King Salman’s Shady History By David Andrew Weinberg
President Obama wants to work with the leader of the House of Saud. But the new king of Saudi Arabia has troubling ties to radical Islamists.
President Barack Obama arrived in Riyadh today to offer his condolences on the death of the beloved Saudi King Abdullah and to meet his successor, Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud. But just who is King Salman?
The U.S. ambassador in Riyadh, Joseph Westphal, hailed the new Saudi ruler on Friday, proclaiming that ties “will only be strengthened by the wisdom and courage that is the essence of King Salman.” This was not just standard boilerplate from serving U.S. officials: Former U.S. envoy to Saudi Arabia Robert Jordan described Salman as “a reformer … well prepared for the task at hand,” and the Washington Post is reporting that analysts consider Salman “a moderate in the mold of Abdullah,” the late king.
Yet Salman has an ongoing track record of patronizing hateful extremists that is now getting downplayed for political convenience. As former CIA official Bruce Riedel astutely pointed out, Salman was the regime’s lead fundraiser for mujahideen, or Islamic holy warriors, in Afghanistan in the 1980s, as well as for Bosnian Muslims during the Balkan struggles of the 1990s.
In essence, he served as Saudi Arabia’s financial point man for bolstering fundamentalist proxies in war zones abroad.