionalisme dan mahukan dasar ketelusan dan tidak korup itu berdepan dengan Washington, merupakan suara nasionalisme yang paling hebat dan kuat.

Kedua-dua Ohrunlik dan Fandy berpendapat bahawa keadaan di Arab Saudi tidaklah begitu goyah kalau diingatkan kembali peperangan Teluk dulu. Tetapi, para pemimpinnya telah semakin ketandusan sokongan berbanding penentangan yang meluas kepada pemerintahan mereka itu.

Terjemahan: SPAR.

Asal:

http://www.iht.com/articles/37867.htm

New York Times Service
Monday, November 5, 2001

Fear of Islamic Revolution Stalks Saudis and U.S.

Elaine Sciolino

Pressed by Militants and the West, Royal Family Treads a Thin Line

WASHINGTON The question is asked quietly by policy makers inside Washington's official corridors, and loudly by television and newspaper experts: Is Saudi Arabia heading for an Iranian-style Islamic revolution?

The issue of Saudi stability has been factored into Washington's strategic thinking for several years.

After the terrorist bombing of the Khobar military barracks in Saudi Arabia in 1996, which killed 19 Americans, the Central Intelligence Agency organized a special team of analysts to study Saudi Arabia under the same rigorous process used to assess the most serious threats to American national security, senior intelligence officials said at the time. One reason for subjecting Saudi Arabia to the CIA's "hard-target strategy," which it also uses for Russia, China, Iran, Iraq and North Korea, was concern that the United States could lose its closest ally in the Gulf, just as it lost Iran in 1979 when a religious-based revolution overthrew the monarchy there, the officials said.

The task force concluded that Saudi Arabia, the world's largest oil producer, was politically stable and unlikely to become another Iran. But it warned that Washington's information void about the threats facing a closed society was so vast that such a conclusion was far from certain.

After claims by federal investigators that 15 of the 19 hijackers in the Sept. 11 attacks were from Saudi Arabia and that some recruiting, financing and planning for the attacks occurred on Saudi soil, there is anxiety once again that the kingdom may be vulnerable to enemies in its midst.

That anxiety is compounded by charges from critics in the kingdom that the Saudi royal family is too close to Washington, and by critics in the United States that the family is not close enough.

"The Saudis are in a tight fix," said Mamoun Fandy, a professor at the National Defense University in Washington and author of "Saudi Arabia and the Politics of Dissent."

"The Islamists think the Saudis have sold out to the Americans, and the Americans think they have sold out to the terrorists," he said. "Eventually, this translates into an erosion of legitimacy - that if you are not satisfying the Arabs and Washington, then you're on your own."

But does that translate into popular revolution in the name of Islam?

Certainly there are parallels between the House of Saud and the Pahlavi dynasty in Iran. Like prerevolutionary Iran, Saudi Arabia is an authoritarian, oil-rich monarchy with a Muslim population. It is notorious for corruption and profligate spending, resistant to democratization, viewed increasingly as subservient to the will of Washington, dependent on American weaponry and criticized by radicals in exile and some conservative clerics for not being Islamic enough.

But the shah was a singular, isolated ruler, while the Saudis have dispersed power throughout the royal family. Many of its 7,000 members hold key political positions (the governors and military commanders in nearly every province are members) and run important businesses.

The shah was determined to transform Iran into a modern, secular society at breakneck speed, regardless of how much it offended the clergy; the House of Saud adheres to a conservative, repressive version of Islam, and, despite an uneasy alliance with the clergy, it draws much of its legitimacy from its role as guardian of Mecca and Medina, the two holiest sites in Islam.

Iran has a long tradition of active rebellion and opposition politics in the name of the nation-state. Saudi Arabia does not. Perhaps most important, Crown Prince Abdullah is regarded as a pious, incorruptible leader more responsive to the people and more willing than his predecessor, King Fahd, to take on Washington, particularly when it comes to policy toward the Palestinians. (King Fahd's illness has left him unable to govern.)

Crown Prince Abdullah's release of three religious sheiks imprisoned after the 1991 Gulf War and his criticism of Washington's unwavering support for Israel has also strengthened his reputation at home.