In a time of practically nonstop violence in the Middle East, liberals and the media act as if countries like Saudi Arabia are among the world's open societies. They do not want to recognize that the Middle East has 21 Muslim states, every one of them a dictatorship to whom open societies are born enemies, never to be forgiven for being the carriers of the germs of political and religious freedom capable of infecting their subject populations.

American liberals insist on using such terms as "royal family," "royal embassy" and "crown prince" to suggest the alleged "royal" connections of the present Middle East leaders. They do not want to remember the lessons of history that tell us something absolutely different from what our liberals are trying to promote as facts.

During World War I, in 1914, for example, Germany entered an alliance with Turkey, whose territory then included most of all the present Middle Eastern countries. The Arabian Peninsula was nothing but a desert where travelers could meet only a few clans of Bedouins, robbers and brigands who robbed pilgrims visiting such famous Muslim holy cities as Mecca and Medina.

For the war against Turkey, British intelligence hired some of these Bedouin gangs, headed by Wahhabi Saud and Shariff Hussein. Both of them received gifts and presents from British intelligence in payment for their attacks against Turkey and, from 1917, for supporting British and Allied troops who arrived on the peninsula at the end of WW I.

British gifts included promises to provide a large piece of land (currently Syrian territory) to Hussein's son Faisal, who could be proclaimed king of Damascus. Faisal entered Damascus riding a white horse but very soon was defeated and expelled by French troops, which dashed his hopes of ruling over a united Arab kingdom.

British authorities, seeking to avoid problems with France, gave Faisal a territory between the Jordan River and the Arabian desert, named it Iraq and anointed Faisal king of Iraq. Faisal's brother Abdullah also received from British authorities a piece of land on the west side of the Jordan River and was declared king of Transjordan, which later was renamed simply Jordan.

Everybody but Wahhabi Saud was happy. He was granted the huge but empty territory of the Arabian desert, and he had no idea of the enormous treasure that lay beneath his desert sand. A few years later, Saud attacked and occupied Mecca, which was under the control of Shariff Hussein (father of Faisal and Abdullah) and proclaimed himself king of Saudi Arabia (Arabia of Saud).

Of course, Hussein complained to the British authorities, but they resolved the problem in their own way and granted him a nice villa in Cyprus, where the father of the kings of Iraq and Jordan lived peacefully to the end of his life in 1930.

In other words, those who we currently recognize as royalty in the Middle East are nothing but the direct and non-direct heirs or successors of recent desert bandits, whose nonstop fighting against each other has killed more Muslims than any nation has.

From time to time, these kings and princes meet with U.S. officials and lecture them on what the U.S. can and cannot do in the Middle East. Currently, during the war on international terrorism, they provide hospitality to terrorists and their families, refuse to inform U.S. authorities about terrorists plans and intentions while insulting and abusing American troops who are defending them from potential aggressors, and continue to criticize U.S. policy in the Middle East.

It's hard to predict how long this practice will last, but Washington has to know that in the Middle East it is dealing not with real kings and princes, but with successors of the desert robbers, and it must treat them accordingly.

Col. Stanislav Lunev is the highest-ranking Soviet military intelligence officer ever to defect from Russia