The royal treatment.

• Author: Pal, Amitabh

On June 16, I was one of several jet-lagged, bleary-eyed journalists eating a continental breakfast of juice, yogurt, and fruit at a swanky country club in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, with representatives of Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, Conoco, and Bechtel. Members of the American Business Group of Riyadh, they were sharing their perspectives on Saudi Arabia, its ways and means. And the lines they threw at us were as laughable as they were lamentable.

"Saudis do not want democracy. It's not in their best interests," one corporate executive told me (we were asked not to name names). "They do things by consensus."

I knew it was going to be downhill from there. Executive after executive blurted out statements of support for the regime to our group that was put together by the National Conference of Editorial Writers. There was an excuse, a platitude, or a deflection for our every inquiry into the sordid affairs of the Saudi government.

"We believe in America. We believe in our ally. We believe we are doing good," an earnest-looking executive told me when I questioned the wisdom of doing business with a regime that has such a poor human rights record. "They've been a good ally in a difficult area," another businessman assured us.

It became quite clear then that doing business with the Saudi regime meant staying clear of their internal business. When I questioned the government's treatment of women, a male executive said blithely that his wife liked the ban on women drivers because now she's chauffeured everywhere.

The business executives were not the only people willing to sugarcoat the Saudis' dismal record.

"You have to admire their missionary zeal," a Western diplomat told me. While admitting that there were some "problems" with the brand of Wahhabi Islam that the Saudis were intent on spreading throughout the world, she quickly filled the hole by saying the "level of Saudi cooperation" in the region was good.

At our hotel in Jeddah (a Crowne Plaza franchise, by the way), a sign forbade women from using the swimming pool. Restaurants, including Western chains like McDonald's, had separate family seating sections, where women had to perforce be seated and where men were not allowed unless accompanied by female family members. Women on the streets were covered in long black cloaks, although some of them, in a gesture of defiance, had removed the veil from their faces.

The same diplomat also found little fault with the Saudi monarchical system. She praised the Saudi consultative council, saying that it was comprised of the "smartest people in the country" and said that Crown Prince Abdullah was "a great hope" for the nation, adding that the prince met with 500 citizens a week.

Crown Prince Abdullah--the de facto ruler of Saudi...