<p> <br /><b>PBS FRONTLINE: HOUSE OF SAUD PART 2 OF 6</b> <br /><br />"America struck a pact with Saudi Arabia, and the deal was very simple," says Youssef Ibrahim, former Middle East bureau chief for The New York Times. "You give us oil at cheap prices, and we will give you protection. This protection eventually evolved into an American hegemony over the entire Gulf region, that this was an American area of influence, and in return for this it shall be protected from all enemies." <br /><br />As history shows, this agreement between Saudi Arabia's royal family and the U.S government has been challenged time and again by Saudi Arabia's fundamentalist Islamic population, who distrust American influence and intention and oppose America's alliance with Israel. <br /><br />Resentment against the royal family also grew following the oil embargo of 1973, when massive amounts of wealth—and an influx of Western goods and services— challenged Saudi Arabia's deeply religious and traditional society. <br /><br />In 1979, the region erupted. In nearby Iran, Islamic fundamentalists overthrew the Shah in a bitterly anti-American revolution. That same year, a band of militants in Saudi Arabia attacked and occupied the holiest of Islam's holy shrines, the Mosque of Mecca. After a bloody twenty-one day siege, the militants were defeated and sixty-three were beheaded. "It was a warning bell that the ship of state had drifted," says Islamic cleric Nasser al Omar. <br /><br />Desperate to maintain leadership, the royal family reacted quickly. <br /><br />"We killed the extremists of 1979," says liberal Saudi Arabian columnist Sulaiman al-Hattlan. "But a few months later we adopted their ideology. We gave them what they wanted. We started competing on how to appear more conservative just to protect our reputation." <br /></p><p></p>
