Dr. Rashid stood again and walked in a tight circle, thinking or trying to calm down before he spoke again. “So you don’t want us exporting Wahhabism? You mean like your friends the al Sauds did? What do you know about Wahhabism? Just that it’s linked in your mind to al Qaeda? Do you know that your so-called Wahhabists don’t even use that name, that phrase?”
“No, I didn’t know that,” Rusty admitted, “but I did know the Saudis paid for building and operating mosques and madrassas— schools — in sixty countries, but made sure they all taught hatred of non-Muslims, death to Israel, death to America.”
Ahmed laughed. “ Not just hatred of non-Muslims. They teach hatred of Shi’a Muslims and even of the major schools of Sunni thought, because the Saudis consider them polytheists.”
Rusty was confused and it showed on his face. “Muslim polytheists? What do you mean? I thought monotheism was a central tenet of Islam.”
Dr. Rashid did not respond. He shook his head in disgust. Finally, he told Rusty why. “You haven’t a clue, do you? You come to our world and make demands about how we live, how our governments act, and yet you know nothing about our culture, our religion, our history.”
Rusty pushed back. “Listen, Doctor, I don’t have to be a historian of thousand-year-old religious disputes and trivia to know that it’s considered noble to kill Americans. Become a suicide bomber and you’ll have seventy-two virgins waiting for you in heaven. That’s not religion, that’s crap!” He heard his own voice, too loud, too confrontational. “Okay, so what more is it that you think I don’t know and should?”
Ahmed smiled. “Let’s start with the relations between the Sauds and Wahhabism. It’s not just that some of their kings took to it. Without Wahhab there might not even have been a Saudi Arabia.”
“You’re right. I would like to hear that story,” Rusty admitted, “and, yes, I probably should already know it.”
Dr. Rashid began slowly, as if teaching a child. “Almost three hundred years ago, the al Sauds were the largest family in an area around the little town of Diriyah in the Najd region, not far from Mecca. From a nearby town came Muhammad ibn Abdul Wahhab. He preached a version of the teachings of Ahmed ibn Taymiyyah, a radical from five hundred years earlier. They both had what they called a pure Koranic interpretation, rejected by all four schools of Muslim thought.
“Wahhab convinced the al Sauds of his beliefs and that they should sally forth killing those who opposed those beliefs. They did, and consolidated power in their region, eventually taking Riyadh and slaughtering many.
“Wahhab’s daughter then married Saud’s son. The crossed swords in the Saudi royal seal belong to Sauds and Wahhabs. The Sauds have funded Wahhabist evangelism ever since.”
Rusty suddenly saw the pieces coming together. Why had no one in Washington ever told him this background? Wahhabism was as important to the Sauds as the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution was to some Americans, and about as recent. It was not some thousand-year-old dispute.
“Now, Russell, here is the great irony. Ibn Taymiyyah and the Salafis, including Wahhab, taught that it was the duty of Muslims to overthrow corrupt or irreligious governments. So bin Laden used a Salafist or Wahhabist theory to justify overthrowing the al Sauds, who had so promoted Wahhabism. Get it now?” Ahmed asked.
“I think I’m beginning to,” Rusty answered, carefully. “But your brother and his buddies who overthrew the al Sauds, and who worked with al Qaeda, aren’t they Salafis or Wahhabists?”
“Some of those in the anti-Saud movement are. Some are secularists. Some are what you would think of as mainstream Sunnis.”
Rusty had begun to realize that the Islamyah Shura Council was more riven than Washington had imagined. The differences in the anti-Saud coalition were profound.
Finished with his lecture, Dr. Rashid sat again near Rusty. “Okay, Ahmed. May I call you that?” MacIntyre said, sensing that the ice had been broken between them. Rashid nodded. “Ahmed, you’re right. We don’t know what we should. But we do understand international security, and you have people in your government who would lead you to ruin. And, yes, probably so do we. It’s up to people like us to help our two governments do the right thing. We have a lot of damage to repair, but first we have to stop any more from happening. If nuclear warheads show up in Islamyah, all bets are off. I know you know that. So if you think that is about to happen at any point, then we will need to think together about how we can prevent it from happening.”
There was a long pause. Rashid did not seem to be embarrassed that he was taking his time to consider how to reply. MacIntyre heard the old refrigerator’s motor clunk. Finally, the young doctor looked up. “If the Shura believed that Iran was about to do something against our country, they might reach out to Pakistan, or North Korea, or China, to get nuclear warheads for the missiles. They would do that only to checkmate Iran’s nuclear weapons. Is Iran about to do something, Russell?”
Now it was MacIntyre’s turn to consider his answer carefully. “We see signs that Iran’s military is exercising its intervention capabilities, but we do not know that they intend to use them. We exercise all the time, too. Nor do we know where Iran might act, if they do. Some of our analysts think that the Iranians might try again to go after Bahrain. Truth is, we don’t know.” As he said that, he thought about Kashigian. If the British knew that Kashigian had been in Tehran, maybe Islamyah did, too. Maybe Ahmed knew. He added, “At least, I don’t know.”
“You guys are in this mess because you still need our oil, after all these years,” Ahmed said, shaking his head in disbelief. “And because you haven’t come up with alternatives, you put my country more at risk, with everyone fighting over its oil. It’s your failure that’s causing this, you know that.”
“Maybe,” Rusty replied.
“I assume Ms. Delmarco told you it was my people who penetrated the Iranians here. That’s how we learned about their plan to hijack the LNG,” Rashid continued matter-of-factly. “From the penetrations we still have, we think they are planning an across-the-Gulf strike at the end of this month. We have to assume it is a strike on us, since an overt move against Bahrain would be an attack on the United States Navy.”
“And if the Shura believes that will happen, they will try to get nuclear warheads?” MacIntyre asked.
“Some would, yes,” Rashid replied. “And if the Americans think that Islamyah is about to get nuclear weapons, they would strike us?”
“Some would, yes,” Rusty echoed.
The two men in the dingy store-café stared at each other.
“Then we must stay closely in touch and think of ways we could stop these things if they were about to happen, perhaps later this month,” Ahmed said.
“Yes. We have also heard that something may happen this month. And on our calendar it is February, a very short month that is almost half over.”
They shook hands, almost warmly. Rusty emerged from the store to find the minivan gone and a Mercedes taxi waiting. He got in. “To the Ritz Hotel, sir, or the Ambassadors?” the driver asked in English.
As Ahmed bin Rashid emerged from the store into the dimly lit square, he was filmed by two men lying in the trunk of an old Chevrolet Impala across the street. They were U.S. military counterintelligence.
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