The Saudi State Visit (which began on 29 October) has already caused controversy with claim and counter-position on the supply of counter-terrorist intelligence by Saudi Arabia to the United Kingdom. Matters were not made any easier by an implied ‘snub’ from the Foreign Secretary who took paternity leave rather than attend a joint Conference for which (allegedly) five plane loads of Saudis were delivered by their Monarch. 

Perhaps shaking hands with the Saudi King might come to affect Mr. Miliband's internal Party vote when New Labour requires a new Leader - but such a suggestion would be uncharitable. It does seem odd, though, even in liberal Britain, for the head of the Foreign Office not to be available for a conference with his counterpart, especially (as we shall see) when the relationship with Saudi Arabia is touted as central to British policy in the Middle East.

Saudi Arabia holds more diplomatic and economic cards than its host. The Saudis' state capitalist system directly or indirectly keeps important skilled workers in jobs in key New Labour marginals and heartlands alike. The UK also wants to ensure that the US-sponsored November Summit on the Israel-Palestine issue is a success. A reluctance to displease was made clear as the British attempted to reject King Abdullah's criticisms of weak counter-terrorism performance without actually calling their honoured guest a liar.

In this context, it was no surprise to hear anonymous British officials (though not elected ones) allowing themselves to be quoted as saying that the UK relationship with Saudi Arabia was “the most central with any state in the Middle East” (eat your heart out, Israel!). This is not the sort of endorsement you would hear in Washington where some constituents of Congress might see the Saudis as only one step up from the agents of Hell itself.

Even in the UK, Press coverage of the Saudis was almost uniformly negative so that the Government was doing its usual Janus-like act of trying to be both courteous to its ally and avoid being seen too much in public with it. But it is the Press, the activists and the public who are misguided, not the Government.

The talks, which are likely to remain discreet and unreported in the detail, were expected to cover a whole series of issues in the region and are of great importance, especially as the King goes on to meet other European leaders immediately afterwards. The issues are all the obvious ones but, in addition to the Peace Process, the UK wants the Kingdom to attend this week’s conference of neighbours of Iraq (which includes Syria and Iran) in Istanbul. Much to many radicals’ irritation, the King is also getting the full red carpet treatment from the House of Windsor with whom the House of Saud has retained the most cordial personal relations.

The King's direct criticisms were almost calculated to assert that Saudi Arabia was now no longer a romantic desert kingdom, playground for FCO Arabists, but was an equal to the island that had once almost ruled the world. The King's comments (to the effect that Saudi intelligence had provided data that should have halted suicide bombings in the UK) were potentially very damaging because they implied British security incompetence in protecting its own citizens.

The Government could not provide the detail that might have told the public that he was wrong, for both diplomatic but also for tradecraft reasons, but the public seemed to accept this. A potential crisis for Mr. Brown was avoided, assisted by a general refusal to take the word of a perceived 'tyrant' over our own security services.

This misses the point. The King's attack indicated a persistent problem in Anglo-Saudi relations. We all know what this is really about. It is about Saudi dynastic frustration with a liberal society permitting free commentary about itself in the London Arabic media and with the permission given to Saudi dissidents to organise themselves freely without harassment or extradition. The Tsars had similar frustrations with the British police's tolerance of Mr. Lenin and his friends in Clerkenwell. 

Gordon Brown’s recent strong assertion of the libertarian base of British political culture now seems like a partial pre-emptive strike against an argument that neither side can win. The British cannot get it into Saudi heads (and never have done) that the Government does not dictate cultural norms yet here is a King coming over personally to demand that it does so.

On the other hand, the Anglo-Saudi alliance is the lynch-pin of a joint alliance to restrain both the US and Iran in the region from extreme acts and to create a regional conservative front from Islamabad to Amman that will (they hope) manage, contain and defeat insurgency (or terrorism as it is called). The British are into regime transition and not regime change as a general principle and both countries share similar conservative views on regional security and economic development.

Balancing Saudi Arabia both as key regional ally, as provider of jobs and as fellow Monarchy in a West of Republics are three aggressive drives against the maintenance of that alliance. One of these is the minority republican mentality that presents a radical right wing approach to the war on terror in which the British and the Saudis are seen as weak and potentially treacherous allies. Hard-line security interests emanating out of or integrated with thinking in New York, Washington, Paris, Tel Aviv and bits of News International are quite prepared to stir things up periodically against the Saudis, certainly against its more traditional elements.

Of the other two, the first is the human rights lobby which has captured not only the Liberal Democrats (which is perfectly understandable) but is increasingly making head-way in the Labour Left after years of diversion of energy on to US imperial perfidy. The second is the increasingly absurd corruption tale spun around BAE Systems’ alleged bribery of Saudi officials which manages to combine a-historicism, retrospectivity and gross misunderstanding of Saudi culture and sovereignty in equal proportions.

The issue on the alleged bribery case is, as the Saudis state, one of British law surrounding the conduct of a British corporation. Investigators, in good faith, have fallen into a political trap set by activists who, in turn, have combined their own liberal idealism (on which we have written) with being the ‘useful idiots’ of various US Executive Departments and quasi-official NGOs concerned with a much broader range of policy imperatives.

This is a bigger story for another time but it cannot be seen except in terms of a much wider attack on the Saudi interest. This sovereign interest has been seen by some as having employed its massive free capital in the past in sustaining certain policies 'off balance sheet' that have consequently made a lot of enemies, now brought together by the 9/11 event.

The most obvious current conspiracy theory in the US is that the Saudis conspired with the US security apparat and the Bush family to chase out the Soviets and build up the power of the Taliban to extend wahhabi ideology and access Central Asian oil reserves. There are some truths in the analysis but taken out of context, it has become a morality tale which somehow links the Saudi Dynasty wilfully to the assault on America in 2001 and determinedly replaces cock-up with conspiracy for political purposes.

There are certainly issues of Western policy on corruption to deal with. It is possible that BAE Systems has been very naughty (that is for the courts to decide), but the elision of an application of the law into a diplomatic incident merely serves the interests of a particular bloc in international affairs. The Saudis are, in any case, pretty secure in their sovereignty with the only theoretical threats being the loss of the US nuclear umbrella and revolution from below. The British are allies but don’t really matter except as influencers on Washington and suppliers of technology.

What does matter to the Dynasty is the very real political struggle within the elite between the modernizing liberals, currently dominant as advisers to an aging but extremely competent King, and conservatives who would be much harsher on Iran and on dissidents – and possibly be a bit more bullying to smaller neighbours in the Gulf. The conservatives might also throw their money around the region a little less responsibly. But time is not on the side of the liberals because they have no base in the country. Western radicals are acting very irresponsibly in this broader context.

The Western public must understand that a great deal of Western diplomatic effort has been put into supporting Crown Prince and then King Abdullah as a wise man respected by his people with modernising instincts. His reign is a window of opportunity to embed some reforms, including integration into the global economic system, and increase the chances that his successor sustains a reform model rather than seeks to reverse it.

Reforms have included limited municipal democracy, a public curtailing of the religious police, increased criticism of abuses in the media and a recent major overhaul of the legal system, as well as a commitment to a diplomatic solution to the Palestine-Israel issue that may upset the hardliners in Tel Aviv but which recognizes the existence of Israel from Mecca itself.

The real issue – which ignorant Western radicals have not understood – is that the elite dynastic liberals may be Thatcher's children with not an ounce of socialism in their bodies, but they are still better (from a Western point of view) than the alternative - unless you are a committed Islamist.

Discontent in the country is both economic and cultural and the two tend to combine in the Middle East, where resentment of the elite and its ways amongst the poor is expressed as a return to traditional values. Both liberal radicals in the West and traditionalist Islamists obsess equally in their different ways about corruption. Liberal modernisation is an elite project throughout the region so that democracy tends to result not in a liberal revolt but in a conservative-populist one.

Radical Saudi conservatism is not to be confused with Al-Qaeda - a common category mistake of American fundamentalists. However, conservatives would reassert the Arab tribesman over the urban liberal and over the migrant and expatriate - on whose presence national economic development still partly depends. They would return to traditional gender relations and forms of law. They would seek to support brother Sunni insurgents against Westerners and Shi’a alike and they might well seek to extend that to financing insurgency in Palestine against both Israel and Hezbollah. Domestic reform would stall. The point is that, as the municipal elections showed, moderate conservatism is probably stronger in the street than is liberalism.

Saudi frustration with the UK is that many of the intellectuals and activists operating a traditionalist or conservative stance critical of the Dynasty, certainly those critical of the Dynasty’s liberal but anti-democratic direction, are operating out of London with impunity. They are watched but not pulled in by the UK security services.

Riyadh claims these are, by definition, terrorists - confusing the categories of dissident, revolutionary, insurgent and terrorist. The UK Government has received no specific evidence that the dissidents and the revolutionaries are insurgents, let alone terrorists. Opinions on local regime change are not proof-positive of the promotion of terrorist methods.

The lack of action on Saudi complaints has caused diplomatic discomfort long before this visit - and, of course, clashes on human rights issues extend back nearly a decade. Periodically, there are PR assaults on the dissidents in which the Western 'hawks' in the security services and the Saudis find that they can make common cause. The Saudis may now be concerned that the tough stance of Blair (who still did not deliver the goods) has been replaced by a more touchy-feely and more liberal Brown. 

The King has come to London (amongst other purposes) to get the British to ‘put up or shut up’ on their commitment to counter-terrorism where the definition of terrorism is that of the Saudi Dynasty. On this issue both sides are likely to leave privately irritated and disappointed - whatever the communiqués may say.

www.tppr.co.uk