One way to end a standoff is to give in to your adversary. Which is what, after a year of violent confrontations with Qaeda terrorists, Saudi Arabia did on June 23, when it offered amnesty to Qaeda terrorists who surrendered within the month.

If that’s how the Saudis want to deal with terrorists who have killed scores of their citizens, it’s their prerogative. But it’s not okay if that’s how they propose to deal with a terrorist from a group that murdered thousands of Americans.

On Tuesday, Khaled al-Harby was flown to Riyadh after turning himself in to Saudi diplomats in Tehran. The Associated Press said an unnamed counterterrorism official described al-Harby as a confidant of Osama bin Laden. In a video released in December of 2001, Mr. al-Harby sat alongside as Mr. bin Laden praised the September 11 attacks, according to the official quoted by the AP.

The Saudis have no jurisdiction over a terrorist attack that took place in America, and their amnesty offer does not bind us. It’s hard to imagine even the nuttiest peacenik in New York supporting an amnesty for those involved in the terrorist attack on New York of September 11. Yet Mr. al-Harby has so far been greeted warmly by the Saudis. “Thank God, thank God…I called the embassy and we were very well-received,” he told Saudi television after he surrendered.

President Bush vowed famously in his September 20, 2001, address to a joint session of Congress: “We will pursue nations that provide aid or safe haven to terrorism. Every nation in every region now has a decision to make: Either you are with us or you are with the terrorists.”

What Saudi Arabia has done by accepting Mr. al-Harby is provide safe haven to an apparent terrorist. If Mr. Bush is to follow through on his word, he’ll ask the Saudis to hand Mr. bin Laden’s crony over to America for interrogation and trial. Also in order is an American investigation into just how exactly Mr. al-Harby turned up in Tehran to begin with.

America and Saudi Arabia do not have an extradition treaty. The Saudi foreign minister, Prince Saud al-Faisal, however, is already on record to the effect that such formalities should not interfere with terror investigations. The Saudis last month asked the British government to extradite two dissidents wanted in connection with a May shooting spree that killed six Westerners in Yanbu, Saudi Arabia, even though there is no British-Saudi extradition treaty, either.

Harboring Mr. al-Harby is just the latest of Saudi Arabia’s offenses. The kingdom has refused to return the body of an American, Paul Johnson, who was killed in a terrorist attack in Saudi Arabia last month. A spokesman for Johnson’s family said they were denied a visa to Saudi Arabia to investigate and retrieve his remains. The family protested yesterday outside Saudi Arabia’s mission to the United Nations.

Not to mention Saudi Arabia’s abysmal treatment of women, its lack of religious freedom, the fact that 15 of the 19 hijackers on September 11 were Saudi.

“The Saudi regime’s U.S. ally is angry at its perceived complacency with Islamic extremism,” a report yesterday from the International Crisis Group said. The amnesty for a bin Laden crony is likely only to make Americans angrier.