Radical Islam in America: the media, prisons, the military, and academia are four key areas where the Saudi government and its Wahhabi ideology have gained tremendous influence in the U.S.

• Author: Schwartz, Stephen
• Position: Worldview

WHEN THE HORROR of Sept. 11 first occurred, Americans experienced a great deal of confusion and were subject to much speculation about the motives for such terrorism. It was natural for many of us to assume that we were attacked because of who we are: because we are wealthy, a dominant power in the world, and represent ideas that are in conflict with those of radical Islam. Many also figured--wrongly, I think--that it had mostly to do with the Middle East and Israel. Yet, a very interesting fact emerged--of the 19 suicide terrorists, 15 were subjects of the kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

This is important because these were not poor people from refugee camps on the West Bank or in Gaza, or individuals who had grown up feeling some grievance against Israel and the U.S. because they lived in difficult conditions. These were not people from the crowded and disrupted communities of Egypt or Pakistan, or those who had experienced anti-Islamic violence in the last 20 years and therefore had turned against the U.S. These individuals had grown up in the country that Americans often think of as their most solid and dependable ally in the Arab world.

Why would Saudis be involved in this? What does it mean that Osama bin Laden is a Saudi? Why are so many members of Al-Qaeda Saudis? Why is it that Al-Qaeda essentially is a Saudi political movement? How come 25% of those detained in Guantanamo are Saudis? How is it that a country the U.S. has favored, delivered an enormous amount of wealth to through the purchase of oil, protected militarily, and whose young people have been educated in America for many years is so connected to the attacks of Sept. 11?

Wahhabism in the U.S.

The ideology of Saudi hardliners is, unfortunately for Westerners, of great relevance, even inside the U.S. One doctrine of Islam dominates in Saudi Arabia--Wahhabism, which is the most extreme, violent, separatist, and expansionistic form of Islam in existence today. It not only lashes out at the West, but seeks to take over and impose a rigid conformity on the entire Muslim world.

What then of America? Islam was new in the U.S. in the 1980s and 1990s. Then, because of changes in the immigration laws, the American Muslim community suddenly became much larger. Most Muslims who came here were not Arabs. The plurality have been from Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh. As Islam emerged as a major religion in the U.S., it--unlike other American sects--did not have an establishment. A disparate...