RIYADH: This longtime ally of America isn’t convinced that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein poses a serious and imminent military threat to regional stability and security. That threat, it believes, comes from another source: the United States, top officials say.

Many here think that Saddam has been chastened by his past military failures and is unlikely to wage war on his neighbours — unless the United States decides to invade.

“The US may know something about the existence of chemical weapons in Iraq, but we are not sure,” said the nation’s longtime security chief, Interior Minister Prince Nayif ibn Abdulaziz, adding that a US attack on Iraq will create problems in the region “faster than any Iraqi operation against its neighbours.”

For more than 70 years, Saudi Arabia and the United States have had close ties, a marriage of convenience that has served their mutual political and strategic interests. But relations have been strained since Sept 11, and the priorities of both countries have diverged.

The US government wants Saddam ousted. The Saudi leadership wants the Palestinian-Israeli conflict resolved first. Neither side has been willing to budge.

Against this backdrop, the White House faces the very real prospect of waging a major military campaign in the Persian Gulf region without the key strategic support of Saudi Arabia.

So far, the Saudi government has been very clear. If the United States goes it alone, without the endorsement of the United Nations, the government will refuse to allow the use of its territory.

When authorities said recently they would allow US forces to operate here if there is a UN resolution, observers say, the goal was to thwart a war by pressuring Saddam to let in weapons inspectors — which it achieved. It was not meant as a nod to the US agenda.

“Anything that will avoid military operations against Iraq, or military operations in the region, will be a positive act,” Prince Nayif said.

This reluctance to attack Iraq reflects the significant differences between what is happening today and what occurred in 1990, when Saddam invaded Kuwait and the entire area felt threatened by the region’s largest armed force.

At the moment, officials, diplomats and political observers say there is no fear that Baghdad will attack any neighbour. But there is a fear that if the US strikes, Saddam could lash out, perhaps targeting the oil fields.

US officials in the region are paying close attention to what the Saudi government is saying, although they say there is no sign that it is wavering in its opposition to a war. Saudi Arabia’s leadership has a reputation of choosing its words carefully, and rarely being duplicitous.

After the Gulf War, the anti-American sentiment started with a growing sense of embarrassment among Saudis who questioned why they could not defend themselves — especially after their leaders had spent hundreds of millions of dollars on weapons.

The hostility was stoked by the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. In the early days of the Bush administration, the government here grew incensed at the White House’s hands-off policy.

But as important as the Palestinian issue is to the Saudis, nothing set back relations as drastically as Sept 11. Americans may feel that they have been double-dealt by the Saudis’ religious system, but the Saudis feel that their faith and culture have been demonized by the secular West.

This presents more than a public relations challenge. The leadership in both countries finds itself under increasing pressure to redefine relations with the other.

Since Sept 11, the government has tried to tone down the outward expression of anti-American sentiment in the kingdom, and to some extent it has succeeded.

Indeed, the gap in understanding is so great that Interior Minister Nayif, while emphasizing how strongly his nation condemned the Sept 11 attacks, insisted that there is no credible evidence that Osama bin Laden or the 19 suspected hijackers either planned or carried out the attacks. And he said that if they did do it, some other organization was behind them.

Although Nayif’s conspiracy ideas are popular, they are not universal. There are others who believe that Osama was responsible and that he has, unfortunately, succeeded in one of his main goals: driving a wedge between Saudi Arabia and the United States.—Dawn/The Los Angeles Times News Service.