Before I came to The Aspen Institute and long before I began writing for this blog, I did a brief stint at a Washington, DC public relations firm that represented the government of Saudi Arabia. This was not long after 9/11--new books and articles were hitting the shelf every week outing, in no uncertain terms, the menacing brood of vipers posing as our Saudi "allies." (Such books always put that word in quotes. One example: Robert Baer's book was titled Sleeping with the Devil - how's that for tactful diplomacy?)

The firm was tasked with fending off--in the United States--all sorts of specific accusations leveled at the Saudi government (pass-through financing of terrorist groups via Islamic organizations, for instance), while also trying to make forward progress toward building an overall more positive rep for Saudi Arabia among the U.S. public and lawmakers. Not an easy task, to be sure. And, being that I had all the authority befitting a summer intern, I can't say that I ever knew exactly what raw facts and data the firm had to work with. But it seemed to me, even in my young and tender state, that the Saudis (by which I really mean the large and fractious al-Saud royal family that makes all decisions that count for the country) were actually trying to build a respectable country. The family has a long and checkered past, no question, and its present is riddled with dischord between the several thousand princes and bit players who occupy Saudi's political arena. But the Saudi leaders and citizens with whom I interacted struck me as genuine in their desire to live out their faith respectfully, peacefully--and in their desire to prepare their country for life after oil.

So I read with great interest today's Washington Post piece, "Saudis Look Beyond Oil to New Economy in Desert." Saudi Arabia is making money hand over fist (oil revenues will top $700 billion over the next two years), but the country will fall hard when oil's record prices drive global industry toward other energy sources. So leaders are finally getting serious about giving Saudi youth more than a token madrasa education, and about creating industries and local economies where that new education will be valued:

Over the next few years, Saudi officials say this stretch of desert will be transformed into a buzzing hub of scientific research and development, with cutting-edge universities, hospitals and housing for more than 130,000 people attracted by the idea of living in the city where Islam's prophet Muhammad is buried.

The project, called Knowledge Economic City, represents a first serious step by Saudi Arabia toward building a post-petroleum economy. It is one of six major industrial centers planned to rise over the next 15 years. At a cost of more than $100 billion, the sites are expected to provide housing and jobs for the country's fast-growing population, half of which is younger than 21.

Note, among all of this, the folly of looking at the terrorism/extremism problem in a silo or vacuum, apart from economic factors and technology developments. In Saudi Arabia, it looks very likely that globally-competitive schools will phase out madrasas (though those may yet prove resurgent; too early to tell) not because of shifting ideology but because of shifting economic drivers, which in turn create a new political reality for Saudi leaders. Such is the tale of our interconnected world.