LEWISTON – Saudi Arabia’s importance as an ally of America carries much more weight than the currently popular but misguided reasons for bashing that nation.

That was the message an international expert brought to Thursday’s luncheon meeting of the Lewiston-Auburn Rotary Club.

Les Janka, chairman and executive director of the Council for American-Saudi Dialogue, said, “Too many people think this is a geographic question: How did our oil get under their sand?”

It’s a much bigger foreign policy question than that, Janka said, noting that Saudi Arabia is “an extremely difficult partner and ally.”

His talk emphasized many mutually beneficial reasons for continuing good U.S.-Saudi relations. While a sympathetic Saudi response to 9/11 was slow, Janka said U.S. security officials are finding that they now get excellent cooperation from Saudi Arabia.

“The war on terrorism is really part of a larger civil war going on in the Islamic world,” said Janka, who has a 20-year national security background.

The conflict is between “a very small group of extremists who are trying to turn the clock back to the 14th century, and the vast majority of Muslims who want to find a way to carry their religion and culture into the 21st century – and we Americans have become a target of that.”

Janka said, “Saudi Arabia is a vital asset, like it or not. To me, it makes no sense to see American officials literally trying to undermine the U.S.-Saudi relationship.” That behavior puts us in the position “of handing Osama bin Laden a major victory,” he said.

Janka told the Rotarians that Saudi Arabia is bin Laden’s primary target, not the United States.

“He really wants to take over Saudi Arabia as the core of the Islamic world and to make himself the mayor of Mecca.”

Janka told of recent high-level presidential campaign criticisms of the Saudis from both parties.

“What is the sense in creating greater instability in the very heart of the Muslim world and the very heart of the world’s energy market?” Janka asked.

His talk pointed out that Saudi Arabia sits on 25 percent of the world’s oil reserves and it’s the only country that has extra production capacity that can help the United States keep prices stable.

He said failure to strengthen and protect Saudi relationships “would be a disastrous mistake in our foreign policy.” He urged people on both sides of the question to “kind of watch their language and think a little more about what we’re doing.”

Janka outlined close U.S.-Saudi ties back to the close of World War II, when American protection was traded for Saudi oil. Since then, the United States has received not only cheap and dependable oil, but also critical Air Force bases and access for U.S. ships in the Persian Gulf. That was important in balancing the influence of radical Iranian mullahs when the Soviet Union was struggling in the “swamp of Afghanistan,” he said.

“It was the Saudis who stepped in there and said, No, there’s another Islam,'” Janka explained.

He also placed some blame for current problems on United States inattention to the Afghan situation after Russia backed down.

“We really stranded tens of thousand of young, well-trained, well-armed Arabic fighters with really nowhere to go,” Janka said. That led to the degeneration of Afghanistan into the Taliban’s radical regime, which allowed the foundation of al-Qaida and gave Osama bin Laden a place to hide, Janka said.

Only about 7 percent of U.S. oil comes from Saudi Arabia, and the United States gets a $1 discount on every barrel – almost two million barrels a day.

“That’s a contribution the Saudis are making to our own energy security and our own economy,” Janka said. “But even beyond this, Saudi Arabia is the center of the Islam world. So I see no benefit to the United States to have Saudi Arabia in radical hands.”

Janka’s Washington-based organization is American-funded. Janka is a former special assistant to President Reagan and deputy press secretary for foreign affairs. He also served as special assistant to Henry Kissinger on the National Security Council under Presidents Nixon and Ford.