Toby on Tuesday

'Trade and Treachery'

Before James Bond, there was Richard Hannay.   He was the character created by John Buchan in five superb adventures set around the time of the First World War.   The most famous was “The Thirty-Nine Steps”, but the one with greatest resonance today was “Greenmantle”, written in 1916 as war raged across Europe.   In the story Richard Hannay, a uniquely resourceful British intelligence officer, faces an uprising against the West by Wahhabi Islamic fanatics, orchestrated by Germany and her Turkish ally.   And Buchan’s plot was based on fact, for in November 1915 Turkey had indeed called for a military jihad against Great Britain, France and Russia, so this was no figment of Buchan’s imagination.   And although Ian Fleming’s James Bond is a less straightforward and more obsessive character, there is no doubt that his inspiration came directly from Buchan’s Richard Hannay.

Now, during the First World War, Britain’s principal ally in the Middle East was the Hashemite dynasty, led by the moderate and experienced Sharif Hussein bin Ali.   His bitter rival for dominance of the Arab world was the house of Saud, led by the Bedouin Ibn Saud, a follower of Muhammad ibn al Wahhab, creator of Wahhabism with its aim of creating a new caliphate based on Mecca and Medina.   And what has continuing resonance is that it was a British traitor, Harry St. John (Jack) Philby, who as an intelligence officer in the Middle East and in defiance of his own Government’s policy relayed vital information to Ibn Saud, who was thereby able to defeat Sharif Hussein and create a Wahhabi supporting dynasty based indeed on Mecca and Medina.   And like father like son, for Jack Philby was father to the poisonous, narcissistic Kim Philby, another successful traitor in a later generation.

In a sense we are all now living with the consequences of Jack Philby’s treachery, for the West’s voracious appetite for oil and a ready market for arms sales, has led to the Faustian pact between the West, especially America, and Saudi Arabia.   For it is Saudi money that has funded so much of the growth of Wahhabism in the mosques and madrasas of the West.   And what is astonishing is that this is no new phenomenon.   Both the Foreign Office in London and the State Department in Washington are heaving with Arab specialists, who have known this all-too well for decades.   But somehow they have convinced themselves that courting the house of Saud would have no consequences for those home populations to whom they are answerable.  The challenge for any future British government is to let light onto what has really been happening in our country, a far greater challenge than any airstrikes in Syria.   David Cameron proclaims, “We have to hit these terrorists in their heartland right now” and yet he seems to have no idea at all where that heartland really is.   The great tragedy is that anyone who questions the Washington/London/Berlin/Riyadh orthodoxy is blackguarded and effectively precluded from the public sphere.   And the consequences of this orthodoxy are now all-too clear as the security of our people becomes increasingly fragile!

Until next Tuesday!

Toby