In his 2005 book House of Bush, House of Saud, Craig Unger (former editor-in-chief of Boston Magazine) opens with the startling revelation that while all flights were grounded after 9/11, Saudis in America were exempt from this. This was part of a bizarre relationship in which Islamic radicalism and America, especially its business interests, turned a blind eye to each due to temporary and shaky common interests:

America, the beacon of democracy, was to arm and protect a brutal theocratic monarchy. The United States, sworn defender of Israel, was also the guarantor of security to the guardians of Wahhabi Islam, the fundamentalist religious sect that was one of Israel’s and America’s mortal enemies…..”