When Pat Roush wants to show off her daughters, she reaches for an old Christmas photo. It's the classic family snapshot: two happy little girls in front of the tree, holding matching Pound Puppies--gifts from Santa--over their heads.

Exactly one month later, Miss Roush would lay out their black Mary Janes and party dresses for a birthday bash the girls had been looking forward to. It was a party they would never make. Kidnapped by their estranged father, seven-year-old Alia and her three-year-old sister, Aisha, were already on their way to Saudi Arabia.

That was 1986, and the sisters, now young women, remain there still. They have not seen their mother since, except for one heart-wrenching two-hour meeting in 1995 where Alia, clad in the black abaya, begged her mother, "Please, Mama, don't leave us here!" In the meantime, Alia has been married off; each has been converted to Islam; and both remain under an effective life sentence in a land whose law forbids them to leave without the written permission of a father or husband.

"I'm proud America has liberated Afghan women from the Wahhabi yoke," says Miss Roush, referring to the brand of Islam Osama bin Laden and the Taliban share with the Saudis. "But what about America's own daughters? When does liberation come for my girls?"

Good question. Until very recently hers was only another hard-luck tale. But 9/11 has dramatically changed the backdrop. For 16 years, the Saudi desk at the State Department has told her, "Let's look at this from a Saudi's point of view." But tomorrow the House Government Reform Committee will hold hearings that will finally look at her case from an explicitly American point of view.

Plainly the testimony will not be kind to a Saudi Arabia now in the midst of a PR campaign designed to persuade Americans that 15 of 19 hijackers carrying Saudi passports should be nothing between friends. But the grilling may be more embarrassing to State, especially when Congress hears how Americans in distress were treated when they cried out--often literally--for help. A taunt from a representative of the governor of Riyadh to Miss Roush sums up the signal received by the Saudis: "Your State Department won't help you, and your government doesn't want you."

Alia and Aisha's tragedy began on a snowy Super Bowl Sunday in 1986 just outside Chicago. By that time Pat Roush had split with her Saudi husband, Khalid Gheshayan, whom she had met as a student in California; Gheshayan's record during his years in America shows several arrests and a hospital diagnosis of alcoholism and paranoid schizophrenia.

Though Pat had secured a divorce and custody of the children, she did let her husband see his daughters when he returned to America. On the day in question, she was readying herself for the birthday party in the girls' bedroom. She glanced at Alia's Brownie handbook on a nightstand, and suddenly felt a hollow pain in her stomach. When she called Gheshayan and he didn't answer, she raced over the building where he'd taken up residence.

In the grocery store below, a young child told her, "He took them away in a taxi and they didn't want to go." Days later, her husband would call to tell her their daughters were in Saudi Arabia. A few months later, the Saudi governor's office would make a tape--in the presence of the U.S. consul general--in which a glazed-looking Alia said, "I hate the United States" and "My mother hates me and my sister."

Since then Miss Roush, a nurse, has spent almost every waking moment badgering diplomats, pushing for legislation, putting holds on ambassadors, picketing the Saudi Embassy, even hiring mercenaries. With a few, brave exceptions, however, American officialdom has seen her as a nuisance. How much easier their jobs would be if this woman would simply write her daughters off.

Still, twice she has come close to getting them out. The first time was in 1986, when pressure from Illinois Sen. Alan Dixon resulted in a deal that would have reunited the two tiny Americans with their mom. But the deal broke down after the higher-ups in Foggy Bottom cabled the ambassador that he was not to be present at the deal, on the grounds that the U.S. must remain "impartial."

The second time came under the girls' other champion, Ambassador Ray Mabus. Appointed by Bill Clinton, the former Mississippi governor made no bones that he wanted the girls back in America, referring to Gheyashan as a criminal, cutting off all U.S. visas for his family and pushing hard for a resolution. He too worked one out, but left for America before it was seen through, never dreaming that it would all come crashing down in his absence.

"This was never about Saudi law and customs," says Mr. Mabus. "It was about American law. This is a man [Gheshayan] who voluntarily put himself under American law, got married under American law, was divorced under American law and then broke that law."

The governor adds that his push for the rights of these American citizens never hurt the bilateral relationship. To the contrary, he believes that "one of the main jobs of embassies is to protect American citizens and uphold American law."

And lest people think that Miss Roush exaggerates, the House will hear supporting testimony from other women caught in the Saudi vise. Exhibit A is Dria Davis. When Dria was just 11 years old, she too was held in Saudi Arabia by a father who wouldn't let her return to America. When she begged the U.S. Embassy for help, they told her there was nothing they could do. "I was confused," she says. "I just kept asking, 'Why?'"

Tomorrow, Congress will play tapes Dria's mother secretly made of emotional phone conversations during her daughter's captivity, with Dria tearfully relating how her father shrieked at her, calling her a "bitch," and screaming for her mother to "get me out of here, they are going to kill me." Abused by her father, abandoned by her country, this intrepid teenager ultimately pulled off her own escape, via Bahrain, when she was just 13.

When set against the larger war on terrorism, the plight of a handful of American women may appear small potatoes. And there are undoubtedly any number of people who regard Miss Roush's campaign for her daughters a distraction from larger issues. But after 16 years, the answer to that should be obvious: If not now, when?

The State Department understandably bristles at the accusation that it is indifferent to the plight of fellow Americans such as Alia and Aisha. But the problem is not that State hasn't done anything. The problem is that everything the State Department has done has been done within the parameters set by Saudi law. Thus do we signal that our "special relationship" is more important than two American daughters--and then we are surprised that the Saudis are so uncooperative in, say, the Khobar Towers investigation.

Meanwhile Pat Roush refuses to give up hope, knowing that the only thing her forgotten daughters have going for them is a mother's love. She keeps everything from their childhood--Alia's Brownie uniform, a fingerpainting from Aisha, their Pound Puppies--in the hope that she might someday show them she's never stopped fighting for them.

At the official level, the American response is always that this is a complicated matter. But privately the whispers are that all it would really take is for President Bush to let Crown Prince Abdullah know he wants his two citizens to come to America, where they can then decide for themselves where they want to live without fear of reprisal. As one State representative conceded to a congressional staffer, in terms of U.S. representation, Alia and Aisha would be better off if they were convicted criminals.

The bitter irony is not lost on Miss Roush. "In Peru, President Bush raised the case of Lori Berenson," she sighs. "If an American woman convicted of aiding guerrillas is worthy of the president's concern, shouldn't he be able to say something about two American women serving a life sentence even though they've never done anything wrong?" Mr. McGurn is The Wall Street Journal's chief editorial writer.