Editor’s Note:

Each fall the National Council on US-Arab Relations brings together a distinguished group of diplomats, government officials, business people, military officials, scholars and others to tackle the thorny issues surrounding US-Arab relations. SUSRIS has provided AUSPC speakers’ remarks, which touch on the Saudi-US relationship, to you for over the last five years. In keeping with that practice we again provide for your consideration a collection of AUSPC presentations.

Today we present the remarks of Jim Burkhard, Managing Director of Cambridge Energy Research Associates [CERA] Global Oil Group. Mr. Burkhard discussed the hard truths we confront in energy supplies and the core strategies for dealing with them. He was joined on the panel by Karen Harbert, the panel Chair, of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Institute for 21st Century Energy, Ryan M. Lance of ConocoPhillips, Jay R. Pryor of Chevron and Nabilah Al-Tunisi of Saudi-Aramco. Their remarks have been provided separately.

This is the final iteration of Arab-US Policymaker Conference reports for this year. For more transcripts online check the index and links below.

17th ANNUAL ARAB-U.S. POLICYMAKERS CONFERENCE
“Transitioning the White House: Challenges and Opportunities for Arab-U.S. Relations”
October 30-31, 2008 | Washington, DC

Energy: Hard Truths
(AUSPC 2008)
Jim Burkhard

[KAREN HARBERT] ..Jim Burkhard is the Managing Director of Cambridge Research Associates Global Oil Group, which means that he leads the team of experts that analyze and assess the upstream and downstream business conditions for these investments and the strategies companies should employ. He also develops and maintains detailed short term and long-term forecasts on global crude oil and refined product markets.

He was the project director of the “Dawn of the New Age: Global Energy Scenarios for Strategic Decision Making – The Energy Future to 2030,” which really was a very comprehensive study undertaken by CERA. He also served on the U.S. National Petroleum Council, which provided a very comprehensive report to the Secretary of Energy a scant couple of years ago, and I don’t know if he’ll be talking about that and he’s served a great deal of his career in West Africa making those infrastructure and capital decisions. Jim.

[JIM BURKHARD] Thanks, Karen. And as Karen said, I do work at Cambridge Energy Research Associates, but I am going to speak to you today as a study team member of a report put out by the National Petroleum Council and Karen mentioned that. This was a report called “Facing Hard Truths About Energy,” and it was released last year and there was an update put out just about a month or two ago. The NPC, National Petroleum Council, has its origins in World War II and today it exists as a Federal, an official advisory body to the U.S. Secretary of Energy. The Secretary from time to time can submit requests to the NPC to conduct research into different areas and then ask the NPC to offer its insights and views to the Secretary.

In 2005 the Secretary asked the NPC what does the future hold for oil and gas supplies and what supply and demand strategy does the Council recommend to ensure greater economic prosperity and stability for the U.S.? Pretty big question, pretty tall order. When we started to look at how to tackle this question we said, “Gee, you really cannot look at oil and gas in isolation.” Coal, nuclear, renewables, they impact oil and gas. And you cannot look at the United States as an isolated actor in the energy market. So what we needed to do was to develop a comprehensive energy assessment at the global level to develop the insights and recommendations that we came up with, and that’s what we did.

The study conducted in 2006 and 2007 involved around 350 people from a range of industries and disciplines. There are of course oil and gas companies that participated in it. We also had power companies, financial institutions, universities and a number of NGOs and foreign companies because we did want to get that global reach and input for the study. At the end of the study we came up with what we called six hard truths about energy that framed the recommendations we made to the Secretary and I’ll go over each of these six hard truths and I’ll briefly summarize the recommendations we made.

The first hard truth and Ryan [Lance (link below)] alluded to this. But coal, oil and natural gas, the fossil fuels, will remain indispensable to meeting global energy demands out to 2030 at least, if not well beyond. The fossil fuels represent trillions of dollars of investment. More than a century of investment in infrastructure on the consumption and supply side. You’re not going to replace that overnight. It takes a long, long time. So fossil fuels were important 30 years ago, they’re going to be important to us for decades to come. That was the first hard truth.

Second, the world is not running out of energy resources but there are accumulating risks to continuing expansion of oil and natural gas production from the conventional sources that we’ve historically relied on. These risks create significant challenges to meeting projected global demand growth.

Third hard truth, to mitigate these risks the expansion of all economic energy sources will be required including coal, nuclear, biomass, other renewables and unconventional oil and gas. And of course each of these sources face their own challenges.

Fourth hard truth. Energy independence should not be confused with strengthening energy security. The concept of energy independence is not realistic in the foreseeable future but U.S. energy security can be enhanced by moderating demands, expanding and diversifying domestic energy supplies and strengthening global energy trade and investment.

Next hard truth. A majority of the U.S. energy sector workforce, including skilled scientists and engineers, is eligible to retire within the next decade and it’s urgent that this workforce be replenished and trained. One brief anecdote on this. I’m 40 years old and when I graduated from college hardly anybody was going into the energy business, the oil business, because it was a consolidating business. And it continued to do that through the 1990s. Well, now we’re living with the impact of that missing generation of engineers.

Last hard truth. The policies aimed at curbing carbon dioxide emissions will alter the energy mix. They will increase energy related costs and require reductions in demand.

So those were the hard truths that we developed and they framed what we call the five core strategies that we recommended to the Secretary of Energy in 2007. And these core strategies — whether the oil price is $150 or $50 or even less than that — these core strategies remain credible and relevant.

The first core strategy is to moderate growing energy demand by increasing energy efficiency of transportation, residential, commercial, and industrial uses.

Second, in the United States we should expand and diversify energy supply, moderate the decline in oil and gas production. And the U.S. has been successful in moderating if not expanding gas production at least recently. Also to increase access to new resources.

Third core strategy. And this is vitally important. It sounds simple. But it is extremely important and that is to strengthen global energy trade and investment. Both Nabilah and Ryan [links below] have illustrated the importance of global trade, investment and cooperation to enhance the flow of energy from where it’s produced to where it’s consumed.

The fourth core strategy. Enhance science and engineering capabilities in the United States.

The fifth. As Co2 emission reductions are considered, promote a global framework for carbon management to establish one transparent, predictable economy wide cost. And two, develop a legal and regulatory structure to enable carbon capture and sequestration. That’s where you take carbon – say from a coal plant, capture it and store it long term for example in a reservoir. On that issue of carbon whether, regardless of what one may think about how we should tackle global climate change.. not making the comment about whether it’s good, bad.. but it does seem that something is coming. Both presidential candidates in the United States advocate some type of carbon regulation. But some type of clarity of the potential costs is important for investors. Imagine you are contemplating spending billions of dollars to develop a coal plant. Coal plants emit a lot of Co2. And you don’t know what the future costs of Co2 will be. When will that cost come into play. So that uncertainty is a significant impediment to some investment to expand energy supply in the United States.

The bottom line to all these strategies is they all must be pursued. This is not an a la carte set of items. All of them must be pursued in order to be effective. The impact of the report has surprised many of us. I’ll give you a couple of statistics that surprised many of us that worked on the study. The study report was pretty big, it’s a pretty think report. I saw some copies out there in the lobby if you’re interested in picking one up. But there have been 1.5 million downloads of this report from the NPC web site. There have been about 180 presentations and briefings in the United States and around the world about the study results. Such as the one that I’m doing now. And the interest globally has been impressive. It has been produced in a number of languages – English, Japanese, Arabic, Russian, Chinese, and Spanish.

So to conclude, a key.. the bottom line.. a key point of the report is that we do need a balanced approach and we need a sustained and long term focus, a focus that goes beyond the two, four or six year time frame. Certainly we do need the short-term commitment but you do need a long term commitment and focus to overcome the energy challenges that the United States and indeed the entire world face right now.

Thank you.

Source: Arab-US Policymakers Conference Web Site (AUSPC 2008)

Transcription Services by Ryan & Associates

About Jim Burkhard

Mr. Burkhard is Managing Director of Cambridge Energy Research Associates [CERA] Global Oil Group. He leads the team of CERA experts focused on exploration and production strategy, upstream technology, and short- and long-term analysis of the crude oil and refined products markets. He is also the coauthor of CERA’s respected World Oil Watch, which analyzes short- to medium-term developments in the oil market. Mr. Burkhard’s expertise covers geopolitics, world economic conditions, and global oil demand and supply trends. He works closely with CERA clients in assessing how market, economic, and political risks could change the competitive environment. He also works with companies to assess business opportunities in both the upstream and downstream sectors.

Mr. Burkhard was the project director of Dawn of a New Age: Global Energy Scenarios for Strategic Decision Making—The Energy Future to 2030, the most comprehensive study that CERA has ever undertaken, encompassing the oil, gas, and electricity sectors. He was also the director of the CERA Multiclient Study Potential versus Reality: West African Oil & Gas to 2020. In addition to leading CERA’s oil research, Mr. Burkhard served on the US National Petroleum Council (NPC) committee that provided recommendations on US oil and gas policy to the US Secretary of Energy. He led the team that developed demand-oriented recommendations that were published in the 2007 NPC report Facing the Hard Truths About Energy.

Before joining CERA, Mr. Burkhard directed infrastructure projects in West Africa, contributed to research on the interaction between government policy and capital investment, and was a field operator for Rod Electric. Mr. Burkhard holds a Bachelor of Arts Degree from Hamline University (Minnesota)and an Master’s degree from the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University.

For more information: CERA

Editor’s Note:

Each fall the National Council on US-Arab Relations brings together a distinguished group of diplomats, government officials, business people, military officials, scholars and others to tackle the thorny issues surrounding US-Arab relations. SUSRIS has provided AUSPC speakers’ remarks, which touch on the Saudi-US relationship, to you for over the last five years. In keeping with that practice we again provide for your consideration a collection of AUSPC presentations.

Today we present the remarks of Mr. Jay Pryor, Vice President for Corporate Business Development, Chevron Corporation. Mr. Pryor addressed the challenge of long-term energy security and reflected on partnerships with Saudi Arabia to provide energy supplies to the world. He was joined on the panel by Karen Harbert, the Chair, of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Institute for 21st Century Energy, Ryan M. Lance of ConocoPhillips, Nabilah Al-Tunisi of Saudi-Aramco and Jim Burkhard of Cambridge Energy Research Associates. Their remarks will be provided separately and are posted on the SUSRIS web site (links below).

Additional AUSPC sessions which address U.S. and Saudi issues will be provided by SUSRIS in the coming days. For more transcripts online check the index and link below.

17th ANNUAL ARAB-U.S. POLICYMAKERS CONFERENCE
“Transitioning the White House: Challenges and Opportunities for Arab-U.S. Relations”
October 30-31, 2008 | Washington, DC

Energy: The Long View
Jay Pryor

[MS KAREN HARBERT] Jay Pryor is last but not least certainly and is with the Chevron Corporation as their Vice President for Corporate Business Development which as his title implies he’s responsible for finding, identifying, and developing the new large scale business opportunities for Chevron. He has been with Chevron his entire career, holding a succession of management positions with increasing responsibilities in Asia, the United States, Europe and the former Soviet Union. In 1992, he then joined one of their overseas subsidiaries which was Tengizchevroil in Kazakhstan.. ..Then he moved on to South Asia and finally on to Nigeria where he had a portfolio that encompassed all of Africa. He is also the co-chair of the Nigerian Business Coalition Against HIV-Aids. So take it away.

[MR. JAY R. PRYOR] Thank you very much to the Council, especially you Karen and John for inviting me to join this very distinguished panel. After next week’s elections and as plans are made for the new President and Congress in January it’s very important to take the longer view of what’s in our nation’s best interests and the partnerships that will support these interests.

The conference is especially well placed to examine the long view. Both for the Middle East and with respect to this panel, energy security. The world is focused on the financial crisis presently, but energy security remains a major long-term challenge that must be addressed by all of us. Just as the financial crisis requires a global response so does the need for long term reliable supplies of energy.

My message today is this. The Middle East has been a reliable, steadfast supplier of energy to the world for many years. And the U.S. must strive tirelessly to build and strengthen its long-term partnerships with this region. The foundation for our long-term partnerships with the Middle East is already firmly in place. My company, Chevron, for example has a 75-year partnership with the region. One of our panelists gave the very beginning, 1933, the seventh well drilled in a string of wells struck oil in Saudi Arabia. Our operations span the petroleum value chain in the Middle East from exploration and production, of course, through the value chain to petrochemicals as was mentioned, through to marketing and refining.

The range of activities over the 75 years has taught us the importance of long term partnership and today that partnership is more important than ever. Why is this the case? To answer the question let’s take a step back and look at the global energy picture. Even with the increasing efforts on efficiency and alternative fuels which my company strongly supports, projections of the world’s increased fossil fuel production by 50 percent by the year 2030. Let’s put this in perspective. Fifty percent more than today’s world which uses 125,000 gallons per second. That’s the only way we can meet this challenge through strong partnerships in investment, technology and people.

The importance of the Middle East to the global energy supply cannot and must not be understated. The Middle East supplies over half the world’s oil and gas needs. They should be acknowledged for this important role. The role it plays as a reliable, steadfast part of the global energy supply chain. Middle Eastern countries such as Saudi Arabia in oil, and Qatar in gas have been and remain strong partners and responsible suppliers.

Saudi Arabia’s production recently exceeded 9.7 million barrels per day. They are currently spending tens of billions of dollars to increase production to 12 million barrels and of course beyond that. King Abdullah reinforced the strong production record when he convened, with great leadership, an energy summit last June in Riyadh attended by leading consuming and producing countries and companies. David Riley, my chairman, attended that summit. Of course since then the oil and gas prices have lessened considerably, potentially moderating the financial crisis, but those sharp drops in prices have prompted a lot of discussion around reducing production levels.

Let me say a few words about Saudi, a country which is special to Chevron and provides a great example of partnership in investment, technology and people. Chevron was the first to ship oil from the Kingdom in the 30s. We recently renewed our 60-year concession in the partition neutral zone between Kuwait and Saudi Arabia for 30 more years. We will be operating on behalf of the Kingdom bringing the most advanced technology to developing the resources and our workforce there, which is currently over 90 percent Saudi.

We’re making solid progress in a series of projects to validate the feasibility of utilizing steam floods to produce heavy oil of the eocene carbonate reservoirs. If successful this will mark the first time the enhanced oil recovery technology has been employed to produce commercial quantities from the carbonate reservoirs anywhere in the world.

As an important part of the operations in the partition neutral zone Chevron will continue to transfer technology and apply its expertise in project management, reservoir management, health, safety, environment, and of course drilling and other technologies.

In gas, Qatar has been an outstanding partner, welcoming foreign investment and ensuring continuing supplies throughout the world. Qatar currently exports 745,000 barrels of oil a day and 18.2 billion cubic meters of natural gas per day. Our experts in the industry estimate that Qatar by 2010 will export 30 percent of the world’s LNG, liquefied natural gas. Chevron also partners both in Qatar and in Saudi Arabia in the petrochemicals business.

Another, the UAE is a very vibrant financial and tourism sector. It’s also a very important player in energy. The Arab Petroleum Investment Corporation forecasted over the next five years $395 billion will be spent in the Middle East on projects like oil, gas and electricity. We can look then to many other energy partners in the region. From Algeria, with its natural gas capacity, to Libya, opening up its petroleum sector recently, to Iraq, with renewed help in its oil sector which we contributed to through training and support and hopefully in time through some long-term projects.

Longer-term partnerships will also extend the dimensions of energy efficiency and expand different sources and types of energy. Deeper trade ties will also align our interests and expand economic growth and energy security. There’s a real opportunity for intra-regional cooperation in energy as highlighted by the Dolphin project and proposals for regional electricity grids. Responsible leadership in today’s world requires that we identify and work closely with reliable partners. The coordinated global response to the financial crisis provides a partnership model for achieving global energy security. The strong long-term partnerships between the U.S. and the Middle East will help secure the economic growth and energy security for the generations that follow us.

Chevron believes the long-term strategic foreign and energy policy toward the Middle East is essential. This is policy that recognizes and strengthens partnerships with countries in the region. And a policy that makes common cause not only on energy but in our initiatives for the wider region and the world.

Thank you.

Source: Arab-US Policymakers Conference Web Site (AUSPC 2008)

Transcription Services by Ryan & Associates

About Jay R. Pryor

Mr. Pryor is Chevron Corporation Vice President for Corporate Business Development. He assumed his current position in May 2006. He is responsible for identifying and developing new, large-scale business opportunities throughout the world.

A native of Mississippi, Mr. Pryor earned his Bachelor’s Degree in petroleum engineering from Mississippi State University in 1979. That same year, he joined Chevron U.S.A. Production Co. as a petroleum engineer and held numerous production-related positions. He gained valuable downstream management experience in U.S. natural gas sales during the country’s transition toward deregulation.

Mr. Pryor held a succession of management positions with increasing responsibilities in Asia, the United States, Europe and the former Soviet Union. In 1992, he joined Chevron’s international subsidiary Chevron Overseas Petroleum Inc. as the first manager of petroleum engineering in the newly established Tengizchevroil joint venture in Kazakhstan. In 1996, he transferred to San Ramon, Calif., as sponsor in charge of career development for operations personnel. He also served as general manager of Human Resources for Chevron’s worldwide operations.

In 1999, Mr. Pryor became managing director of the Asia South business unit and managing director of Chevron Offshore (Thailand) Ltd. In 2002, he was named managing director of Chevron Nigeria Ltd., one of Nigeria’s leading petroleum exploration and production companies. In that position, he was responsible for directing Chevron’s oil and gas operations in West Africa, including Nigeria, São Tomé, Chad and in Equatorial Guinea.

Mr. Pryor also is co-chairman of the Nigerian Business Coalition Against HIV/AIDS, a body inaugurated by Nigeria’s President Olusegun Obasanjo to spearhead efforts by the country’s private sector to combat the spread of the deadly disease. In addition, he is a member of the Society of Petroleum Engineers and founded the society’s first branch in Kazakhstan.

For more information: Chevron

Editor’s Note:

SUSRIS recently provided the presentation of Prince Turki al-Faisal, former Saudi Ambassador to the United States, at the Arab-US Policymakers Conference (link below). He addressed a host of issues of concern including the US-Saudi relationship and fielded a question about the Arab Peace Initiative — the 2002 Arab League opening for peace between Israel and the Arab world, authored by Saudi Arabian King Abdullah. He commented that, “The Arab world has made the choice for peace through the Arab Peace Initiative and it’s about time that Israel responded in a similar manner and presented a serious view of that initiative.”

Last week Prince Turki shared his thoughts on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and offered suggestions to the prospective Obama Administration in an Op-Ed published in the Washington Post just as the current crisis in Gaza was beginning. We provide for your consideration his Op-Ed on this critical regional issue as well as other Middle East hotspots, along with a compilation of related links to interviews, articles, and presentations, by and about Prince Turki.

Peace for the Mideast
How Our Plan Could Aid Barack Obama’s Efforts
Turki al-Faisal

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — President-elect Barack Obama is about to inherit not just a nation entrenched in two wars but a world of instability and an entire Middle East that is sick with discord. While disputes in this region may seem eternal, there are reasons to be optimistic. If Obama joins with forces for peace and stability and acts boldly, his presidency could have a marked impact on world affairs.
The best medicine yet formulated for the Israeli-Palestinian dispute is the Arab peace initiative of 2002. One must consider the prospect of “peace” in context.

In May, Israel celebrated the 60th anniversary of its creation. For Palestinians and their Arab and Muslim brethren, Israel’s founding is “al-Naqba,” or “the Catastrophe.” It is the day the dream of an independent, Arab-Palestinian state was shattered; a day when the idea of a world built on equality, freedom and self-determination died.

There is universal agreement that the Palestinian people are under occupation and have been deprived of their land. It is beyond debate that their rights — which derive from divinely inspired texts, international law and the basic principles of justice and equity — have been ignored, as have all attempts to seek redress.

The Oslo Accords of 1993, the first direct agreement between the Palestinians and Israelis, marked a turning point. There was a true spirit of cooperation, expressed through the mutual desire of Israelis and Palestinians to live together in peace. The assassination of Yitzhak Rabin in 1995 tragically ended this hopeful development.
By 1998, it was evident that the peace envisioned in Oslo would not materialize. Each side holds its own view on the reasons for failure. But looking at the discussions in detail — especially after Rabin’s assassination — it appears that the Israelis used Oslo as a cover through which they could appropriate more Palestinian lands, especially around Jerusalem. Israeli negotiators stubbornly fought over secondary issues while refusing to negotiate final-status issues, which would have been the keys to lasting and secure peace. Since the failure of Oslo, the waves of violence and counter-violence have been almost as predictable as the tides.

The Arab world has presented two clear proposals, the Fahd peace plan of 1981 and the 2002 Arab peace initiative. Both were endorsed by all Arab nations. The Arab world is willing to pay a high price for peace, not only recognizing Israel as a legitimate state but also normalizing relations and putting a permanent end to the state of hostilities that has existed since 1948.

In return, we ask Israel to pursue the just course laid out in various international resolutions and laws: to withdraw completely from the lands occupied in 1967, including East Jerusalem, returning to the lines of June 4, 1967; to accept a just solution to the refugee problem according to U.N. General Assembly Resolution 194; and to recognize the independent state of Palestine with East Jerusalem as its capital.
If peace is truly the goal, Israel must cease all provocative actions, such as continuing the building of settlements on Palestinian lands, which is a clear violation of international law. If it does not, the world will conclude, as has former president Jimmy Carter, that Israel is interested only in increasing its power and its bargaining position.

Shimon Peres has offered to discuss the Arab peace initiative anytime, anywhere, and we welcome this response. At this point, the Saudi government is constrained from direct talks with Israel. Egypt and Jordan have been commissioned to meet with Israel on behalf of the Arab world. Once agreements between Palestine, Lebanon and Syria are reached with Israel, Saudi Arabia will join fully in ending hostilities and establishing diplomatic and normal relations with Israel.

Peace will require worldwide efforts. The United States, the European Union, the Russian Federation and the United Nations must embrace the Arab initiatives and pressure Israel to do the same. As Barack Obama takes office, he should not miss this critical opportunity to steer the region toward peace. Obama ought to pursue a comprehensive policy that deals with all the hot spots in the Middle East. He should:

Call for an immediate withdrawal of Israeli forces from Shebaa Farms in Lebanon. This would remove the issue of “national liberation” from the arsenal of Hezbollah’s propaganda and mitigate Syrian and Iranian interference in Lebanon.

Work with the U.N. Security Council for a resolution guaranteeing Iraq’s territorial integrity. This would dampen Iraqi politicians’ ambitions for dismembering Iraq and force them to negotiate for national reconciliation, putting their interests as Iraqis before their interests as Arabs, Kurds, Shiites or Sunnis. It would also stop any ambitions — economic or territorial — that Iraq’s neighbors may be considering.

Encourage Israeli-Syrian negotiations for peace. This would engage Syria and diminish Iranian obstructionism. It would also force Palestinian groups based in Syria to follow the Syrian example.

Declare America’s intention to work for a Middle East free of weapons of mass destruction, with a security umbrella and other incentives for countries that sign up and a sanctions regime for those that don’t. This would remove the issue of double standards that the Iranian government uses to raise support among its people for its nuclear policy. It would also resolve the security concerns with which Israel’s leaders justify their possession of nuclear weapons.

Stabilizing the Middle East will require patience, determination, tough diplomacy and empathy. The effort, however, will be well worth the result. As the late Indian diplomat Vijaya Lakshmi Nehru Pandit said: “The more we sweat in peace, the less we bleed in war.”

• Previously printed in the Washington Post on Dec. 26, 2008

EXCERPT FROM 2002 “BEIRUT DECLARATION” (ARAB LEAGUE PEACE PLAN)

2. Further calls upon Israel to affirm:

I- Full Israeli withdrawal from all the territories occupied since 1967, including the Syrian Golan Heights, to the June 4, 1967 lines as well as the remaining occupied Lebanese territories in the south of Lebanon.

II- Achievement of a just solution to the Palestinian refugee problem to be agreed upon in accordance with UN General Assembly Resolution 194.

III- The acceptance of the establishment of a sovereign independent Palestinian state on the Palestinian territories occupied since June 4, 1967 in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, with East Jerusalem as its capital.

3. Consequently, the Arab countries affirm the following:

I- Consider the Arab-Israeli conflict ended, and enter into a peace agreement with Israel, and provide security for all the states of the region

II- Establish normal relations with Israel in the context of this comprehensive peace.

Source: Wikipedia

About Prince Turki Al Faisal

His Royal Highness Prince Turki Al-Faisal served as the Ambassador of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to the United States of America from September 13, 2005 until February 12, 2007.

Prince Turki was appointed an Advisor in the Royal Court in 1973. From 1977 to 2001, he served as the Director General of the General Intelligence Directorate (GID), the Kingdom’s main foreign intelligence service. In 2002, he was named Ambassador of to the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland by Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Fahd bin Abdulaziz.

His Royal Highness is involved in a number of cultural and social activities. He is one of the founders of the King Faisal Foundation and is the chairman of the King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies in Riyadh. Prince Turki also serves as a member of the Boards of Trustees of the International Crisis Group and the Oxford Center for Islamic Studies.

The King Faisal International Prizes, awarded by the King Faisal Foundation, are given to “dedicated men and women whose contributions make a positive difference.” These annual prizes are awarded in five fields of endeavor – Service to Islam, Islamic Studies, Arabic Language and Literature, Science, and Medicine – have been likened, for the Arab and Islamic worlds, as similar in stature to, and nearly as coveted as, the annual Nobel Prizes. The King Faisal International Prizes, in addition to being bestowed upon Arabs and Muslims, have also been granted to outstanding achievers from virtually all corners of the world.

Editor’s Note:

On Monday leaders from the six Gulf Cooperation Council states will gather in Muscat, Oman for the 29th annual Supreme Council session, the GCC Summit. While last year’s summit captured more attention from international media — given participation of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad — the issues confronting the Gulf leaders this year may be considered far more numerous and complex. To help us set the scene from the summit, we are pleased to share the insights and observations of Dr. John Duke Anthony, President of the National Council on US-Arab Relations, and a specialist in Gulf affairs — himself a regular observer at all of the Supreme Council sessions — on the eve of the summit. Dr. Anthony was interviewed today via email exchange from Muscat, Oman, site of the GCC Summit.

SUSRIS EXCLUSIVE FROM MUSCAT, OMAN

On the Eve of the 29th GCC Summit
A Conversation with John Duke Anthony

SUSRIS: Thank you, Dr. Anthony, for joining us from Muscat, Oman, site of the Gulf Cooperation Council Summit. I believe you have now been an observer at 28 GCC Summits. Can you provide a perspective on the significance of these annual meetings?

JOHN DUKE ANTHONY: I’d like to start by saying that contrary to what many might expect, the topics that are likely to engage the Summit most seriously and for the longest discussions will not necessarily be the events of the previous few days or even the period immediately leading up to the summit. Certainly, such topics as Israel’s major resort to armed force against the Palestinians in Gaza; the onset of a global recession; the international financial crisis; and the continuing plummet in the price of oil will all be discussed, but they will not be the main event.

But this is not all. Other issues and challenges clamoring for attention and redress are the situation in Iraq; the question of whether Israel or the United States or some combination of the two will attack Iran; the implications of developments related to Iran in terms of its ongoing quest for enhanced recognition of its expanded regional status and aspirations with respect to Iraq, Lebanon, Palestine, and the three UAE islands it occupies; the augmentation of American armed forces deployments to Afghanistan; the uncertain near term future prospects for stability and greater security in Pakistan, Lebanon, and Somalia; internationally and regionally heightened concerns related to nuclear developments as well as terrorism and other extremist related phenomena; the prospects for positive change, including America’s standing in this region and practically everywhere else in the world, with the incoming administration of U.S. President-elect Barack Obama; the coming year’s elections in Israel, Iran, Iraq, and elsewhere; and the environment — the list is a very long one. The policymaking and decision making challenges they pose are also in numerous ways far more complex than in many years past.

SUSRIS: To what extent can any summit deal with so many issues?

ANTHONY: They can’t; it’s not possible. Nor is it vital or necessary that they try to do so. Having said that, it is only natural that generalists and others lacking familiarity with the GCC’s origins, nature, and purpose believe that as many of the issues noted as possible would most definitely be among the ones that will be deliberated and debated, if not decided, at this summit. However, what is shocking for observers that have never attended such summits is that this is almost never what happens in the case of the GCC. Indeed, having been invited to attend all 28 of the GCC’s annual summits, I am hard-pressed to recall a single exception. It just doesn’t happen this way.

SUSRIS: Can you give an example or two?

ANTHONY: Yes. Last year’s summit in December in Doha, Qatar, would be an illustration as good as any. Then, practically everyone attending that summit that had never attended one before had to have been surprised and somewhat confused when they looked in the rear view mirror a few weeks later. In doing so they would have been taken aback at the disconnect with what had been their earlier mixed degree of curiosity and self-assurance about what would happen at the summit, on one hand, and, on the other, what in fact happened that in some instances was expected but in other instances was expected to happen but did not. The gap between the two was occasioned by the fact that many, and not for the first time, had approached the summit certain in their own minds that the summiteers would tackle what were one or more of the two hot-button issues of the moment.

One topic observers were keen to write about at the Doha Summit was multifaceted and on the tip of everyone’s tongues. It had to do with the sudden mushrooming of mounting anxieties within the region and abroad about double digit inflation, consumer angst, a weak dollar, near-term steep stock market fluctuations, talk of certain megabuck projects possibly being canceled or delayed, construction contracts being amended, business deals being re-bid, etcetera. A second hot item seized upon by all the media was the fact that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad attended by invitation. These two fixations created media buzzes that unavoidably and inevitably made their way into print. In the substantial and often lengthy commentary and analysis that accompanied such reporting, however, absent almost altogether were background, context, and the perspectives of the summiteers themselves.

It turned out that many who wrote such accounts did so for reasons that were understandable even if not that relevant to the summit’s actual proceedings. They did so either on their own account as free lancers or because before arriving to the summit their editors had assigned them to report on such topics. As a result, the impressions given in the process, while in many cases making for interesting reading, were misleading. As such they contributed to the outside world’s continued general lack of understanding and knowledge about the GCC and its member-countries and what they are and are not. Indeed, much that was written led readers to believe that the summiteers had convened primarily to deal with the matters noted by many who wrote and had published articles on the summit, when in fact what mainly transpired in reality was something quite different. This is not to suggest that the heads of state, ministers and their advisers took no note of such phenomena. They did. But they did so mainly in passing, not in hours of deliberation.

SUSRIS: How can this be explained?

ANTHONY: The reason, over and beyond what I said about what many outsiders bring to the summits in terms of false assumptions and lack of knowledge and understanding, is that something else that is far more fundamental is in play. At the most elemental level, it has to do with how the GCC governments’ leaders proceed to conduct their collective and respective publics’ business. In short, they are not now nor have they ever been given to rash reactions. For that matter, speaking hypothetically, short of a war having just broken out or some other unanticipated massive calamity having occurred on the eve or day in which a summit convenes, what happens at most summits is not that surprising. Certainly, it is not earthshaking.

In the main, what transpires at a given GCC summit is usually fairly predictable. Indeed, the key topics, priorities, and specific agenda items of what will be processed in the course of discussion and debate among the summiteers are almost always known, understood, and agreed upon ahead of time. Even the outcomes – all or certainly most of a summit’s results – are usually known in advance, certainly to the participants and their closest advisers. Of course there are occasional surprises and exceptions, and there may be one or more at this one, including a new initiative to tackle this or that challenge in a different or amended way than before, but this has been the general pattern. At the convening this evening of the GCC’s Ministerial Council, the organization’s key policy formulating body, there was no reason to believe that the present summit will be any different in this regard.

SUSRIS: Are there examples of other international organizations where this is or has been the case?

ANTHONY: Yes. There are many. To be sure, like every other organization, the GCC has its own different origins, purposes, objectives, and requirements as well as expectations of the members. The member-countries, too, have their own distinct cultures, societies, and traditions. Even so, as a group they also share numerous functions and characteristics of other international organizations. Two organizations in particular that share certain strategic and stylistic characteristics with the GCC, although they are in many other ways quite distinct and different, are the European Union and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or ASEAN. Like many of the leaders in these and other regional and sub-regional organizations, the GCC’s decision makers and policymakers are not prone to unprecedented bold and decisive action, reaction, or for that matter inaction absent prior lengthy study of the issue at hand. Neither are they inclined to reach a decision without first having considered the input and comment of many specialists and advisers.

For obvious reasons, this is much of what the staff of the GCC Secretariat General and its departments — Political, Economic, Military — and its standing and other committees dealing with more specialized issues does year-round. Indeed, during practically every week of the year there is one or more GCC-centric meeting being held at the secretariat or in one of the member-states where the relevant official representatives of all six GCC countries are consulting with a view to reaching consensus regarding a variety of GCC policy priorities and challenges. Indeed, this year’s summit, like all the rest, will spend a lot of time reviewing and evaluating the record of the past year since the previous summit. To that end, there will be reports made following discussion about what progress was registered, what delays or unexpected obstacles were encountered, what needs to be reconsidered, and, in every instance, why and what lessons are there to be learned. Failure to tend to this important part of the GCC’s raison d’etre would make no sense and raise valid questions about the organization’s purpose and objectives as well as effectiveness.

There are additional reasons. One has to do with a long-standing agreement and practice among the summiteers. It is that, whenever possible, all serious strategic policy matters before them for consideration need first to be consulted and studied among them at length in addition to being thoroughly researched by their key advisers, the options known, considered, and submitted to discussion and debate at whatever length one or more of the heads of state deem necessary, and the implications for their collective and respective interests as well as key policy objectives weighed in the balance before a decision is taken.

To an outsider pressed before attending a summit with a filing date stipulated by their editors whose knowledge and understanding of what the GCC is and is not is a guaranteed recipe for frustration. When such analysts learn that the summiteers are consumed with other matters, these kinds of attendees are taken aback, but not the summiteers. The latter who conduct the work at h and at these annual meetings are programmed in advance to deal with quite different agendas.

SUSRIS: Obviously, as you indicate, there is no shortage of front burner issues on the Gulf leaders’ to-do list. Some pre-summit commentary has suggested the headline will be Gulf countries’ actions to cope with the global financial crisis. Can you give us a snapshot of how that issue will be approached at the Summit?

ANTHONY: You are correct in assuming that the international financial crisis will be high on the agenda. It will come under the economic agenda. This, from the beginning has always been by far the most extensive agenda at practically every GCC summit. The reason is that the GCC concluded an Economic Unity Agreement in June 1981, barely two weeks after the GCC was established at the first formal summit in May in Abu Dhabi. To date, this is the oldest, largest, and most pervasive pan-GCC agreement among the member countries. Mistakenly interpreted by many at the beginning as a binding accord among the members, the agreement can be likened, as indeed the members meant it to be, to more in the way of a visionary economic blueprint of what would be possible for the GCC to achieve if and when the founders and their successors deemed would be appropriate.

By “appropriate” the sense was that whatever beyond the accord the members as a whole could concur in principle as a worthy goal, and contingent also upon their agreeing to the means by which to reach it, the agreement would warrant their serious and favorable consideration as well as their proactive pursuit towards its achievement. When more than ten years ago I asked one of the senior GCC foreign ministers why this particular focus occupied a greater niche than others, for example in comparison to political or defense cooperation, he answered as follows. “It is because we know our people. This is what they have indicated to us repeatedly that they want the most. It’s also because of their and our awareness that this is the one aspect of the GCC’s work that can be most accurately measured and evaluated. Because it’s tangible, it touches the people directly at the level of their material needs. These of course are for many people the keys to numerous other things. To name but a few, one is talking about people’s families and their children’s aspirations, their physical comfort, their ability to enjoy things they never knew about or possessed before or ever dreamed they would ever have a chance to own and enjoy growing up.”

It is in this context that there is palpable pan-GCC concern about the implications of the current international financial crisis for their near-term present as well as longer-term future. This morning several others and I spent two hours meeting and talking at length with one of the key ministers at the summit who is tasked with helping explain some of the GCC leaders and citizens’ views on these very issues. Joining me and confronting him were some who tried to push him into a corner. They probed this way and that way to see if they could cajole him into admitting that the Economic Death Reaper was near.

An Arab specialist wanted to know whether he agreed with her. She asked whether it is possible that the crisis will be seen in the future as having marked the end of capitalism as the world has known it thus far. Another stated and then asked did not the minister agree that surely the non-stop economic boom that the GCC region has been experiencing for more than the past half decade is going to come to an end in the very near future. Another stated that surely the minister agreed with the following: what could be more dramatic evidence than that which is to hand that now is the time for the GCC countries to end their dependency on the American dollar. With the exception of Kuwait, which pegs its dinar to a basket of currencies, of which the American dollar is the largest unit within the basket, all of the other GCC countries’ currencies are pegged to the greenback.

Still another Arab attendee, a veteran of many summits, opined that if nothing else, this is the time more than any other when the GCC countries can move closer to becoming an international economic bloc of global significance. He continued that, if so, the GCC could for once begin to exercise a degree of input and influence on the nature of international economic, financial, and investment policies that, at the end of the day, have an impact on everyone. And, as if his plate was not already full, the minister was asked to assess where the perennial discussion of a free trade agreement between the GCC and the EU stood at this time.

The minister was at pains to address each of these notions and numerous others imbedded in questions asked that, in essence, implied doomsday was at hand or would soon arrive. Overall, the tone of his responses was one of reflection and unaffected calm. He made several points. One was that it is false to think in terms of potential economic, commercial, or financial ruptures within the GCC.

The same was true, he emphasized, in terms of all of the GCC’s member-countries. His reference was in terms of their individual relations with global financial institutions or their bilateral partners and allies. A related theme to which he repeatedly returned was, in effect, that “Gone are the days of ‘we’ and ‘they’ and ‘those’ and ‘other’ in matters such as these. We have embraced globalization, challenging and demanding as it is and not without reservation and some pain here and there, but, overall, wholeheartedly. For all of us, there is no turning back in this regard. What this means should be obvious: “we are all in this together.”

Continuing with this theme in response to a question as to whether the financial crisis spells the end of capitalism as the world knows it, he said the answer is no. There was an extended debate on this point. During the course of it, he indicated that he agreed with the following view. “There are too many people with vested interests in the long prevailing global economic system of capitalism as people have known it for so long to expect this to happen. The power and determination of vested interests to do whatever is necessary to preserve their benefits, and the system with which they have been associated and the benefits were derived, are not to be under-estimated. The giant beneficiaries of the existing system know what has brought them their success. They can be counted on to fight for the protection and perpetuation of those interests. It cannot be said that this particular economic system, its flaws and failures of which there are many notwithstanding, has been a net failure to the world, at least not yet.”

As for the GCC countries’ own less than perfect financial regulatory structures, institutions, and systems, the minister was quick to acknowledge that there have been shortcomings. He was equally quick, however, to insist that from everything of which he was aware, efforts are already underway to enhance the authority and power of those tasked with oversight and reporting any excesses or people’s attempts at being granted exceptions.

The minister was also quick to imply that however further the world’s current descending economic spiral may fall before it hits bottom and is corrected, he does not see the likelihood of any catastrophic economic consequences for the GCC region as a whole or any of the GCC’s member-countries. He gave as reason that the past five years’ boom times and unparalleled economic, commercial, and financial growth has positioned their treasuries to be able to endure any conceivable economic or financial hardship for at least the next five years. If true, and I have no reason to believe that it is not, this would place the GCC countries fiscally, monetarily, and perhaps also in terms of the prospects for domestic political stability and security in a stronger and healthier position than most of the world’s other countries.

What the minister did concede, however, was the following. He admitted that, “There may have to be ‘amendments’ and ‘alterations’ to the provisions of a range of economic, commercial, and investment projects and contracts in the near-term future to account for the recent crisis.” He mentioned such areas as real estate and the construction sector in particular. Doing so, he said, would be necessary, “In order to take in to account the altered circumstances in which these projects were conceptualized, negotiated, and agreed to, on one hand, and the need to accommodate the straightened economic realities and belt-tightening demands that have intervened in the interim, on the other.”

SUSRIS: In what ways will the deliberations and conclusions reached at the Summit be important to US-GCC relations?

ANTHONY: They will be very important, just as they have always been since the GCC’s inception. The GCC countries have long been America’s de facto allies and strategic partners, dating back to pre-Cold War days. Their partnership with the United States is far from new, and it is multi-faceted.

At one point, US relations with the GCC countries, going back before the GCC’s formations in 1981, hinged to a significant degree on Cold War needs and interests. The GCC countries were allies of the US and NATO in that era, sharing similar concerns and foreign policy goals, and united in a common ideological and societal resistance to Communism.

Throughout all this history, the GCC countries retained a major significance for the US because of their status as producers and exporters of sixty per cent of the world’s known hydrocarbons. Adding to this importance they remaining guardians of the world’s most strategically vital maritime passage, as these hydrocarbons are shipped daily through in the Hormuz Strait.

They have also managed in a short period of time to become centers of world class transportation – for example, Emirates Airways, Al-Ittihad Airways, and Qatar Airways. Simultaneously, they have developed burgeoning tourism industries and have become a hub for imports and re-exports to nearly two billion people in Africa, the Indian Subcontinent, and Central Asia.

The financial importance of the GCC countries has continued to increase. They are the possessors of vast amounts of accumulated capital in the form of sovereign wealth funds and the providers of financial services and investors globally on a scale that has no rival or peer elsewhere in the developing world. More recently, they have evolved into thriving centers for higher education, training, and human resource development.

SUSRIS: Thank you, Doctor Anthony, for sharing your insights on Gulf affairs on the eve of the GCC Summit.

Editor’s Note:

Each fall the National Council on US-Arab Relations brings together a distinguished group of diplomats, government officials, business people, military officials, scholars and others to tackle the thorny issues surrounding US-Arab relations. SUSRIS has provided AUSPC speakers’ remarks, which touch on the Saudi-US relationship, to you for over the last five years. In keeping with that practice we again provide for your consideration a collection of AUSPC presentations.

Today we present the remarks of Dr. Kenneth Katzman, Senior Middle East Analyst for the U.S. Congress. During 1996 and between July 2001-March 2002, he was assigned to the Majority Staff of the House International Relations Committee to work on Middle East issues. Between 1985-1989, he served as an analyst for the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, where he was tasked with preparing written reports for U.S. Middle East policymakers on leadership dynamics in Iran, Iraq, and the Persian Gulf states, and with briefing senior U.S. officials. He has also written numerous articles in various outside publications, including “The Warriors of Islam: Iran’s Revolutionary Guard,” and papers on the ballistic missile capabilities of Iran and Iraq for the Commission to Assess the Ballistic Missile Threat to the United States (“Rumsfeld Commission”) in 1988. During 2004, Dr. Katzman was a consultant to CBS News on Al Qaeda and related Islamic extremist groups. He is quoted frequently on the Persian Gulf in the U.S. press and appears frequently on Middle Eastern news stations including Alam TV, Al Hurra, Al Arabiyya, LBC, and Al Akhbariya

Dr. Katzman was joined on the panel by Gen. Brent Scowcroft, Mr. Wayne White and Gen. Joseph P. Hoar. Their remarks will be provided separately. The panel was introduced by Dr. John Duke Anthony, President of the National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations.

Additional AUSPC sessions which address U.S. and Saudi issues will be provided by SUSRIS in the coming days.

17th ANNUAL ARAB-U.S. POLICYMAKERS CONFERENCE
“Transitioning the White House: Challenges and Opportunities for Arab-U.S. Relations”
October 30-31, 2008 | Washington, DC

Iran Capturing Iraq
Dr. Kenneth Katzman

[DR. JOHN DUKE ANTHONY] We now have Dr. Kenneth Katzman who’s the senior specialist, writing reports and advising members of Congress on issues pertaining to Iran, Iraq, Arab-Israeli conflict, and other transnational issues. He’s prolific in the voluminous reports that he prepares that are accessable to people engaged in foreign affairs, policy analysts, policy makers, and policy implementers. Dr. Katzman.

[KATZMAN] Thank you John, and thank you for having me again. I always enjoy speaking before these great conferences. And Happy Halloween everybody.

In regards to Sheika Lubna’s great speech at lunch, Iran is a neighbor of the UAE. It’s a neighbor that’s sitting on three islands owned by the UAE, but it is a neighbor to the UAE, that’s correct.

The title of my talk today, and I have a few extra copies, is called “Iran Capturing Iraq.” “Iran capturing Iraq.”

I’ve been asked to address Iran’s influence in Iraq. With the conventional military and WMD threat from Saddam removed, Iran now seeks to insure that Iraq can never again become a threat to Iran, whether U.S. forces are in Iraq or not. I used to ask, with panels like this, two years ago, I would ask my peers on the panel does Iran want the United States in Iraq or do they want us out of Iraq? And the answer that would universally be given two years ago is both, or neither.

Well now I think the answer is becoming clear, clearer. Having secured Shia control over Iraq, Iran now — they were ambivalent two years ago until Shia control was consolidated — now that it is consolidated, Iran wants the United States out of Iraq. I think that’s becoming clearer. By supporting Shia factions, Iran’s influence in Iraq has at times hindered U.S. stabilization efforts and has heightened the threat of U.S. perception threat of Iran generally.

However, Iran is now itself facing difficult choices because its Shia protégés in Iraq are now at odds with each other. This even Iran did not expect. During 2003 to 2005, Iran calculated that it suited its interests to support the entry of Shiite Islamic factions into a U.S. led election process, because the overwhelming majority of Shia, numerical majority, would produce a Shia government, which is exactly what happened.

Iran in fact helped assemble the Shia Islamic block called the United Iraqi Alliance, which includes the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, the Dawa Party, and the faction of Muqtada al Sadr. A senior Dawa leader is Prime Minister, Nouri Maliki. Several leaders of the Supreme Council control other positions. The Sadr faction’s ties to Iran were initially limited after the fall of Saddam because Sadr’s family was not in exile in Iran or elsewhere. Sadr’s family was still in Iraq, and his ties to the Iranian leadership were not formed really at all.

It’s only later that Iran, when Iran started to really reach out to Muqtada al Sadr when they saw that Sadr had his Mahdi Army, which I’ll call the J Shah Mahdi or JAM. It was becoming a powerful force and Iran said that this is a force that we cannot ignore. We need to place some bets also on this group. And Iran began supplying arms to the JAM through the Quds force, the export of the revolution force of the revolutionary guard, which it’s the unit that goes abroad. It started really as the unit that helped form Hezbollah’s militia. And it evolved to a sort of a force that goes abroad and helps Shia movements, not only Shia, but movements outside of Iran.

What happened though was Iran’s strategy, which was going so well, actually tripped up Iran in 2007. Why is that? Because the United States, President Bush, decided on the troop surge. And he told Prime Minister Maliki we are going to help stabilize this deteriorating situation, but in exchange you must allow us to go after Sadr and the JAM. Maliki really had no viable choice other than to say okay. And what happened was the United States, the troop surge forces, started going after the JAM. And what happened, Sadr broke with Maliki, the alliance unraveled, Sadr pulled out of the United Iraqi Alliance, he pulled his five ministers out of the cabinet, and we began getting battling between the JAM and the government forces, Shia dominated government forces throughout southern Iraq.

It is primarily Iran’s arming and training of the JAM that has added to U.S./Iran tensions over Iran’s nuclear program and broader regional influence. And I, where I may differ with Wayne, is that the key threat from an Iranian nuclear program is not necessarily that Iran is going to attack Israel or use the nuclear weapon, the threat is that Iran will be emboldened because no one will be able to retaliate against Iran. It will be emboldened to further all the aggressive policies in the region that Iran has been pursuing. That’s the key, I think, drawback to a nuclear Iran.

We have of course specific evidence that Iran is shipping numerous types of weapons to the JAM. General Petraeus has testified to this, and we now have some of these JAM elements consolidating it to what’s called special companies or special groups. Some call them rogue breakaways of the JAM. I happen to consider them still JAM, who are still simply continuing radical activity.

And so I described this break between Maliki and Sadr. Now provincial elections are scheduled in Iraq for early 2009. And Maliki in advance of that wants to suppress the strength of the Sadr faction, and this I think explains why he launched his offensive on Basra against the JAM in 2008, and I totally concur with Wayne that part of the reason the government forces did gain the upper hand was not their own ability but really Petraeus and the U.S. military and the British military supporting them. I think had that not happened, the Iraqi, the ISF was very close to fracturing in Basra and would’ve had to retreat in humiliation.

So Sadr seeing what’s going on has now tried to retrench and is bringing in the JAM and saying they will do political, social, and cultural work. Some U.S. commanders say they’ve gone to Iran; they’re waiting to come back. Some are maybe coming back, trying to influence perhaps the elections, the provincial elections.

Now, how is Iran consolidating? You know, to head a lot of this off, the United States decided actually on direct talks with Iran. This was unprecedented. The United States since the revolution had not really had direct talks but we’ve had them in Baghdad with Iranian representatives. And those seem to be not making too much progress but at least they were on going. Now in May, Iran seeing that it is basically consolidated control of its protégés in Iraq has said we will not attend these talks anymore. And I think this reflects Iran’s growing confidence in its position in Iraq that it no longer feels it has to talk to Ambassador Crocker.

Iran has also exploited its close ties to build broad political and economic influence. Iran has pumped lots of loans into Iraq. We’ve had at least two increments of one billion dollars each in credits extended. And not only is Iran doing development work in the south, it’s also doing development work up in the north with the Kurds in the Kurdish area, building roads and doing construction. So Iran is not just pursuing a Shia only strategy, a Shia Arab only strategy, it is also pursuing to some extent a north-south strategy in expanding its tentacles inside Iraq.
Now the big test is the U.S./Iraq strategic pact and I think it is clear from this Iran wants us out of Iraq. Iran is working overtime to scotch the pact entirely. Iran is making a lot of progress to do that. They stiffened the resolve of Maliki and his allies to insist on a timetable for U.S. withdrawal on that pact. President Bush acceded to that request, to that demand really. But now even that is not enough. Iran continues to try to pressure various parliamentarians. General Odierno said Iran is trying to bribe Iraqi parliamentarians to vote against the pact if it gets to the Parliament. And Iran is also continuing to help the Sadr faction, which is going against the pact on the street level, with regular demonstrations against the pact every week.

So Iran is really using all its leverage to try to scotch the U.S./Iraq Strategic Pact. And this is because Iran does not want Iraq to serve as a potential aircraft carrier for a U.S. potential strike, not that any strike is imminent or going to happen, but Iran wants to make sure that the United States does not capture Iraq. Iran feels that it has captured Iraq, the title of my talk, and it is continuing to tighten that grip and the Arab-Persian differences that many said would cause the two to split apart have not materialized. Maliki has visited Iran three times. He has invited Ahmadinejad to visit, who visited in March. And all the signs are that Iran is increasingly tightening its grip over Iraq. Thank you.

Arab-US Policymakers Conference (AUSPC 2008)

Transcription Services by Ryan & Associates

About Dr. Kenneth Katzman

As a specialist with the Congressional Research Service, Dr. Katzman serves as Senior Middle East Analyst for the U.S. Congress, with special emphasis on Iran, Iraq, the Persian Gulf states, Afghanistan, and terrorist groups operating in the Middle East and South Asia. He provides reports and briefings to Members of Congress and their staffs on U.S. policy and legislation on these countries and issues. He has also written numerous articles in various outside publications, including The Warriors of Islam: Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, and given numerous official presentations and briefings at conferences and in bilateral meetings throughout the Islamic world. During 1996 and July 2001-March 2002, he was assigned to the Majority Staff of the House International Relations Committee to work on Middle East issues, including hearings and legislation.

Among other major publications, Dr. Katzman wrote working papers on the ballistic missile capabilities of Iran and Iraq for the Commission to Assess the Ballistic Missile Threat to the United States (“Rumsfeld Commission”) in 1988. In late 1999, the Atlantic Council published his study, U.S.-Iran Relations: An Analytic Compendium of U.S. Policies, Laws, and Regulations. Dr. Katzman is quoted frequently on the Persian Gulf in the U.S. press and he appears frequently on Middle Eastern news stations including Alam TV, Al Hurra, Al Arabiyya, LBC, and Al Akhbariya. During 2004, he was a consultant to CBS News on Al Qaeda and related Islamic extremist groups.

Dr. Katzman holds a PhD in Political Science from New York University, 1991. His dissertation was on “Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps: Radical Ideology Despite Institutionalization in the Islamic Republic.” From 1989 to 1991, he was an analyst for Defense Systems, Inc., in McLean, Virginia, where he wrote analyses for clients in the defense and policy analysis community. Among these projects were those focused on military and security forces in Afghanistan, Saddam Husayn’s intentions, and the combat effectiveness of several Middle Eastern military forces. During 1985-1989, he served as an analyst for the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, where he was tasked with preparing written reports for U.S. Middle East policymakers on leadership dynamics in Iran, Iraq, and the Persian Gulf states, and with briefing senior U.S. officials.

For more information: CRS

Editor’s Note:

Each fall the National Council on US-Arab Relations brings together a distinguished group of diplomats, government officials, business people, military officials, scholars and others to tackle the thorny issues surrounding US-Arab relations. SUSRIS has provided AUSPC speakers’ remarks, which touch on the Saudi-US relationship, to you for over the last five years. In keeping with that practice we again provide for your consideration a collection of AUSPC presentations.

Today we present the remarks of Ambassador Barbara Bodine. She is Director of the Scholars in the Nation’s Service Initiative and a Diplomat-in-Residence at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University. Ambassador Bodine spent over 30 years in the U.S. Foreign Service focusing primarily on Arabian Peninsula and Persian Gulf issues.

She served as Ambassador to the Republic of Yemen 1997-2001, in which she saw enhanced support for democratization and increased security and counterterrorism cooperation, the establishment of a coast guard, resumption of Fulbright Scholarships for Yemeni students, initiation of a $40 million/year economic assistance and development program, and an indigenous landmine awareness and demining program. In addition to several assignments in the State Department’s Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, she was Associate Coordinator for Counterterrorism Operations and subsequently acting overall Coordinator for Counterterrorism, Director of East African Affairs, Dean of the School of Professional Studies at the Foreign Service Institute, and Senior Advisor for International Security Negotiations and Agreements in the Bureau of Political-Military Affairs.

She is also the President of the Mine Action Group, America, a global NGO that provides technical expertise for the removal of remnants of conflict worldwide. Ambassador Bodine has also taught at the University of California, Santa Barbara and lectured at universities and civic groups across the country and abroad as well as a frequent commentator on NPR, the BBC and other media.

Ambassador Bodine was joined on the AUSPC Defense Cooperation panel by Doctor Anthony Cordesman, Mr. Jeffrey C. McCray, and Mr. Christopher Blanchard. Their remarks will be provided separately. The panel was chaired by Rear Admiral Harold J. Bernsen.

Additional AUSPC sessions which address U.S. and Saudi issues will be provided by SUSRIS in the coming days.

17th ANNUAL ARAB-U.S. POLICYMAKERS CONFERENCE
“Transitioning the White House: Challenges and Opportunities for Arab-U.S. Relations”
October 30-31, 2008 | Washington, DC

Opening the Aperture on Defense Cooperation
Ambassador Barbara Bodine

[BERNSEN] I first met our next speaker when she was sitting behind a desk as the Deputy Chief of Mission in Kuwait, I think it was 1992. Since that time Ambassador Barbara Bodine has accomplished a great deal and has been in some extraordinarily demanding positions.

She currently is Diplomat in Residence at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University and she divides her time between Princeton and her home here in Alexandria. Please welcome Ambassador Bodine.

[AMBASSADOR BARBARA BODINE] There’s actually been a very interesting progression on this panel and I want to thank Mr. Blanchard for providing me the lead in for what I wanted to talk about. What I want to do is take the whole question of defense cooperation and look at it from a slightly different point of view. Not so much military cooperation but defense cooperation and those are very different.

I think defense has been treated, defense cooperation has been treated increasingly far too narrowly. We’re looking at things; we’re looking at places. And I don’t discount the need for the military cooperation and the sales cooperation that’s been well outlined here, nor do I discount at all the threats that the Gulf States face. The Gulf has become over the last several years, certainly since I was in Kuwait, almost a continuous string of U.S. military facilities — bases and access that range all the way from Oman to Kuwait. The sales figures Doctor Cordesman has very well outlined those. They are astronomical and we’ve had longstanding engagements with the militaries. Mr. Blanchard has described them as legacy arrangements.

These are not insignificant and they are not unimportant and they do need to go forward but I do think we need to open the aperture considerably when we think about defense cooperation both from our point of view and from the Gulf States’ point of view. The Gulf States are going to need a guarantor but we are not necessarily going to be the sole provider of those guarantees. We need to get away from what I think has become an overly militarized and slightly narcissistic U.S. approach to the Gulf. There was at least one chuckle on that.

The dependency has really become a far greater and far broader interdependency between us and the Gulf. Oil is talked about, talked about a great deal in the current campaign. It’s yammered about almost continuously. We are either going to become independent of Middle East states or those who don’t like us, and unfortunately sometimes those are used interchangeably. But it is oil and energy in its broadest sense. The trade has been talked about. The financial interdependence has been demonstrated in very real terms in the last few months.

First, with a number of the Gulf states, with the Sovereign Wealth Funds, bailing us out and now as we’ve read in the press, many of them facing their own very significant financial problems. We continue to look at the Gulf States, however, as tin cuppers. I think it was General Wesley Clark the other day who talked about working with the Gulf States to prop up Pakistan. So we still see them as where we go see tin cupping.

We also have greater political interdependence with the Gulf States. We have a sharing, an enduring sharing of goals. We still both are deeply dependent on the free flow of oil and energy, and this was recently stated of imports as well as exports. The territorial integrity and sovereignty of these states are both obviously critically important to them and critically important to us, and our friends and allies around the world, as is the prevention of a hostile power taking over the Gulf.

Now that was originally the Soviet Union, that is well passed, but the issue of hostile powers and hostile forces is still very relevant. But these terms have changed over the thirty-plus years since they were first formally articulated in the Carter Doctrine.

The free flow of oil as I said is now also the free flow of investment, imports and other trade. Territorial integrity and sovereignty is not simply that from outside powers, but the domestic stability security and long-term legitimacy in these states. And as I said the hostile regional powers are not just external powers such as the old Soviet Union but both regional hegemons and domestic threats.

These are not issues that can be dealt with by military cooperation solely. I think one of the key elements of those of us from Princeton called the Cannon of Saint David of Petraus is that these are 80 percent political and only 20 percent military. And therefore I think when we start looking at defense cooperation we have to redefine it in more broadly political terms, diplomatic terms, more in terms of a dialogue and less of a lecture series and more in terms of partnerships.

The Gulfies do want to play. I’m sorry. I mean that term affectionately. The Gulf states do want to and have begun to play a far greater regional role and we need to recognize this. Their broadening financial power has led to a greater political engagement around the region. Many of them have taken on some very productive, constructive roles in conflict resolutions in the region. And much of their investment is now leading to some job creation in the region and the investments that the U.S. itself would not do but would certainly do to prop up our broader interest.

The media revolution that has taken place within the Gulf has changed the political dialogue and the political landscape in the entire region in ways that are fundamentally positive and also need to be engaged and supported. Do they want our continued engagement? There are some very interesting reports that many of you may have read from Brookings and the Council on Foreign Relations last spring where they made it very clear that they still do want our engagement and our support and our encouragement on fundamental issues such as reform and liberalization, political, social and commercial. But they want it done again more as a dialogue, more as a partnership and less as a lecture series.
We also need to look at the size of the footprint of our military. This is what I mean by the militarization of our foreign policy. It is not sustainable in the long-term. It is not necessary in the long-term and I think one of the primary challenges of the new Administration is going to be to enter into some real strategic discussions that go beyond strictly military. On how we can better engage, reduce our footprint down to something around the 1989 level, build up their external defense capabilities, but more than that look to other partners who might be able to come into the Gulf and provide some of the external guarantee role that we have played in the past.

I am not in any way suggesting you return to the twin pillars program. I was around for that and I don’t really think that is operable. But what I would hope would be the first task of the new administration would be to move away from a defense cooperation mentality that is strictly based on military presence, military sales and engagement with local militaries, and broadens the aperture, political, financial, economic and diplomatic across the board.

These are states that have been good friends of ours for 20 or 30 years. We share strategic goals, we share strategic missions, but we need to change the tone, the structure and the content of the dialogue.

Thank you.

Arab-US Policymakers Conference (AUSPC 2008)

Transcription Services by Ryan & Associates

About Ambassador Barbara Bodine

Barbara Bodine is Director of the Scholars in the Nation’s Service Initiative and a Diplomat-in-Residence at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University.

Ambassador. Bodine’s over 30 years in the US Foreign Service were spent primarily on Arabian Peninsula and great Persian Gulf issues, specifically US bilateral and regional policy, strategic security issues, counterterrorism, and governance and reform. Her tour as Ambassador to the Republic of Yemen 1997-2001, saw enhanced support for democratization and increased security and counterterrorism cooperation, the establishment of a coast guard, resumption of Fulbright Scholarships for Yemeni students, initiation of a $40 million/year economic assistance and development program, and an indigenous landmine awareness and demining program. Ms. Bodine also served in Baghdad as Deputy Principal Officer during the Iran-Iraq War, Kuwait as Deputy Chief of Mission during the Iraqi invasion and occupation of 1990-1991, and again, seconded to the Department of Defense, in Iraq in 2003 as the senior State Department official and the first coalition coordinator for reconstruction in Baghdad and the Central governorates.

In addition to several assignments in the State Department’s Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, she was Associate Coordinator for Counterterrorism Operations and subsequently acting overall Coordinator for Counterterrorism, Director of East African Affairs, Dean of the School of Professional Studies at the Foreign Service Institute, and Senior Advisor for International Security Negotiations and Agreements in the Bureau of Political-Military Affairs.

Since leaving the government, Ambassador Bodine has been Senior Research Fellow and Director of the Governance Initiative in the Middle East at the Kennedy School, Harvard University, Fellow at the School’s Center for Public Leadership and the Institute of Politics, and the Robert Wilhelm Fellow at MIT’s Center for International Studies. She has also taught at the University of California, Santa Barbara and lectured at universities and civic groups across the country and abroad as well as a frequent commentator on NPR, the BBC and other media.

Ambassador Bodine is the recipient of a number of awards, including the Secretary’s Award for valor for her work in occupied Kuwait, the Secretary’s Career Achievement Award and Distinguished Service Award, the Distinguished Alumni Award from UC Santa Barbara, and has been recognized for her work by other agencies. She is the President of the Mine Action Group, America, a global NGO that provides technical expertise for the removal of remnants of conflict worldwide.

Ms. Bodine is a graduate of the University of California, Santa Barbara, Phi Beta Kappa and magna cum laude, and the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. She is a past Regent of the University of California.

For more information: Princeton

Editor’s Note:

King Abdullah presented the Kingdom’s 2009 budget yesterday. It will be the largest budget in Saudi Arabia’s history with $126.7 billion in expenditures based on revenues of $109.3 billion and a deficit of $17.3 billion. The 2009 budget, according to a Saudi Gazette report, “will continue to focus on: optimizing use of available resources giving priority to projects that ensure sustainable and balanced development as well as more employment opportunities and job creation, infrastructure and social services, especially education, health, social affairs, municipal services, water and sewage, and roads, projects related to science and technology and e-government capital expenditures to boost economic activities and enhance the prospects of economic growth.”

Today we provide for your consideration an overview of the budget release news in the form of an article by Khalil Hanware and P.K. Abdul Ghafour of Arab News and, in a separate emailing, analysis by SABB’s John Sfakianakis ["An expansionary budget that builds confidence"], which also appeared in Arab News. We also suggest you review the linked articles, from SUSRIS and elsewhere the follow below for more background information on Saudi budget, especially Brad Bourland’s report on the 2008 budget.

King Unveils Visionary Budget
Khalil Hanware & P.K. Abdul Ghafour I Arab News

Saudi Arabia [Mon., Dec 22] announced an SR475 billion ($126.7 billion) economic stimulus budget for 2009, allocating more money for education and increasing public spending by 15.8 percent (SR65 billion), despite a sharp decline in oil prices that have dipped to $43 a barrel.

Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah, who unveiled the Kingdom’s largest-ever budget during a Cabinet session at Khoraim Gardens, said a record SR225 billion has been allocated for new projects and SR122 billion is slated for education, training and scholarship.

The king said the budget allocation for new projects in 2009 was 36 percent more than the allocations made in 2008.

“The amount is three times more than the allocations made for new projects in the beginning of the 8th Five-Year Development Plan four years ago,” he said.

The 2009 budget projected revenues at SR410 billion, leaving a deficit of SR65 billion.

The Finance Ministry said Saudi Arabia was expected to make a record surplus budget of SR590 billion in 2008 with revenues projected at SR1.1 trillion and expenditures at SR510 billion.

The new projects that received budget allocations in 2009 include Princess Noura bint Abdul Rahman University, the largest women-only university in the world, and King Saud University for Health Sciences and their branches.

The new budget has also earmarked SR52 billion for health services and social development, SR49 billion for water, municipality, agriculture, industry and infrastructure, and SR19 billion for transport and communication.

“We have allocated large amounts for new road projects and for the maintenance of existing roads,” the king said.

He urged ministers and officials to implement the projects approved by the budget within the specified time in order to enhance services required by citizens and residents and boost the Kingdom’s overall development.

Addressing the budget session of the Cabinet, Finance Minister Ibrahim Al-Assaf said the Kingdom’s gross domestic product (GDP) in 2008 was expected to grow 22 percent to SR1.75 trillion in current prices and 4.2 percent in stable prices. The oil sector was expected to grow 34.9 percent and private sector by 8 percent in current prices.

Preliminary estimates indicate that the Kingdom’s public debt will drop to around SR237 billion at the end of fiscal year 2008, which represents 13.5 percent of projected GDP for 2008 compared with 18.7 percent in 2007.

Referring to the new budget allocation for education, Al-Assaf said SR9 billion would be set aside for King Abdullah Education Development Project and for the creation of the Education Development Holding Company. Allocations have also been made for 1,500 new schools. The National Plan for Science and Technology will receive SR8 billion.

Under the new budget, 86 new hospitals with a total of 11,750 beds will be established while the Saudi Red Crescent Society would be transformed into an authority.

“Allocations have also been made for poverty-reduction programs,” the minister said.

Al-Assaf said budget allocations have been made for the two industrial cities in Jubail and Yanbu. The Real Estate Development Fund would receive a shot in the arm through replenishment of resources worth SR25 billion over the next five years.

The government will also deposit SR10 billion in the Saudi Credit Bank. The public lending institutions would disburse SR40 billion among the beneficiaries of the lending programs.

Economy and Planning Minister Khaled Al-Gosaibi said the new budget that focuses on an economic stimulus plan was the best means to offset the impact of the global financial crisis and the economic recession. “The large-scale public spending of this size will play a positive role in increasing demand for goods and services and expanding liquidity to finance consumption, production and investment.”

Economic analysts described the budget as market-friendly and said it would boost the Kingdom’s economy.

“The Saudi economy is one of the most resilient among the world economies. It is well positioned for growth despite the global recession. The priorities given in the budget seem to address the challenges facing the economy,” said Adnan Soufi, managing director of SEDCO Financial Investments Group.

Faisal Alsayrafi, managing director and CEO of the Jeddah-based Financial Transaction House (FTH), was also bullish about the budget. “If we look at the global economy and what’s happening worldwide, we would definitely find ourselves in a much better situation,” he said.

He said the projected deficit of SR65 billion was due to severe turbulence in oil prices and other factors. However, the generous government spending on mega projects would boost the economy. He referred to King Abdullah’s earlier announcement that the government would spend $400 billion on development projects in the next five years.

“It is true that the deterioration in oil prices has impacted us. However, favorable oil prices in the past did help us build a strong reserve to be used as a cushion in times of need,” he added.

Howard Handy, general manager and chief economist of the Riyadh-based Samba Financial Group, said the government faced many challenges while drawing up the budget because of the uncertainty surrounding oil prices. “For 2009, the government faces the added complication of a much weaker domestic investment environment stemming from the impact of global credit dislocations and declining oil prices,” he said. In 2009, Samba expects the government to increase spending by around 10 percent over this year in its bid to bolster confidence and keep infrastructure projects on track. “This is precisely the role that fiscal policy should play in such an unsettled economic environment,” Handy said.

On the recurrent spending front, cooling inflation should help ease pressure on subsidy commitments. Yet with population growth continuing at around 3 percent and a weakened private sector unable to absorb many new job market entrants, upward pressure on current spending will remain considerable, he said.

“The outlook for 2010 is hazy, but a gradual rebound in oil prices and a small gain in Saudi crude production should allow revenue to rise by around 35 percent. Spending will also be stepped up by around 13 percent, but a return to a small surplus of SR19 billion, or 1 percent of the GDP, is likely,” Handy added.

There was no immediate impact of the budget on the Saudi stock market. That was because the budget announcement came much after the market closed. The Tadawul All-Share Index (TASI) closed 26.04 points down at 4,748.04 with turnover of SR4 billion.

Source: Arab News

Editor’s Note:

King Abdullah presented the Kingdom’s 2009 budget yesterday. It will be the largest budget in Saudi Arabia’s history with $126.7 billion in expenditures based on revenues of $109.3 billion and a deficit of $17.3 billion. The 2009 budget, according to a Saudi Gazette report, “will continue to focus on: optimizing use of available resources giving priority to projects that ensure sustainable and balanced development as well as more employment opportunities and job creation, infrastructure and social services, especially education, health, social affairs, municipal services, water and sewage, and roads, projects related to science and technology and e-government capital expenditures to boost economic activities and enhance the prospects of economic growth.”

Today we provide for your consideration analysis by SABB’s John Sfakianakis ["An expansionary budget that builds confidence"], which appeared in Arab News. We also have provided an overview of the budget release news in the form of an article by Khalil Hanware and P.K. Abdul Ghafour of Arab News in a separate emailing.

We also suggest you review the linked articles, from SUSRIS and elsewhere the follow below for more background information on Saudi budget, especially Brad Bourland’s report on the 2008 budget.

An Expansionary Budget that Builds Confidence
John Sfakianakis

The 2009 budget offers two surprises. First, it is expansionary at a time when the global economy is in a spending turmoil. Saudi Arabia outlined a spending program that should offer encouragement to the private sector. Second, actual spending in 2008 increased by SR100 billion ($26.66 billion), which is more than 24 percent of budgeted spending.

The authorities are quite aware that 2009 will be a difficult year for oil revenues and a deficit is forecast of SR65 billion. This could easily be covered by tapping into the huge foreign asset pool of more than $450 billion in foreign assets managed by the Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency (SAMA).

People tend to have short memories, hence we should not brush aside the fact that in 2008 Saudi Arabia registered its largest surplus in its history (SR590 billion) while other countries in the G-20 are trying to contain their budget deficits and some are even on the verge of receiving International Monetary Fund (IMF) bailouts.

Oil revenues are estimated to reach SR1.13 trillion in 2008, another record high for the Kingdom. Also, we tend to ignore that Saudi Arabia could cover its expected budget deficit if oil revenues remain above SR450 billion in 2009, not an entirely implausible scenario. The budget is calculated at an oil price of $37 per barrel. The only downside risk to this scenario is oil production. That will remain the biggest issue going forward as OPEC tries to cut additional production.

This is not saying that there are no challenges that lie ahead. From the preliminary government estimates, it is obvious that real GDP for 2008 declined more than most had expected. A real GDP of 4.2 percent is certainly more than the 3.4 percent growth witnessed in 2007, but certainly bordering its capacity to generate sustainable employment growth figures.

Real GDP did not fall in 2008 due to merely a decline in oil output but clearly also due to a decline in nonoil private sector growth that witnessed a drop from 5.8 percent in 2007 to 4.3 percent in 2008.

The decline in nonprivate sector activity took place against the backdrop of a substantial increase in actual spending. It is exactly these figures that compelled the authorities to step in and announce an expansionary budget.

Given the limited financing opportunities for 2009 for the Saudi private sector globally and regionally, the authorities need to deploy their own fiscal measure to contain private sector contraction. Such measures are not new. Although counter fiscal measures in the 1980s and 1990s were evidenced, the budget for 2009 is by far the largest. This can be clearly observed through the amount of announced capital expenditure that will be undertaken in 2009.

Capital expenditure is set to increase by 36 percent in support of the government’s infrastructure program that should have obvious trickle-down effects for the rest of the economy and especially the private sector. The increase in capital expenditure is a marked departure from previous periods when oil revenues dropped dramatically. For example, in the 1998 budget when oil revenues dropped by 50 percent, capital spending fell by 14 percent.

Inflation, which has been of increasing worry to many, seems to be on a fast and declining trend. An inflation rate of 9.2 percent this year is still very high compared to Saudi Arabia’s average inflation of 2.3 percent in 2006 or 0.5 percent in 2005.

Going forward, the challenge is not inflation but growth. As we are going through one of the deepest deflationary periods in the global economy, Saudi Arabia is set to become a net importer of deflation. Hence, inflation should fall in Saudi Arabia in 2009. Of acute importance are the competition mechanisms of the economy so consumers feel the benefit of lower import costs. Of particular importance is the role of the newly created Consumer Protection Agency by the Ministry of Commerce and Industry.

Government debt has been reduced which is a good sign although we believe that some debt is not too bad in order to manage liquidity. Debt at 13.5 percent to GDP is now at a very healthy rate.

Last but not the least, the budget outlays continue to place emphasis on the critical sectors of the economy, including education, health, infrastructure and municipal services. All of the above received additional funding that should affect citizen’s life as well as create the mechanisms for sustainable development.

There are often two errors made by many when they try to account for the efforts of the Kingdom to improve its physical infrastructure and human resources. First, that the investments in the above will have an immediate result. Such structural changes take time and are generational alterations. It is easy to build schools and universities but much more time-consuming to retrain the teachers. Little credit has been bestowed on Saudi Arabia for the progress it has made. In 1970, Saudi Arabia had a literacy rate of 15 percent for men and 2 percent for women and by 2005 adult literacy, according to the UNDP, had reached 83 percent and more women than men were going to university.

Second, the accusation that the government is not cognizant of the challenges the Kingdom is facing is an erroneous assumption. The authorities are aware and are taking steps to reverse structural impediments but these take time. The questions that need to be asked now are how the market will react, the degree of actual spending or over-spending the government will undertake in 2009 and how long the global recession will last.

(John Sfakianakis is chief economist at SABB [Saudi British Bank].)

Source: Arab News

Editor’s Note:

King Abdullah presented the Kingdom’s 2009 budget yesterday. It will be the largest budget in Saudi Arabia’s history with $126.7 billion in expenditures based on revenues of $109.3 billion and a deficit of $17.3 billion. The 2009 budget, according to a Saudi Gazette report, “will continue to focus on: optimizing use of available resources giving priority to projects that ensure sustainable and balanced development as well as more employment opportunities and job creation, infrastructure and social services, especially education, health, social affairs, municipal services, water and sewage, and roads, projects related to science and technology and e-government capital expenditures to boost economic activities and enhance the prospects of economic growth.”

This SUSRIS IOI provides a report from Jadwa Investment’s Chief Economist, Brad Bourland, released overnight following the unveiling of the 2009 budget. In it, among other analyses of the budget, Jadwa forecasts a SR89 billion budget surplus for the coming budget year, based on their forecast of $66 per barrel of Saudi crude and production of 8.1 million barrels per day.

Elsewhere in your inbox this morning you will find an overview of the budget release news in the form of an article by Khalil Hanware and P.K. Abdul Ghafour of Arab News and, in a separate emailing, analysis by SABB’s John Sfakianakis ["An expansionary budget that builds confidence"], which also appeared in Arab News. [Links below]

We also suggest you review the linked articles, from SUSRIS and elsewhere the follow below for more background information on Saudi budget, especially Brad Bourland’s report on the 2008 budget.

Saudi Arabia’s 2009 Budget:
Jadwa’s Forecast

Saudi Arabia’s 2009 Budget

The government’s budget for the 2009 fiscal year (31 Dec 2008-30 Dec 2009) was endorsed by the Council of Ministers on December 22. It was drawn up during a period of extreme financial turbulence that has seen the global economy slip into recession and oil prices fall by over 80 percent since July. Nonetheless, the government has increased spending compared with the budgeted total for 2008 in order to push ahead with its investment program. The highlights are:

A deficit of SR65 billion ($17 billion) is projected, based on revenues of SR410 billion and spending of SR475 billion. This is the first time the government has budgeted for a deficit since 2004. Education, healthcare and defense remain the main focus of government spending. Capital expenditure is projected to rise sharply, implying a very small increase in current spending.
The increase in budgeted spending reaffirms the government’s commitment to proceed with its investment program. We think this is sensible given that lower project costs and raw material prices make the investment plans more affordable. It also sends an important signal to investors about the underlying health of the economy and the strength of government finances and should lift confidence, bolstering the stock market. The government’s huge stock of net foreign assets (SAMA’s net foreign assets stood at $44 billion at the end of October) mean that it will have no problem financing a deficit.
A record budget surplus of SR590 was recorded in 2008, with revenues of SR1,100 billion versus expenditure of SR510 billion. This is well in excess of the SR40 billion surplus projected in the budget because oil revenues were far greater than budgeted. Government spending grew by a modest 9 percent.
Preliminary data suggest that economic performance was reasonable in 2008. Real GDP growth picked up to 4.2 percent owing to a rise in oil output. However, non-oil private sector growth slowed to 4.3 percent, the weakest performance since 2003. Bumper oil revenues helped lift the current account surplus to a record $151 billion, though non-oil exports rose by only 10 percent. Average inflation is estimated at 9.2 percent.
We think that oil production of 8.1 million barrels per day at a price for Saudi oil of $44 per barrel ($48 per barrel for WTI) is consistent with the oil revenue projection in the budget. While this is not as conservative as past budgets (WTI is currently $32 per barrel) we still think that the revenue total will be exceeded. Based on our average price forecast for Saudi oil of $66 per barrel during 2009, and factoring in spending in excess of the projected level, we expect a budget surplus of SR89 billion.

Source: Jadwa Investment

Editor’s Note:

Each fall the National Council on US-Arab Relations brings together a distinguished group of diplomats, government officials, business people, military officials, scholars and others to tackle the thorny issues surrounding US-Arab relations. SUSRIS has provided AUSPC speakers’ remarks, which touch on the Saudi-US relationship, to you for over the last five years. In keeping with that practice we again provide for your consideration a collection of AUSPC presentations.

Today we present the remarks of Robert Jordan, who served as U.S. Ambassador to Saudi Arabia during one of the most challenging periods in the relationship between the United States and the Kingdom. As Ambassador from October 2001 Jordan had responsibility in the immediate aftermath of 9/11. Jordan arrived in Riyadh just as the bombing of Taliban and Al Qaeda targets in Afghanistan was beginning and coordination and cooperation between America and the Kingdom was essential in successful prosecution of the U.S. military’s “Operation Enduring Freedom.” He was thrust into an extremely sensitive post at a critical time in the history of both countries.

There would be more challenges as U.S. Ambassador — presenting America’s case to Saudi leaders that Arab-Israeli peace could only advance with someone other than Arafat representing the Palestinian position and that the U.S. case was sound for overthrowing the President of Iraq. Ambassador Jordan pressed for Saudi accession to the World Trade Organization within the U.S. Government, which directly led to its completion after years of foot-dragging. He was the senior American official in the Kingdom when terrorists struck Western compounds in Riyadh in May 2003, resulting in 34 deaths, including 9 Americans. The stunning attack galvanized bilateral cooperation in the war on terror. In October 2003 he completed his posting and returned to Dallas to resume his work in the legal profession.

Ambassador Jordan spoke on a panel which included four American Ambassadors to the Kingdom. He was joined by Ambassadors Ford Fraker, Wyche Fowler and Walter Cutler. Their remarks are provided separately. Check below for links to other AUSPC panels and presentations.

Additional AUSPC sessions which address U.S. and Saudi issues will be provided by SUSRIS in the coming days. For more transcripts online check the index and link below.
17th ANNUAL ARAB-U.S. POLICYMAKERS CONFERENCE
“Transitioning the White House: Challenges and Opportunities for Arab-U.S. Relations”
October 30-31, 2008 | Washington, DC

Saudi-U.S. Cooperation: Building Dialogue
Amb Robert Jordan

[AMBASSADOR ROBERT JORDAN] Thank you very much for allowing me to participate in this conference. It is an honor to be on the podium with such distinguished colleagues. I will tell you every time I visit the embassy even now and I look back at those pictures on the wall of all of us as former Ambassadors I say to myself, “How do these guys not age at all from those pictures.” I’m the only one who looks like he’s aged much It may be because I arrived there three weeks after 9-11 and was probably living my life in dog years for a while in the midst of one crisis after another.

One of my very most esteemed interlocutors in those days was a gentleman who had left public service at that time and gone into the private sector, thankfully briefly. Prince Turki al Faisal became a good friend and advisor in many ways during those very difficult years in which we were trying to both preserve the relationship and figure out how we jointly were going to approach the problems of the terrorist threat, the unknown situation within the Kingdom.
I certainly echo what Ford Fraker has said, that the Saudis, particularly after the bombings in Riyadh in May of 2003 and then later the attacks in Jeddah in 2004, stepped up their game in a dramatic way so that we really now have captured or killed virtually all the leadership of Al Qaeda in the Kingdom. Doesn’t mean there is not a threat. There is of course. But the vigilance that we have seen that has been dramatic and even while it is dramatically underreported in the press in the Western world.

When I had agreed to take the job as an Ambassador, which was I guess in the spring and summer in 2001, my dear law partner Jim Baker and I had a conversation. He said, “Bob, be sure that you don’t develop clientitis.” I think we as Ambassadors have all felt that warning from time to time. I think its one thing to develop a warm friendship and sense of kindred with the country in which you serve, but you’re still there to serve American interests.

One of the great pleasures now being a former Ambassador is that you can now visit the country as I do about six or seven times a year and feel warmly a part of the country, to some degree an honorary citizen in a way that you can’t do or can’t feel when you are serving in an official capacity.

While we’re talking about what might happen in the next Administration one piece of advice I would give to whoever the new President will be is to keep Ambassador Ford Fraker for as long as you can convince him to serve. He has done a marvelous job as our Ambassador there.

I visit with him virtually every time I’ve been in the Kingdom and the continuation of the creativity, the seriousness with which he has approached his job is remarkable. His sensitivity, his judgment and his long-time experience in the Middle East would serve Administration well in the future.

One of the things that always troubled me during my tenure as Ambassador was that we never really seemed to have a policy with regard to our relationship with Saudi Arabia. We were always parachuting in Congressmen and Vice Presidents and Cabinet members and they were always asking the Saudis to do this, this or this.

I never perceived that we had an integrated overall policy with respect to the Kingdom. Well, at one point, in 2003, I was riding in a car in a motorcade with Secretary of State Colin Powell. I turned to him and I said, “Mr. Secretary you know this is troubling that we don’t seem to have a policy.” And he said, “Well Bob, as a general I have always told my field generals that one of their jobs is to come up with recommended actions for me and then I’ll decide whether we should implement it or not.” So I said “Great.”

Over the next couple of months my staff and I worked feverishly before the end of my tenure to make a policy recommendation with respect to our relationship with Saudi Arabia. We finally came up with a recommendation that was sent to the President and thankfully I think we are now seeing enormous progress in the form of a Strategic Dialogue, which is now occurring on a regularized basis with the Kingdom.

Twice a year our Secretary of State and the Saudi Foreign Minister meet alternately in Washington and then in Riyadh. We have working groups, many of you may well be participating in them, on all of the significant areas of the relationship. This is a structure that I think was missing in the past and will serve us well in the future. But as we’ve looked toward the future it strikes me that we have many, many reasons to be optimistic.

I was just in Saudi Arabia and saw the new King Abdullah Economic City. I saw the new King Abdullah University for Science and Technology. I think it is becoming operational in March. It’s staggering how fast they have been able to move. I went up to the top of the Kingdom Tower in Riyadh and looked out over the new financial district, which is about the size of or larger than our Wall Street. It’s going to be a staggering new world in Saudi Arabia. But it’s not all bricks and mortar. It’s also commitment that King Abdullah has emphasized to not only economic progress, but social progress and religious progress as well.

I think we all would stand well to visit as often as we can, to encourage our Saudi friends to come here as often as they can. And the advice that I give to my American business clients is get your CEOs over there. You can’t expect to do business over there by telephone or by email. It’s a situation and a culture in which you need to be personally there. You need to show your interest, move your employees there, move their families there.

Finally I would just in closing say that I think it’s very important that we develop, as Ambassador Fraker has, a more liberalized program of American dependents back in the Kingdom, in the Embassy.

The Embassy sets the tone for the rest of the business community in the Kingdom. If we have our families there, they’ll have their families there. This is the situation that we enjoyed long before 9-11 and it’s time, in fact, overdue that we return to that environment. Thank you very much.

Arab-US Policymakers Conference (AUSPC 2008)

Transcription Services by Ryan & Associates

About Ambassador Robert Jordan

Robert Jordan was selected by President George W. Bush to serve as the United States Ambassador to Saudi Arabia at the most critical point in the history of the relationship between our two countries. After Senate confirmation, he served as ambassador from October 2001 through October 2003.

Mr. Jordan took charge of his Mission in the wake of the September 11 attacks that radically affected U.S.-Saudi relations. He led American efforts to enlist Saudi support for removing the Taliban from Afghanistan, ending the regime of Saddam Hussein, and promoting the Middle East peace process. As ambassador, he worked closely with President Bush and Secretary of State Colin Powell in matters such as the historic presidential summit meetings in Crawford, Texas, and Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt.

Mr. Jordan vigorously pursued stronger Saudi collaboration in the war on terrorism and terrorist financing, and advocated promotion of American business, human rights, democracy, and economic reform in the Kingdom, including reforms needed to qualify for Saudi accession to the World Trade Organization.

Resuming his law career at Baker Botts in 2004, Mr. Jordan currently engages in an international business, government relations, and dispute resolution practice. He has served as personal attorney to President George W. Bush and also has advised major corporations in shareholder litigation and in antitrust, corporate governance, and dispute resolution matters. He has participated in engagements involving international transactions in the transportation, security, educational, mining, financial, and energy sectors.

Mr. Jordan is a member of the American Arbitration Association Commercial Panel of Arbitrators, the National Panel of Distinguished Neutrals of the CPR International Institute for Conflict Prevention & Resolution, and The London Court of International Arbitration. A member of the Council on Foreign Relations, he serves as president of the Dallas Committee on Foreign Relations and as vice chairman of the board of directors of the John G. Tower Center for Political Studies. Mr. Jordan also serves on the executive committee of the board of directors of the Center for American and International Law and the advisory board of the Center’s Institute for Transnational Arbitration.

Mr. Jordan serves as Diplomat in Residence and adjunct professor of political science at Southern Methodist University. In 2007 he received the Fellows Award presented by the Dallas Bar Foundation.

Mr. Jordan frequently shares his in-depth experience in international relations in interviews with the major international news media. He has given speeches before the Council on Foreign Relations in New York and Committees on Foreign Relations in Washington, Dallas, Phoenix, Houston, and Chicago, as well as before audiences in London, Riyadh, Jeddah, Dhahran, Beirut, and Rome.

Consequences of the Oil Price Crash
Jean-Francois Seznec

Professor Jean-Francois Seznec of Georgetown University recently spoke with Todd Feinburg about how the crash in world crude oil prices is affecting oil producing countries. Seznec, fresh on the heels of a tour of the region, shares his insights through the Web site “Middle East Interviews,” a nationally syndicated radio talk show hosted by Feinburg. They walked through the consequences of declining oil revenues and the prospects for future oil pricing in Saudi Arabia, Iran, the UAE and elsewhere.

Dr. Seznec is a Visiting Associate Professor at Georgetown University. His research centers on the influence of the Arab-Persian Gulf political and social variables on the financial and oil markets in the region. He has published and lectured extensively and is interviewed regularly on national TV, radio and newspapers, as well as by the foreign media. He is focusing on the industrialization of the Gulf and in particular the growth of the petrochemical industry. He uses his knowledge of business in the Middle East and the United States to further his analysis of the Arab-Persian Gulf.

The “Middle East Interviews” page provides a link to the audio version of Mr. Seznec’s interview on the Todd Feinburg show. You can also follow the links below to many of Seznec’s articles and interviews on SUSRIS and to his books.

“Middle East Interviews” Blog – Jean-Francois Seznec

Editor’s Note:

Each fall the National Council on US-Arab Relations brings together a distinguished group of diplomats, government officials, business people, military officials, scholars and others to tackle the thorny issues surrounding US-Arab relations. SUSRIS has provided AUSPC speakers’ remarks, which touch on the Saudi-US relationship, to you for over the last five years. In keeping with that practice we again provide for your consideration a collection of AUSPC presentations.

Today we present the remarks of Jeff McCray, Vice President of International Marketing for BAE Systems, a merger of British Aerospace and Marconi Electronic Systems. Mr. McCray provided an industry prospective on defense cooperation. He was joined on the Security Cooperation panel by Doctor Anthony Cordesman, Mr. Christopher Blanchard, and Ambassador Barbara Bodine. Their remarks will be provided separately. The panel was chaired by Rear Admiral Harold J. Bernsen.

Additional AUSPC sessions which address U.S. and Saudi issues will be provided by SUSRIS in the coming days.

17th ANNUAL ARAB-U.S. POLICYMAKERS CONFERENCE
“Transitioning the White House: Challenges and Opportunities for Arab-U.S. Relations”
October 30-31, 2008 | Washington, DC

Defense Cooperation
Jeffrey McCray

[BERNSEN] Our next presenter is Mr. Jeff McCray. He is the Vice President for International Marketing at BAE Systems. He is just back from three weeks in the region, which included visits to Dubai and Cairo and he’s going to provide us an industry perspective on defense cooperation.

[JEFF MCCRAY] Good morning and thank you very much, I’d like to open my remarks by thanking Doctor Anthony, and Pat Mancino and the Council for the opportunity to be here with you today and talk about defense cooperation from an industry perspective.

I have to say in response to Doctor Cordesman’s comments, and I will preface my comments by saying that I have not cleared my comments with the rest of the U.S. defense industry so these are probably just my comments. But we tend to look at defense cooperation activities in the Gulf from the perspective of a country-by-country basis.

As a defense contractor there isn’t really a way or a forum to look at defense cooperation on a GCC wide basis. Defense cooperation ranges or can range from the delivery of equipment and services on individual contracts through local assembly, local manufacture programs, to the establishment of long-term partnerships, which we have done in some countries in the region, and potentially to the establishment of joint ventures, which we have also done in various places in the Gulf.

The whole of the defense cooperation arena, if you like, not only in the Gulf but anywhere we operate in the world, from the United States standpoint is governed by the U.S. laws and regulations and defense exports are seen from the U.S. Government’s perspective correctly as an extension of U.S. foreign policy.

As a result, we can probably debate this subject for the rest of the day, let’s not, as a result of that, U.S. companies tend not to lead that debate, we participate in that debate but we follow the U.S. Government’s lead.

Everything we do in the area of defense exports is governed either by the International Traffic in Arms Regulations, the ITAR, which is managed by the Department of State with major inputs, obviously, from the DoD and the individual services or if the product is a commerce product it’s managed by the Commerce regulations, the EAR regulations.

The whole purpose of the U.S. Government’s exports licensing regime, and it is an extensive regime, is that it is in place to do two things. Firstly, protect U.S. warfighters, wherever they are, or wherever they operate, and secondly to support the activities of our allies.

Export licensing is a complicated process that is sometimes a difficult issue to discuss and deal with in terms of our Gulf partners and Gulf customers. But the penalties, if you get it wrong can be draconian. They include fines, loss of the ability to contract with the U.S. government, and potentially if you get it seriously wrong you can go to prison.

As a result of these issues it is sometimes, not always, but I think it is sometimes, easier for larger companies to be actively be involved in the export business and in part that’s because the larger companies can afford the infrastructure of the management capability that you need to deal effectively with the export regime.

However, I should also point out that defense cooperation and exports are not just a one-way street, they can be a two-way street. We haven’t gotten to the point where we own major businesses in the Gulf area yet, but we do as a company own major businesses in the UK, Sweden, Germany, South Africa, and we have numerous examples not of just exporting to those countries but numerous examples of importing technology and products here which have been used to support U.S. defense.

Because we have export licensing regimes in each of the countries where we operate and where we own businesses, anytime we export into the Middle East we have to deal with not only our own export regimes but the export regimes of the other countries where we own businesses.

If I could go back for a minute to the U.S. export-licensing infrastructure. We have seen over the past twelve months a great improvement and here I am comfortable that I speak not only for my own company but for U.S. industry as well. We have seen great improvements over the past 12 months in the areas of responsiveness and the efficiency of requests for exports, requests for technical assistance agreements and export licenses from the State Department in particular. And I think it’s also fair to say that both of the next two prospective Administrations have been in discussion with U.S. defense industry advisory councils and both have been briefed on issues that U.S. defense industries see with the export licensing regime and both prospective Administrations have said very encouraging things about the way they would like to improve that regime. As, I have to say, have every other previous prospective Administration that I am aware of.

To come back to the two-way street, there are certainly benefits to prospective customers of cooperation, defense cooperation, those include obviously the spread of technical and operational skills and knowledge and where we establish manufacturing or cooperative development businesses the growth of employment prospects as well. Before we start any consideration of exports or defense cooperation activities there are some basic questions that I think each U.S. defense contractor has to ask themselves, and we all do. Those include: Is the prospect we’re looking at good for the U.S. warfighter? Is it good for the U.S.? Is it good for our coalition allies? Then, laterally, does it make sense to us as a company?

There are certain areas of technology that lend themselves to cooperation more easily than others. I would propose that certainly from our own experience businesses in the land vehicles side of our business have found greater opportunities and greater ease in establishing either co-production or manufacturing or refurbishment facilities in the Middle East than have our businesses that are involved in, for instance, electronic warfare or platform self-protection. That’s not to say that those kinds of businesses can’t enter into cooperative agreements but it tends to be more difficult. We have undertaken in the past and we do have ongoing cooperative programs in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, Turkey and we, like many other U.S. defense contractors, continue to look for opportunities that make sense to us and obviously make sense to the U.S. Government.

That’s all the comments I have. I’m happy to take questions at the end. Thank you.

Source: Arab-US Policymakers Conference Web Site (AUSPC 2008)

Transcription Services by Ryan & Associates

About Jeffrey McCray

Mr. McCray is Vice President, International Marketing for BAE Systems, a merger of British Aerospace and Marconi Electronic Systems, engaged in the development, delivery, and support of advanced defense and aerospace systems in the air, on land, and at sea. He is responsible for BAE Systems, Inc. marketing activities in Central Europe and the Middle East. Mr. McCray has twenty years of experience in the defense field working with both US and UK companies.

For the past 15 years he has worked in sales and marketing positions of increasing responsibility. For much of this time he has focused on the Middle East, including a three year tour based in Abu Dhabi. In his current position he travels to the region on a regular basis working closely with customers and company offices in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Kuwait, Oman, Bahrain, and Qatar.

Prior to his present position Mr. McCray was Vice-President for International Marketing, responsible for the international sales and marketing of BAE Systems products and services throughout the Middle East and Central Europe. Prior to the BAE-Marconi merger Mr. McCray was Sales Director of Marconi Radar Systems, UK (1997-1999), General Manager, Marconi Prospects, Malaysia (1995-1997), and Marketing Manager for Marconi Electronic Systems, Abu Dhabi, covering the entire Gulf region. Earlier Mr. McCray worked for Ferranti International as Sales Manager, Middle East for Naval C² and Training Systems.

Mr. McCray earned his BA degree in political science at Randolph-Macon College, the CPE designation in British Law at the Royal College of Law, Birmingham, England, and the MSC degree in international relations at the University of Southampton.

For more information: Bae Systems

Editor’s Note:

Each fall the National Council on US-Arab Relations brings together a distinguished group of diplomats, government officials, business people, military officials, scholars and others to tackle the thorny issues surrounding US-Arab relations. SUSRIS has provided AUSPC speakers’ remarks, which touch on the Saudi-US relationship, to you for over the last five years. In keeping with that practice we again provide for your consideration a collection of AUSPC presentations.

Today we present the last of two parts of the AUSPC media panel addressing how the Arab world views the 2008 U.S. President election and transition. The panel was chaired by Dr. Abderrahim Foukara, Washington Bureau Chief for Al Jazeera International; Hisham Melham, Washington correspondent for several media outlets in the Middle East; Dalia Mogahed, Senior Analyst and Executive Director of the Gallup Center of Muslim Studies; and Mohamed Elmenshawy, editor in chief of Taqrir Washington. Part one provides the initial round of discussions among the panelists and part two includes the subsequent open Q and A session. The panel was introduced by Dr. John Duke Anthony, President of the National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations.

Additional AUSPC sessions which address U.S. and Saudi issues will be provided by SUSRIS in the coming days. For more transcripts online check the index and link below.

17th ANNUAL ARAB-U.S. POLICYMAKERS CONFERENCE

“Transitioning the White House: Challenges and Opportunities for Arab-U.S. Relations”
October 30-31, 2008 | Washington, DC

Friday, October 31, 2008 | 1:30 pm

U.S. Presidential Election 2008: Views from the Arab World

Chair: Dr. Abderrahim Foukara
Speakers:
Mr. Hisham Melham
Ms. Dalia Mogahed
Mr. Mohamed Elmenshawy

[PART ONE PROVIDED THE FIRST ROUND OF QUESTIONS. PART TWO, BELOW, PROVIDES THE BALANCE OF THE DISCUSSION]

[DR. JOHN DUKE ANTHONY] Can you comment on the position and role and influence of advertisers on the editorial content and overall news coverage and questions of self-censorship. If it was true even as early as 1967 and James Reston’s book, “The Artillery of the Press,” that 75 percent of media revenues come from advertisers and that more recently that figure seems to be around 85% and that people pull their ads when they see critical articles toward U.S. foreign policy either toward the Palestinians or toward Israel, and that.. they are within their legal rights to do that, and that publications’ shareholders are driven by the bottom line. They don’t want any advertisers to pull their ads.

Can you comment on this aspect and what if anything can be done about it? And is it a kind of dealmaker or breaker for the American media dealing with these issues?

[DR. ABDERRAHIM FOUKARA] Any takers?

[MR. HISHAM MELHAM] Briefly, the media scene in America and the media scene in the Arab world and world in general has changed radically in the last 10-15 years, because of the satellite phenomena, because of the blogosphere, and the diminution of, if you will, the old control of the few networks, few executives, few publications in fact.

This changing media landscape is making it difficult for the old practices to remain including the power of the advertisers. I don’t want to diminish that but .. and I have, I know this is somewhat unorthodox for Arab reporters. I am not a basher of American media. I used to be more strident of my critique of American media 25 years ago when I started in this business in this city. But I’ve seen the trajectory of what happened in the past 25 years and I can give you chapter and verse about how the American media has improved a lot, especially print media. When you talk to Arabs they talk about the American media, they say American media is synonymous with Fox. Well, no, American media is not synonymous with Fox. And great things are published by the American media. Great things are published by the American media. The American media covered the Shabra and Shatila massacres in a more dignified professional way than all the Arab media put together. Make no mistake.

It was the American media that uncovered Abu Ghraib. The New Yorker and CBS. It was the American media that talked about the, that revealed that the CIA is in charge of an international prison system. Washington Post. It was the media that uncovered the NSA’s involvement in listening probably some of our conversations overseas. That was the New York Times. It was the media that uncovered certain massacres in Iraq, such as Haditha. This was Time magazine.

This is the American media which I criticized during the run up of the Iraq war because they did not engage in the usual cynical questioning of authority and they did engage later on, a few months afterward, when we found out that there were no weapons of mass destruction and all that nonsense and there was no relationship between Al Qaeda and that awful regime of Saddam Hussein. They did engage in their own version of self-flagellation and mea culpa.

I’ve always said and I will continue to say that the American media always get the story right. The problem with the American media is that they do not get the story right at the right time, sometimes. Look at the editorial today in the Washington Post about Rasheed Khalidi and the dumbing of America by the McCain campaign which keeps insulting the intelligence of the American people on a daily basis.

And look at how people saw and dealt with General Colin Powell when he said what he said on Meet the Press. Yes, some people still demonize the Arabs and some people still demonize Islam in this country. And of course on the other side we still have our nuts too. But today you can still find serious reporting on Iraq in the American media, although in the last few years because of the violence we didn’t see that. But nobody in the Arab world writes as beautifully as Anthony Shadid when he was writing about Iraq and what that war did about Iraq.

I remember when the Israelis, you know, during the first days of the Intifada. On the front page of the New York Times, Deborah Sontag’s dispatches from the occupied territories. First rate journalism. Even the Wall Street Journal.. you can still find.. the Wall Street Journal, by the way, if you overlook the editorial “BS”, sometimes gives you good reporting. It was the Wall Street Journal that said initially after Abu Ghraib that the International Red Cross sent the American army a detailed study talking about the abuse at Abu Ghraib. The Wall Street Journal which supported the war!

When we talk about the American media I guess we should be a little bit, more sophisticated than sometimes you read in the Arab media about the American media.

[MOGAHED] Let me just add to that that I think that everything that’s just been said is true and America’s print media is definitely much better than our television media. But unfortunately if you look at viewer ship and where people actually get their news it is primarily from TV news media and the most watched TV channel is Fox News.

So the source of information for the general American public is TV news media, primarily Fox News, which has many, many more viewers than say CNN or BBC certainly. If you look at Fox News and if you look at just the three top TV news media, a firm out of Germany called Media Tenor did a media content analysis over the period of, the beginning of 2007 until March of 2008 and looked at how Islam and Muslims were portrayed in that time period of about 18 months and what they found was that the majority of coverage on Islam was negative. They actually went and did a qualitative analysis of all statements made. And in news, this isn’t just editorials, it should be neutral. It shouldn’t be positive, it shouldn’t be negative. But when you have the majority as negative that’s alarming.

The other thing is they looked at protagonists. Who was representing Islam? They found that 53% of the time it was militants. So if you look at 53% of representation of a faith as militants, when militants only make up only a fraction of 1% of the actual population of Muslims this is alarming. And what we found in our research at Gallup was that during this time period Americans’ views of Muslims went from a negative 4 to a negative 17. From the beginning of 2007 until March 2008 it actually got worse despite the fact that there were no terrorist attacks during that time period and the violence in Iraq had actually improved. So the American news media is having a detrimental effect on American public opinion when it comes to Muslims in spite of the fact that world events have actually improved.

[FOUKARA] Dalia, if I may call on you again on a question. If I could urge all three of you to be brief to the extent possible because we are running out of time and we have an awful lot of questions and issues to go through. There’s a question specifically addressed to you from the audience asking what are the differences between the opinions of Arab-Americans and Arabs in the Arab world.

[MOGAHED] I unfortunately can’t answer that because we haven’t completed our Muslim-American data set yet. That will be completed at the end of this year. So I can’t answer the question.

[FOUKARA] Hammed, we have another question from the audience and they’re asking about the reaction of Muslim elites to Obama’s speech a few months ago before AIPAC.

[MR. MOHAMED ELMENSHAWY] It was very negative in the Arab media. It was reported all over the main media, Arab major outlets in the Arab world. And there’s no surprise here. Yet last week Colin Powell had the great statement about Obama and whether if he were a Muslim what’s wrong with being a Muslim and running for the White House. Unfortunately it was not widely reported in the Arab media as the report about Obama’s speech further back in June of this year.

[FOUKARA] And I’ll stay with you for the next question. Can any American President recover the image of the United States in the Arab world, and what should be the first steps a new American President should take?

[ELMENSHAWY] The American image is really a complicated issue. I doubt any President will be able to fix the entire problem, yet Obama’s victory will be a great correction in the right direction, to correct the American image. It will be very difficult for an American enemy abroad to attack America based on racial, or anti-Islamic or biased, or money role, or Jewish lobby as stereotype for attacking America in the region. I believe it will be very, very difficult for America’s enemies to attack it based on these realities.

What the next American President should do is very difficult because America in the region is there. There are a quarter of a million Americans in the Middle East, in the Arab world, in the form of occupation in Iraq, or scholars in Egypt or Syria, or expats in any international organizations there.

So America is the reality in the region. So to get by it is very difficult. What any Arab would wish is for America to be a leading force to solve the Arab-Israeli conflict, but it has been adjusted for 60 years and any realistic analyst will not expect to fix it in the next Administration or the next few years. What he is supposed to be doing if he is elected the President is, I believe, to distance himself a little bit from Arab regimes. If he talks directly to Arab people they may listen. But this hypocrisy of dealing with non-democratic regimes is very difficult for Arabs to like anything about America when they are distancing themselves from the values that America stands for.

[FOUKARA] Hisham, we have a similar question but coming at it from a slightly different angle. Many have said that a new U.S. President should go on a listening tour early in his term. Specifically in the case of Barack Obama given all the flak that he’s been getting about trying to distance himself from Arabs and Muslims in this country is there any practical value in him undertaking such a tour in the region.

[MELHAM] After Karen Hughes’ disastrous listening tour I wouldn’t advise the Barack Obama Administration to engage in a quick listening tour. It’s not a question of a listening tour. I mean it’s not that, as if we don’t know what’s happening there. As if someone tells you I have new ideas about how to resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Give me a break. We all know how it should be resolved. We all know the contours of a peace. We all know what’s ailing America’s relations with the Arab and Muslim world. And by the way if he speaks to Arabs, I’m going to tell you he’s going to talk to the Arabs the way he talked to the African-Americans. He’s going to give them some tough love. And he’s not going to tell them, “Oh, you Muslims are great people.” And he shouldn’t say that. He shouldn’t say that. Because there are so many things that are rotten in that whole world that we call the Muslim world. And the people are in the main responsible for what is rotten in the Kingdom of Islam, in the Arab world.. they are Muslims and Arabs themselves.

When we talk about America’s image in the Arab world, let me tell you, perceptions and images change, they are not etched in stone. For most of America’s history with the Arabs, America’s legacy in the Arab world was positive. Arabs and Muslims looked up to America. They loved the Wilsonian declarations. They loved the fact that the United States did not have a colonial legacy in the Arab and Muslim world. They loved the fact that the Americans did not rule over Muslims, like the Brits, the French, the Spaniards, even the Italians for crying out loud. Okay? Things started to go south in 1948. Dwight Eisenhower corrected it in 1956. John F. Kenney was lionized in Algeria because he supported the Algerian fight for independence.

Things could change if there is a different American approach to the problems of the Arab world, including the Arab-Israeli conflict because there are more problems in the region that go beyond the Arab-Israeli conflict. But perceptions do change and I think if Obama is elected President he is going to say some tough things to the Arabs and Muslims which he should as long as he couples that with a different approach that takes them seriously, treats them as grown ups, and listen and change certain American attitudes and policies in the Middle East.

Things are not going to happen immediately and quickly. He will be the President of the United States but he will not be an absolute ruler and there will be constraints, which we have seen even during the campaign. So I hope the Arabs don’t have too high hopes as many Americans do, pin them on this young man, because the world that he is going to inherit is going to be a messy one. And it’s going to take more than four years, believe me, to fix the damage inside this country.

So, those who are saying we are going to enter a new period as happened in 1932 with the great FDR. Well, FDR was elected four times and then he made the changes. I don’t know. I think we’re going to need eight years of Barack Obama. I think we’re going to have to pray for him, even people like me who don’t pray often.

[FOUKARA] Certainly some provocative food for thought there. Hammed, another question about Barack Obama from the audience and it’s asking about the extent of the Arab world’s awareness of the issue of terrorism being used to smear Obama, as the question says, by associating him with the Arabs here in the United States.

[ELMENSHAWY] This kind of news is widely reported in the Arab media. The average newspaper in any Arab country dedicated at least two pages on average to American news. So any bit of news we hear here in no time is reported there. And thanks to technology there’s nothing hidden any more about America. America is very accessible today as compared to any time I’ve ever been here and details about American political life, the American election is all over there, and TV stations and web sites news, and daily newspapers, and blogs, and forums, and Facebook as well.

There are a lot of .. of Arabs and Muslims who are for Obama and for Democratic nominees in Congress in general. All these kind of attacks against Obama here based on his connection to Palestinian professors, or Islamists, or Arab money is widely reported there. Yet as good news it’s on the same page you may find a poll by Gallup or Reuters showing Obama ahead in major states by two digits. So there’s bad news and good news. I believe this has created confusion for most Arabs based on his Islamic connection as used by the McCain campaign and then on the part of the same page he’s leading in the polls. I think it’s very healthy to see this kind of America in our newspapers.

[FOUKARA] We have another question addressed specifically to you Hammed. In light of the amazing use the Obama campaign has made of the electronic media the question is asking how has the blogosphere changed the atmosphere, structure and impact of journalism in the Arab world and who reads what you, personally, write electronically. Do you think you have a stronger or weaker impact on opinion than the print media in the Arab world?

[ELMENSHAWY] I work for a non-profit organization, an American non-profit organization. We are free of money influence, and advertisement. We have no advertisement and we have no government role. We only have money from foundations like Ford and Carnegie of New York and private citizens like yourself. And this gives me and my news agency, Taqrir Washington, a great freedom in reporting America as I understand, as I live it here.

And we are trying to be free reporters for Arab media that are not privileged to have resources to have a place in Washington here. So our free reporting to many newspapers that cannot afford to be here. So what we write is reprinted in dozens of newspapers every week. And we are a weekly news service so far. And they like to take from us what they can’t find in the mainstream Arab media outlets.

We cover Congress like no one else. The Congress.. the election in Congress which is forgotten in the major newspaper and media outlets in the Arab world. We care much more about the American situation, about the Congress and the role of Congress in the Arab media. Sadly there is no such Congressional reporter in any Arab news agency or TV stations, that have the resources.

That’s led to a bigger issue of how to deal as Arab governments or Arab embassies or Arab public even, with the Congress. We have serious problems and maybe it’s driven by the fact that we are very centralized in our region on the Presidency, the head of the state and we think America is similar in focusing on the White House and no other part of the region.

When you write some stories about Arab-Americans in a positive way which really doesn’t make news in many major newspapers it’s widely reprinted and we try to present as well the America that other media can’t afford to provide like book reviews and event summaries, which we have weekly on a deadline once a week. So we have better advantage compared to other media.

[FOUKARA] Dalia, we have an issue concerning, not directly though, immigration. It’s a subject of great importance, as you probably know in the Arab world given the numbers of people who have over the years emigrated from the region. And the merit of that alone, there’s obviously a special way of perceiving Barack Obama being the son of an immigrant father.

The question says why did you describe Obama as the son of poor immigrants? Certainly wealth is relative, but he is for sure the son of scholars. His father has a PhD and he was an economist and his mother was a PhD and an anthropologist.

[MOGAHED] I don’t think I described him as the son of poor immigrants. What I meant to say, and thought that I did say, was that he was the son of an African immigrant. It’s more that he had, one of his parents was an immigrant and the other was, of course, a natural born American.

I think that his biography, like I said, is significant and does make people question their old assumptions about America. And often times I’ve heard from people the same question that we just heard from Mohammed, will Americans ever elect a black man whose middle name is Hussein. It completely flies in the face of everything that people believe about America. And I think that electing him will imbue more new hope in the American public, but not necessarily new hope in policy changes. That’s the distinction that I am trying to make.

What we asked people to tell us how much hope they place in different approaches to changing U.S. policy. The thing that they said was most significant, that they had most hope in, was the American public putting pressure on their government. It got more.. People put more hope in it than dialogue between leaders from both countries, more hope than specifically Muslim Americans being active, more hope than their own governments’ diplomatic approaches, and much, much more hope than local protests in their countries or, of course, terrorist attacks against American civilians.

So if there is any hope it is placed in the American people and the election of Obama will be, I think, seen as a renewed hope in those American values that people believe the American people hold. Many people are saying they don’t think a change in the White House will actually be a change in reference to policies toward their country.

[FOUKARA] Okay, I think we only have very few minutes left in this panel. Let me throw another question at you. This is actually from the audience directed specifically to you. It is about your book. It says, “Your book, coauthored with John Esposito, has become the target of significant criticism largely on political grounds.” How do you respond to that?

[MOGAHED] Well, I would differ with the word significant. It’s not significant at all. We’ve had significant praise and I’m very proud to say from a wide spectrum of intellectuals in this country ranging from a conservative like Dinesh D’Souza, to someone who supported the Iraq war like Ken Pollack, to Desmond Tutu, to the former CIA head of the Bin Laden Unit, Michael Scheuer, so we’ve actually had wide ranging praise from a spectrum of intellectuals and the criticism has been from a very narrow point of view and it has not been significant although it has been echoed in the right wing blogosphere.

My response is that the data stands for itself. The data speaks for itself. And Gallup is a name that is not going to risk its reputation on putting out something that is biased and isn’t accurate. Basically at the end of the day, Gallup as a name, to be a name into the future it is in its self-interest to be completely objective and accurate. And those who are criticizing it, it is in their self-interest to be biased and political. So look at self-interest and you can decide for yourself who is telling it like it is.

[FOUKARA] Hisham has a commitment, which he has to go and take care of. So Hisham if you would like to..

[MELHAM] ..like to be released.

[FOUKARA] ..we’ll release you. I have one more for you. By the way, Doctor Anthony has a question for you.

[ANTHONY] It’s one from here. It says assume that the media is far more effective and influential in educating people in knowledge and understanding. And then freeze that thought. And then contrast it with another reality where this one deals with the American political finance campaigns and the role of money and the politicization of America’s electoral dynamics.

The reference is to Richard Clarke’s, the former National Security Advisor for Counterterrorism, book recent out, “Your Government Failed You,” in which he writes that in each administration there are 9000 political appointees that the President has very little leeway to reject because these 9000 are thrust upon her or him by the donors to their campaign war chests in the primaries and general election. And many of these individuals agree to contribute only after they ask the candidates what would be their position on Jerusalem, or Palestine, or Iran, and in order to get their check the candidate was in a corner. So the question is, that as most of these check writers are not the niece of Desmond Tutu, or the nephew of Nelson Mandela or the sister of Mother Theresa, even if the media made a profound change, what difference would it really make?

[MELHAM] Look, we’ve written a lot about the role of money in American politics and we’ve seen it this year and there is this huge debate about public financing and maybe we should go that route. This is a capitalist society. Money talks, unfortunately, and you always go back to the original framers of the Constitution when they were talking about an informed citizenry. And I still think, notwithstanding the role of money, people in society if they are very well informed and if they are driven by a sense of fairness.. yeah, in fairness.. they can still change things.

When you talk about lobbies. Arabs love to talk about lobbies. The pro-Israel lobby. This lobby and that lobby. There is something fascinating about this country, which undermines democracy.

I’ll give you one example about two lobbies. The National Rifle Association, the NRA. And then the pro-Israeli lobby, let’s say AIPAC. It’s not secret. I don’t believe in this whole nonsense about the Jewish cabal and all that. It doesn’t exist. The point is.. there are certain criteria for the success of any lobby, particularly a lobby that generates a great deal of enthusiasm and controversy. A majority of the American people support gun control. And yet we don’t have gun control specifically because we have a powerful lobby. Now what happens with this lobby. The members of this lobby participate in every electoral cycle — local, national, state level, whether there’s a blizzard or sunshine they always vote. These people provide funds and money and they are driven by enthusiasm for that single cause. These are the three magic ingredients.

Now on the Palestine issue. Most American people — I’ll give you a million opinion polls — either support a Palestinian state or don’t mind a Palestinian state. And yet we don’t see the Congress crazy about this. Although now in the last few years, ten years, whatever, everybody is talking about a two state solution, along the line of ‘67 or whatever. Why? Because there is a small, vocal group of people, American Jews and their friends, and the pro-Israeli lobby friends, as John McCain keeps telling his people, are not necessarily Jews. I’m frightened more by the religious right in that lobby, if you want to call it, than the liberal Jews with whom I agree on a lot of things, not on Israeli policy or Israeli settlements. But there is enthusiasm. People contribute funds and Jews in this country because they are highly educated, and highly involved in politics as they should, like other minorities, like the Armenians, the Greeks, the Lebanese, whatever, they vote with larger proportion than the average American — the average “Joe the Plumber” and the “Sixpacks.”

There are ways of dealing with these things. Instead of complaining about this money, contribute money! Play a role, be an informed citizen, get into it, go into the arena. In this country, notwithstanding what we read sometimes people can do things. And, whether we’re talking about the struggle of labor movement in this country, or talking about women for universal suffrage, or whether we’re talking about the struggle of the African Americans, or other minorities, the history of this country is written by people like that, who struggled and who worked and walked in the streets, found them facing dogs, you name it. This is still a democracy and this whole notion that everybody who writes a check is going to ask the President what are your views on Jerusalem, I don’t necessarily buy. And I can tell you a lot of Jews are giving money who don’t like Israeli politics. They don’t like Israeli politics!

Many of my Jewish friends and others who are as horrified by what the Israelis are doing to the Palestinians, write about these things and they talk about these things, and.. so it’s not that we don’t have allies in this society. It’s just sometimes Arabs as always, and I don’t want to generalize because you know, they love to complain. And they roll their heads and they talk about conspiracies and you know they don’t do what they are supposed to do. Go into the arena. Be enthusiastic about a cause. Try to pay some money if you have some money. And vote, and vote, and vote. As I did.

[FOUKARA] Thanks, Hisham. I think on that note we’ll conclude this panel.

Thanks very much Hisham Melham. Thanks also to Dalia Mogahed and Hammed Elmenshawy. Doctor Anthony, thank you very much.

[ANTHONY] Thank you Doctor Foukara.

Source: Arab-US Policymakers Conference Web Site (AUSPC 2008)

Transcription Services by Ryan & Associates

Editor’s Note:

Each fall the National Council on US-Arab Relations brings together a distinguished group of diplomats, government officials, business people, military officials, scholars and others to tackle the thorny issues surrounding US-Arab relations. SUSRIS has provided AUSPC speakers’ remarks, which touch on the Saudi-US relationship, to you for over the last five years. In keeping with that practice we again provide for your consideration a collection of AUSPC presentations.

Today we present the remarks of Wayne White, an Adjunct Scholar with Washington’s Middle East Institute. Mr. White was joined on the Iran-Iraq panel by Gen. Brent Scowcroft, Gen Joseph Hoar and Dr. Kenneth Katzman. Their remarks will be provided separately. The panel was introduced by Dr. John Duke Anthony, President of the National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations.

Additional AUSPC sessions which address U.S. and Saudi issues will be provided by SUSRIS in the coming days.

17th ANNUAL ARAB-U.S. POLICYMAKERS CONFERENCE
“Transitioning the White House: Challenges and Opportunities for Arab-U.S. Relations”
October 30-31, 2008 | Washington, DC

GEO-POLITICAL DYNAMICS: IRAN AND IRAQ

Chair: Dr. John Duke Anthony
Speakers:
Lt. Gen. Brent Scowcroft (USAF, Ret.)
Gen. Joseph P. Hoar (USMC Ret.)
Mr. Wayne White
Dr. Kenneth Katzman

Challenges in Transition
Wayne White

[DR. JOHN DUKE ANTHONY] Our next speaker is Wayne White. He has the distinction of having been the Iraq specialist in the Bureau of Intelligence and Research in the U.S. Department of Statefor the better part of a quarter of a century.

He and I were talking about how difficult it was during that period for a conference to be held on Iraq when there were only three or four specialists in all of the United States. From the period of June 1967 when relations were broken between Iraq and the United States until March 19, 2003, the sum total of all Americans over in Iraq at one time including the embassy staff did not exceed 17. So Wayne White was unique in having his eyes focused on this particular issue the entire time. Wayne White.

[WAYNE WHITE] Thanks John Duke. One thing I’d like to say is thanks for putting together such a terrific conference. These things are worth it. This is my second time and I’m very glad to be invited and I’d also like to thank the support staff that works with you for doing such a terrific job bringing the speakers together and taking care of our needs.

In the tradition of my State Department alma mater which is the Bureau of Intelligence and Research, I’m going to try to be realistic and in at least one instance out of the box. With that in mind, I’ll get into this.

On Iraq, I think it’s clear from the intense wrangling over the U.S.-Iraqi Status of Forces Agreement, the SOFA, or a memorandum of understanding, or whatever title this agreement will eventually bear in recent months that Iraqis want the American role in Iraq to be reduced quite considerably. Since this is likely to occur regardless of what Washington wants or doesn’t want, it’s best for all concerned on the American side to get used to the idea that for better or worse, the Iraqis will be progressively taking over at a pace far faster than would have been anticipated just six months ago.

I say this because forces in Iraq opposed to even the current revised agreement for U.S. troop presence beyond December 31, are broad-based, reflecting high levels of opposition to occupation among large numbers of Arab Iraqis. We even detected back in 2003 in polling from the Bureau of Intelligence and Research that a vast majority of Shia at the beginning of the occupation opposed occupation, but were essentially playing along in order to benefit from the democratic process that would presumably, demographically usher them into power. So our welcome there has always been somewhat tenuous.

I cannot predict the likely result of the final face-off over this draft agreement, but already the Iraqi side has used it to considerably erode U.S. situational control beyond December 31 in a variety of ways. In fact, in order to survive politically, Iraqi politicians like Prime Minister Maliki are now competing on the basis of the extent they stand up to U.S. demands, affecting anything related to perceived or real Iraqi sovereignty, quote, unquote.

As a result of U.S. declarations that there can be no more changes in the draft, or even threats that without an agreement, come January, the U.S. would cease aspects of its military support in Iraq, this has only further inflamed those elements opposed to even the most recent draft inside of Iraq. And whatever the reason for the attack into Syria so recently, it has greatly increased demands for a ban on all U.S. attacks from Iraq against neighboring states, which just happened to be a preexisting Iraqi demand related to the existing draft.

Quite a number of Iraqis believe their country would be less fraught with violence were the U.S. to leave. I, like General Scowcroft, am more skeptical, at least in the near term. Additionally, I believe the Maliki government is overconfident, underestimating the extent to which its gains on the ground this year were due almost exclusively to the Iraqi Army, and not inconsiderably because of robust U.S. air and ground support, or a threat of same in backing up the Iraqi Army, not the Iraqi government per se.

Meanwhile, the government itself, the civilian government, remains deeply corrupt at the local level, often quite dysfunctional, and still somewhat alienated from the general population. In addition, anecdotal reports suggest a number of Iraqis regard the government as illegitimate, since it is viewed by some quarters as a government formed under American occupation, an attitude certainly not made any better by various failures in performance on the part of the government.

Of greatest importance perhaps is the government’s failure to affect satisfactory reconciliation, with much of the Sunni Arab community during the period of reduced violence beginning in mid-2007. This was a huge missed opportunity. In this context, I believe Shia opposed to reconciliation considerably underestimate the ability of Iraq’s Sunni Arab community to hold its own against the government. If it were to choose to do so in support of which it almost certainly would receive considerable concrete assistance from nearby Sunni Arab countries.

Finally, all major ethno-sectarian communities continue to pursue maximalist agendas in Iraq; in some cases on essentially zero-sum communal issues. This is a very dangerous mix. In this situation, the removal of U.S. forces from important areas, where they still play a substantial role in separating still unreconciled parties, could in itself spark renewed violence.

Nonetheless, regardless of my fear that there is a significant chance for a rebound in violence as the U.S. reduces its presence, Washington has no choice but to bow to the wishes of the host government, in this case fairly solidly backed by most Arab Iraqis. In that respect, regarding my concerns and concerns of others about the potential for resumed violence, I can only hope that my fears are very much misplaced. If they are not, however, not only will there be considerable suffering on the part of the Iraqis, but recent U.S. claims of success in Iraq would ring pretty hollow.

On Iran, I’d like to address only one issue. A recommendation for those who fear or believe that Iran is in pursuit of a nuclear weapons capability, or growing close to attaining it, or keeping that open as an option related to its nuclear enrichment cycle. For the purpose of argument, lets assume Iran does have a nuclear weapons effort embedded in its nuclear power program, or intends its nuclear power program to be used for that purpose at some point. Such an assumption automatically would lead many toward dramatic options aimed at taking out or slowing the Iranian nuclear program, especially enrichment through military action at some point in time.

However I hardly think that even the current Iranian regime would be so incredibly foolish as to attempt an eventual nuclear strike against Israel, only to receive in return with utter certainty, a far more devastating nuclear counterpunch from Israel’s own vast nuclear arsenal.

Therefore, even if Iran does seek nuclear weapons, the chance of this happening probably is down near one percent. Quite a number of Israelis would be unhappy, to say the least, living even with that small chance of such a horrific scenario. However, quite frankly I’m not Israeli, and I must look at this through an American lens, and in keeping with American national interests.

I do oppose of course the proliferation of nuclear weapons anywhere in the world, and I support all diplomatic efforts, and far more robust than the ones we’ve seen today. I also am not unconcerned about the potential nuclear domino effect mentioned by General Scowcroft. I think that is quite serious.

Nonetheless, I also know how futile efforts to stop determined and properly endowed nations from going that route have proven in a number of cases in the past, such as right next door, Pakistan. Military action to take out or severely damage Iran’s nuclear program could well initiate a serious crisis in the Persian Gulf region, possibly rather prolonged, one that will be destabilizing and one that would certainly among other things, many other things, cause global energy prices to rebound dramatically.

Following the torturous Iraq saga, it is time to stop looking to forward leaning military solutions to challenges in this already very battered region. Frankly, amidst the current world financial meltdown among other things, the U.S. simply cannot afford the potential consequences of military action against Iran. And for different reasons, neither can the region. In essence, in this case the proverbial cure, military action, probably would be far worse than a disease, the presumed effort to begin simply learning how to live with a nuclear Iran. Thank you very much.

Source: Arab-US Policymakers Conference Web Site (AUSPC 2008)

Transcription Services by Ryan & Associates

Editor’s Note:

Six months ago SUSRIS reported on Saudi Arabia’s call for producers and consumers to talk about global energy prices as crude soared on its way to a mid-summer high of $147 a barrel. One hundred dollars later, in the opposite direction, the OPEC producers are scrambling in search of a basement for the price of crude. This week OPEC leaders in Algeria for its 151st Extraordinary Meeting pledged to cut 2.2 million barrels per day (mbpd) bringing the three month total of cuts to 4.2 mpbd, a 12 percent slide in crude output from the OPEC-11 production level of 29.045 mpbd. The cuts are set to take effect January 1, 2009.

The post meeting communique noted that members were “strongly emphasizing their firm commitment to ensuring that their production is reduced by the individually agreed amounts.” Moreover, they commited to providing an “economic and regular supply to consuming nations” and they sought to stabilize the market in pursuit of “fair and equitable levels.. for producers and consumers alike.” The next “Ordinary Meeting” is set for March 15, 2009 in Vienna.

This special report provides an overview of the actions taken at the OPEC meeting and their consequences through the lens of an Arab News report as well as several other article excerpts and related items.

OPEC cuts record 2.2m barrels a day
Arab News

The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) yesterday agreed to slash 2.2 million barrels from its daily production — its single largest cut ever — while bloc outsiders Russia and Azerbaijan announced their own cutbacks of hundreds of thousands of barrels from the market.

“I hope we surprised you,” OPEC President Chekib Khelil said when asked whether the size of the cut would shock moribund oil markets into an upward trend. “If you’re not surprised we need to do something about it.” And yet markets weren’t impressed.

Crude oil prices sank to $40.20 after the announcement, a level not seen since the summer of 2004 and a clear sign investors are more worried that the world is heading for a long and painful recession in which energy use will continue to erode.

In just five months, crude has given up all of the price gains made over the past four years.

Making matters worse for OPEC, Moscow distanced itself from direct ties with the 13-nation producers’ group, further dampening OPEC hopes of coordinated production cuts that might put a floor under crude prices. OPEC said oil ministers of the 11 nations under the group’s quota system agreed to take 4.2 million barrels a day off the market, but that includes two previously announced cuts that totaled 2 million barrels. That leaves the new output reduction announced yesterday at 2.2 million barrels, effective Jan. 1.

Still, even the record cut was unable to counterbalance consumers’ concerns about the dismal world economy.

In the US, the world’s largest crude consumer, the Federal Reserve’s decision to slash its target interest rate to nearly zero buoyed global stock markets Tuesday and early yesterday.

But the news on the US economy is expected to get worse before it gets better. Businesses, which have already cut nearly 2 million jobs since January, keep laying off workers in the face of slumping demand.

The government reported Tuesday before the Fed rate announcement that home builders slashed production in November by 18.9 percent, the biggest drop in nearly a quarter century. That pushed activity down to a record low annual rate of 625,000 units as the woes in the property market, where the current economic troubles began, showed no signs of abating.

Focusing on the shrinking oil market, OPEC noted in its statement that “crude volumes entering the market remain well in excess of actual demand.” “Moreover, the impact of the grave global economic downturn has led to a destruction of demand, resulting in unprecedented downward pressure being exerted on prices,” it said. The group said “if unchecked, prices could fall to levels which would place in jeopardy the investments required to guarantee adequate energy supplies in the medium to long term.”

In addition to signaling that a major cut was in the offing in the days leading up to the Oran conference, OPEC ministers had expressed hope that Russia — the No. 2 producer after Saudi Arabia — would join in a significant cutback that would bolster prices.

Such support would be significant. Non-OPEC members Mexico, Norway and Russia last slashed production in the late 1990s, at a time oil was selling for about $10 a barrel.

But although Russian Deputy Premier Igor Sechin and Azeri Energy Minister Natik Aliev announced cutbacks of a total of more than 600,000 barrels a day, their commitments appeared largely symbolic.

The Russians indicated their reductions had already been implemented in November, while Azerbaijan’s output had already been reduced by about a third due to production problems earlier this year.

Among those hoping for Moscow’s support was Saudi Arabia.

“We also hope that other producers who are not in OPEC will chip in for the purpose of bringing stability to the market,” said Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources Ali Al-Naimi said, in a nod to Russia.

Sechin, in comments to The Associated Press, said “Russian oil companies have already made a decision to cut deliveries to the market … approximately equivalent to 350,000 barrels per day.” But he specified that his country’s cuts had already been enacted ahead of the OPEC meeting. Sechin did hold out the possibility of further reductions, saying Russia was ready to pare another 320,000 barrels a day “if we see the continuation of the current level of prices on the world oil markets.”

Source: Arab News

Editor’s Note:

Six months ago SUSRIS reported on Saudi Arabia’s call for producers and consumers to talk about global energy prices as crude soared on its way to a mid-summer high of $147 a barrel. One hundred dollars later, in the opposite direction, the OPEC producers are scrambling in search of a basement for the price of crude. This week OPEC leaders in Algeria for its 151st Extraordinary Meeting pledged to cut 2.2 million barrels per day (mbpd) bringing the three month total of cuts to 4.2 mpbd, a 12 percent slide in crude output from the OPEC-11 production level of 29.045 mpbd. The cuts are set to take effect January 1, 2009.

The post meeting communique noted that members were “strongly emphasizing their firm commitment to ensuring that their production is reduced by the individually agreed amounts.” Moreover, they commited to providing an “economic and regular supply to consuming nations” and they sought to stabilize the market in pursuit of “fair and equitable levels.. for producers and consumers alike.” The next “Ordinary Meeting” is set for March 15, 2009 in Vienna.

This special report provides an overview of the actions taken at the OPEC meeting and their consequences through the lens of an Arab News report as well as several other article excerpts and related items.

OPEC Press Release – 151st (Extraordinary) Meeting of the OPEC Conference

OPEC cuts record 2.2m barrels a day
Arab News

The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) yesterday agreed to slash 2.2 million barrels from its daily production — its single largest cut ever — while bloc outsiders Russia and Azerbaijan announced their own cutbacks of hundreds of thousands of barrels from the market.

“I hope we surprised you,” OPEC President Chekib Khelil said when asked whether the size of the cut would shock moribund oil markets into an upward trend. “If you’re not surprised we need to do something about it.” And yet markets weren’t impressed.

Crude oil prices sank to $40.20 after the announcement, a level not seen since the summer of 2004 and a clear sign investors are more worried that the world is heading for a long and painful recession in which energy use will continue to erode.

In just five months, crude has given up all of the price gains made over the past four years.

Making matters worse for OPEC, Moscow distanced itself from direct ties with the 13-nation producers’ group, further dampening OPEC hopes of coordinated production cuts that might put a floor under crude prices. OPEC said oil ministers of the 11 nations under the group’s quota system agreed to take 4.2 million barrels a day off the market, but that includes two previously announced cuts that totaled 2 million barrels. That leaves the new output reduction announced yesterday at 2.2 million barrels, effective Jan. 1.

Still, even the record cut was unable to counterbalance consumers’ concerns about the dismal world economy.

In the US, the world’s largest crude consumer, the Federal Reserve’s decision to slash its target interest rate to nearly zero buoyed global stock markets Tuesday and early yesterday.

But the news on the US economy is expected to get worse before it gets better. Businesses, which have already cut nearly 2 million jobs since January, keep laying off workers in the face of slumping demand.

The government reported Tuesday before the Fed rate announcement that home builders slashed production in November by 18.9 percent, the biggest drop in nearly a quarter century. That pushed activity down to a record low annual rate of 625,000 units as the woes in the property market, where the current economic troubles began, showed no signs of abating.

Focusing on the shrinking oil market, OPEC noted in its statement that “crude volumes entering the market remain well in excess of actual demand.” “Moreover, the impact of the grave global economic downturn has led to a destruction of demand, resulting in unprecedented downward pressure being exerted on prices,” it said. The group said “if unchecked, prices could fall to levels which would place in jeopardy the investments required to guarantee adequate energy supplies in the medium to long term.”

In addition to signaling that a major cut was in the offing in the days leading up to the Oran conference, OPEC ministers had expressed hope that Russia — the No. 2 producer after Saudi Arabia — would join in a significant cutback that would bolster prices.

Such support would be significant. Non-OPEC members Mexico, Norway and Russia last slashed production in the late 1990s, at a time oil was selling for about $10 a barrel.

But although Russian Deputy Premier Igor Sechin and Azeri Energy Minister Natik Aliev announced cutbacks of a total of more than 600,000 barrels a day, their commitments appeared largely symbolic.

The Russians indicated their reductions had already been implemented in November, while Azerbaijan’s output had already been reduced by about a third due to production problems earlier this year.

Among those hoping for Moscow’s support was Saudi Arabia.

“We also hope that other producers who are not in OPEC will chip in for the purpose of bringing stability to the market,” said Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources Ali Al-Naimi said, in a nod to Russia.

Sechin, in comments to The Associated Press, said “Russian oil companies have already made a decision to cut deliveries to the market … approximately equivalent to 350,000 barrels per day.” But he specified that his country’s cuts had already been enacted ahead of the OPEC meeting. Sechin did hold out the possibility of further reductions, saying Russia was ready to pare another 320,000 barrels a day “if we see the continuation of the current level of prices on the world oil markets.”

Source: Arab News

More Reporting:

OPEC slashes production, but oil markets shrug – Houston Chronicle
“So much for Saudi Oil minister Ali al-Naimi’s vision of $75 a barrel as a fair price for crude. Amid ever-worsening economic news, rising stockpiles and the federal government’s forecast that U.S. oil consumption will be virtually flat for 20 years, oil markets on Wednesday shrugged off OPEC’s largest-ever single production cut of 2.2 million barrels a day.. ..the U.S. Energy Information Administration said inventories rose 525,000 barrels to 321.3 million barrels last week, the latest in an overall 11 percent hike in stockpiles in the last three months. “The market is saying to OPEC, ‘You really didn’t do your job. If you want prices to go higher, we need a bigger cut in supply,’ ” said Addison Armstrong, chief market analyst for Tradition Energy in Stamford, Conn. “They set the stage for an oil price drop to $30.” [more]

OPEC Agrees to Another Cut in Production – NY Times
“The OPEC cartel agreed on Wednesday to reduce production by 2.2 million barrels a day, the group’s largest cut ever, in an effort to put a floor on falling oil prices. It is the third time producers have agreed to reduce their output in three months. Since September, members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries have pledged cuts totaling 4.2 million barrels a day, or nearly 12 percent of their capacity, a record in such a short time..” [more]

Oil, ignoring record OPEC cut, hovers below $41 – Forbes
“..Crude oil hovered below $41 a barrel on Thursday, having touched the lowest price since July 2004, after OPEC announced its biggest output cut ever and China slashed domestic fuel prices for the first time in two years. Oil is $107 off its July peak, shedding value as a global recession cuts into fuel demand. The U.S. January light crude contract sank to $39.19 on Thursday and was then trading up 65 cents at $40.71 a barrel..” [more]

OPEC Oil Export Revenues – Fact Sheet – EIA
Based on projections from the EIA November 2008 Short Term Energy Outlook (STEO), members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) could earn $979 billion of net oil export revenues in 2008, and $595 billion in 2009. Through October, OPEC has earned an estimated $884 billion in net oil export earnings in 2008. Last year, OPEC earned $671 billion in net oil export revenues, a 10 percent increase from 2006. Saudi Arabia earned the largest share of these earnings, $194 billion, representing 29 percent of total OPEC revenues. On a per-capita basis, OPEC net oil export earning reached $1,137, a 8 percent increase from 2006. [more]

Saudi Arabia and the Global Financial Crisis
Brad Bourland, Chief Economist, Jawda Investment
December 2008 Monthly Bulletin

The world is passing through an unprecedented financial crisis. Global financial conditions worsened to the point that the financial system almost ceased operating in early October. Conditions have since improved, but not without massive wealth destruction, as banks have been forced to write down hundreds of billions of dollars, huge financial institutions have gone bankrupt or been bailed out by governments and stock markets have plunged.

The crisis occurred against the backdrop of a deteriorating global economy and appears to have pushed much of the world into recession. The IMF expects the developed economies to shrink for the first time since the 1940s next year. With demand disappearing, commodity prices have collapsed and exchange rates have been highly volatile as investors have sought safe havens.

No country in the world will be spared from the effects of the financial crisis and ensuing global recession. For Saudi Arabia, it has completely shifted the focus of economic policy from controlling inflation to restoring confidence in the financial sector. We see the following key implications for the Saudi economy.

Oil prices will be significantly lower than previously anticipated and reduced production will exacerbate the impact on oil revenues.

Finance for local and foreign companies doing business in the Kingdom will be less easily available and more expensive.

Economic growth will slow as problems accessing suitably priced financing and lower oil revenues hinder project implementation and hurt confidence.

Lower oil revenues will mean the end to the huge budget and current account surpluses of recent years.

Sharply lower commodity prices and a strengthening of the riyal will cause inflation to fall back rapidly over the next 12 months.

As a result, headline economic data will look very poor in 2009 in comparison with previous years. However, this does not mean that the economic boom is over. Dynamism within the domestic economy has been propelling the economy forward over the last few years and we think the healthy growth momentum within the non-oil sector will be maintained (albeit at a slower rate than we had previously forecast). The welcome slimming down of the project pipeline should prevent some marginal projects from being undertaken and spread the remainder over a longer period that will help alleviate some of the bottlenecks that have developed throughout the economy.

Source: Jadwa Investment

Brad Bourland

Brad Bourland is head of research at Jadwa Investment, Riyadh. From 1999 through 2007 Brad was the Chief Economist at Samba Financial Group, formerly Saudi American Bank, in Riyadh, where he published regularly on issues related to the Saudi and global economies and the world oil market. He appears frequently in the domestic and international media and is a regular public speaker. Before joining Samba, Brad spent an 18-year career as diplomat, economist, and manager with the U.S. Department of State. During the last three years of his diplomatic career he was in Riyadh as the American Embassy’s First Secretary responsible for financial affairs, where he analyzed the Saudi economy for the U.S. Government and conducted financial aspects of US-Saudi relations. Brad has his BA and MA magna cum laude from the University of Utah, and is a CFA (Chartered Financial Analyst) charterholder.

For comments and queries please contact:
Brad Bourland
Chief Economist and Head of Research
jadwaresearch@jadwa.com
Head office:
Phone +966 1 279-1111
Fax +966 1 279-1571
P.O. Box 60677, Riyadh 11555
Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
http://www.jadwa.com

Editor’s Note:

Each fall the National Council on US-Arab Relations brings together a distinguished group of diplomats, government officials, business people, military officials, scholars and others to tackle the thorny issues surrounding US-Arab relations. SUSRIS has provided Arab-US Policymakers Conference (AUSPC) speakers’ remarks, which touch on the Saudi-US relationship, to you for over the last five years. In keeping with that practice we again provide for your consideration a collection of AUSPC presentations.

Today we present the remarks of former U.S. Ambassador to Saudi Arabia Wyche Fowler who spoke on a panel which included four American Ambassadors to the Kingdom. Ambassador Fowler was joined by Ambassadors Ford Fraker, Robert Jordan and Walter Cutler. Their remarks are provided separately. Check below for links to other AUSPC panels and presentations.

Additional AUSPC sessions which address U.S. and Saudi issues will be provided by SUSRIS in the coming days.

17th ANNUAL ARAB-U.S. POLICYMAKERS CONFERENCE
“Transitioning the White House: Challenges and Opportunities for Arab-U.S. Relations”
October 30-31, 2008 | Washington, DC

The Centrality of Saudi Arabia
Ambassador Wyche Fowler

[AMBASSADOR WYCHE FOWLER] I want to begin by thanking my three colleagues and Dr Anthony for their public service as well as my friend Prince Turki for his public service, both to his country and to the relationship. I agree with Walt [Cutler], but want to extend that to all of those who have served and nurtured the relationship, historical relationship between our two countries.

I want to take off my ambassadorial hat since I’m a pinch hitter too, for my three or four minutes, and put on my political hat. I served as some of you know in the United States Congress and as the United States Senator from Georgia, and follow up on Doctor Bassam Haddad’s comments about the next President of the United States. Without using this time to be partisan four days or five days before the election I want to suggest to the new President, whoever he may be, that the most important role for him to play as he looks at the Middle East is to recognize the centrality of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in all geopolitical, religious issues in that region. There will not be an acceptable solution, acceptable in the Middle East and acceptable to the United States of America in Afghanistan, in Iraq without the centrality of Saudi Arabia in that process.

There will not be an acceptable solution to the issues that we have with the Iranians without the advice if not consent, acquiescence, of Saudi Arabia to our new policies. And I hope that with a new Administration that the State Department will understand, as we seem to forget — King Abdullah’s Interfaith Dialogue Initiative has reminded us — that King Abdullah is not only the chief executive, the chief monarch of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, his title is Abdullah Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques. And he is looked to by all of Islam not only to protect and revere the Two Holy Mosques in Saudi Arabia but I submit by extension to make sure that Islam’s third holiest site in Jerusalem is protected and revered. I am a minority of one, I confess, in saying to our peace negotiators that the question of Jerusalem, if it was solved first, would do more than anything else to bring the pressures, the groups together to solve the questions of borders, and rights of return and ultimately have a peace treaty.

King Abdullah reminded our Administration when we were about to go to war with Iraq, nobody likes Saddam Hussein, he’s a terrible man, he’s butcher, he is everything, but you the United States of America please first bring stability to Afghanistan which you started, and secondly, use your influence to get between the Israelis and the Palestinians and bring them to the peace table. Then and only then could we develop a policy that would deal with the Saddam Hussein’s of the world.

Saudi Arabia is key to the success of the United States foreign policy in the region. I hope and I pray that we have a new President who will consult, who will listen and who will recognize that they are our strongest regional partner, international partner in the Middle East and a wonderful opportunity especially if one or the other is elected, to understand where religion plays the most important role in this and what we can do together to cure it. Thank you very much.

Source: Arab-US Policymakers Conference Web Site (AUSPC 2008)

Transcription Services by Ryan & Associates

Editor’s Note:

Since 2004 the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) has convened an international forum called the Manama Dialogue to bring together the various elements of national security establishments representing Gulf regional countries and key external powers. The Dialogue “provides a forum where the most senior authorities responsible for defense, foreign policy and security issues from the participating states can exchange views on the security challenges of the region,” according to the IISS.

This year’s Manama Dialogue, hosted from December 12-14 in Bahrain, featured the remarks of U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates and they are provided for your consideration here.

Manama Dialogue: Continuity and Commitment
Robert M. Gates
Manama, Bahrain
December 13, 2008

Thank you, John [Chipman], for that introduction.

And my thanks to the Kingdom of Bahrain and his majesty King Hamad for graciously hosting us once again. The United States and Bahrain have been friends for decades, and we look forward to working together for many more.

Much has changed in this region since we met last year. Of course, my country has had our share of change. Some of you may have caught in passing news of the presidential election last month.

I bring from President-elect Obama a message of continuity and commitment to our friends and partners in the region. Though the American political process is at times tumultuous – and our open and vigorous debates might seem to indicate deep divisions – I can assure you that a change in administration does not alter our fundamental interests, especially in the Middle East. Throughout my career in government – which began over 42 years ago – the security of the Gulf has been a central concern of every administration for which I have worked. That will not change, especially considering the great challenges we all face – from the need to defeat violent extremism to the necessity of forging a two-state solution between Israel and the Palestinians that will allow everyone in that region to live in peace and prosperity.

I had thought that my remarks would be a valedictory and farewell, but that was not to be. The President-elect asked me to stay on as Secretary of Defense and, as you know, I accepted. I am honored to continue leading the Department of Defense, and am doing everything in my power to ensure a smooth transition. On that note, I should mention that more extensive planning has been done across the government in preparation for this transition than at any time I can remember – and I have worked for seven presidents, soon to be eight. So anyone who thought that the upcoming months might present opportunities to “test” the new administration would be sorely mistaken. President Obama and his national security team, myself included, will be ready to defend the interests of the United States and our friends and allies from the moment he takes office on January 20th.

For the next few minutes, before taking your questions, I want to talk about some of the most pressing issues that the United States, and all the nations of the Gulf, will face in the years ahead.

Let me start with Iraq. As you know, the United States and Iraq just concluded a Status of Forces agreement that calls for U.S. combat troops to be out of Iraqi cities by the end of June, and out of Iraq by the end of 2011. This agreement balances the interests of both countries as we see the emergence of a sovereign Iraq in full control of its territory – and it also marks an important step forward in the orderly drawdown of the American presence there.

With the passage of the provincial elections law in September, the stage is set for January elections that we hope will draw more fully into the political process Iraqis who have been underrepresented in the government.

All of this indicates, I believe, the dawn of a new era in Iraq – where a sovereign, independent, and representative government has finally taken root. It is a government that increasingly looks at problems from a national, not an ethnic, perspective – and whose solutions are increasingly driven by a nonviolent, if sometimes contentious, political process. It is also a government that desires to, and can, play an important and constructive role in this region.

Of course, that depends in substantial measure on the nations represented here. For the better part of 50 years, Iraq has presented a strategic problem for its neighbors and for the region – inflicting suffering on its own people and on many others.

I mention this because I am aware that, in international affairs, old wounds do not heal easily. If, however, you look closely at Iraq’s economic and political potential – about what it can offer the Middle East – you will see that it is in everyone’s strategic interest to support the new government and the people of Iraq in whatever way you can.

First, on the diplomatic front. The past year has seen a number of high-profile diplomatic engagements – from meetings between heads of state, to exchanges of ambassadors, and more. I strongly encourage those nations that have not yet taken steps to restore full diplomatic relations with Iraq to do so. Iraq can only play a constructive role in this region if it is on an equal footing diplomatically – which also requires its government to take proactive steps, such as continuing to appoint its own ambassadors. Regional engagement also means that Iraq should be included in regional forums for economic and security cooperation, and considered for membership in Middle Eastern organizations, such as the Gulf Cooperation Council.

Second, the economy. Business and trade are key to the growth of Iraq’s economy and therefore its long-term security and stability. Expanded trade will also benefit the region as a whole. Those countries that have not forgiven Saddam-era debt should try to move forward as quickly as possible and follow through with pledges they have already made. Iraq should continue to engage with regional multilateral financial institution as both a contributor toward and recipient of training and development programs – including the Arab Monetary Fund, the Islamic Development Bank, and the Arab Fund for Economic and Social Development.

Finally, there is the security situation. Earlier I mentioned that great progress has been made. But let me emphasize that it is the opinion of everyone – Americans, Iraqis, civilian leaders, and military commanders – that the gains are still reversible. There remain those who wish to see the government of Iraq fail – and those who will continue to kill innocent civilians to further this goal, as we saw just a few days ago in Kirkuk.

I do not need to impress on the nations represented here the dangers posed by al Qaeda and its ideology. All of us have a stake in Iraq’s ongoing fight with extremists. Neighbors must lend support and increase their border-control efforts, especially those that have thus far failed to live up to pledges to tighten border crossings.

Further, I applaud and encourage the nations of the region to continue programs that can dissuade potential recruits from joining extremist groups or rehabilitate those that have. On this point, I should note that much progress has been made with innovative programs to halt the tide of extremism – and offer alternatives to those who are most susceptible to the radical teachings of Al Qaeda. We must keep in mind that this is a fight that will require patience and resolve over many years, if not decades.

Unfortunately, no discussion of the security situation in Iraq is complete without mentioning Iran, a country whose every move seems designed to create maximum anxiety in the international community.

There is no doubt that Iran has been heavily engaged in trying to influence the development and direction of the Iraqi government – and has not been a good neighbor. Much of that effort has been focused on training and supplying groups intent on undermining the government – more often than not through violence and attacks on Iraqi security forces and government installations and officials. Of course, the use of sub-national actors as Iranian proxies should be no surprise considering the financial and military support that Tehran has long given organizations like Hamas and Hezbollah, which also seek to undermine legitimate governments by violent means.

Now, when it comes to Iran’s missile programs, we all know that pictures can be deceiving. Even so, it is clear that Iran has, this year, tested long-range missiles that can hit any country in the Middle East. At the same time, Iran has continued its pursuit of a nuclear program that is almost assuredly geared toward developing nuclear weapons. The last thing this region – or the world – needs is a nuclear arms race in the Middle East.

So what can be done about Iran? For starters, the international community has come together and has increased pressure on Iran diplomatically and economically. I encourage you to implement fully the financial measures called for by the United Nations.

But I think that you can be even more influential by carrying out many of the actions I mentioned earlier – by welcoming the new Iraq into the Arab fold. Your interests and Iraq’s are aligned on a number of levels: in the fight against Al Qaeda and terrorism; in the desire to develop a vibrant and resilient economy; in efforts to bridge the sectarian divides in this part of the world; and, of course, in the necessity to limit Iranian influence and meddling nationally and regionally – meddling that has already cost far too many lives.

For other Arabs to withhold support and friendship because of the composition of Iraq’s government, or because of past aggressions by a defunct government, would be to increase the risk of the very outcome many in the region fear – just when Iraq is determining its future path at home and with its neighbors. Iraq wants to be your partner. And, given the challenges in the Gulf, and the reality of Iran, you should wish to be theirs.

Let me also say a few words about Afghanistan. As you know, the United States has focused more on Afghanistan in recent months and intends to add more resources and military forces next year.

There is no doubt that it is tough fight in Afghanistan, but it is one that is critical to the Middle East as a whole. Al Qaeda and its ideology were incubated in the failed state of Afghanistan, and the extremists have largely returned their attention to that region in the wake of reversals in Iraq. It is a movement that began in that region, and it is a movement that must end there. As we have seen from attacks across the Middle East, the danger reaches far beyond the borders of Afghanistan or Pakistan.

In the last few years, there has been a substantial increase in resources devoted to Afghanistan. There are 42 nations, hundreds of NGOs, universities, development banks, the United Nations, the European Union, NATO, and more – all working to help a nation beset by crushing poverty, a bumper opium crop, a ruthless and resilient insurgency, and violent extremists of many stripes, not the least of which is al Qaeda. The problem, of course, is that the operation is incredibly complex, and, with so many partners, it is hard to keep everyone on the same page. Nonetheless, I believe the upcoming year will see significant progress – the result of more resources, improved cooperation, and lessons learned over the past seven years.

As with Iraq, the nations of the Middle East have much to offer the Afghan people. An enduring requirement is the ability to rapidly train, equip, and advise Afghan security forces – as we are doing to improve the size and quality of Afghanistan’s army.

I was heartened by the pledges made at the Paris Support Conference earlier this year by Gulf nations. I would ask that all the countries here to look at what more they can do, especially with regard to:

Helping fund the Afghan army sustainment, as well as supporting the 2009 presidential elections;

Sending security forces or civilian experts to help build Afghan capacity. Some nations have contributed field hospitals, and other needs include more engineers and agricultural experts, medical and de-mining teams, a variety of military equipment, and more;

And, finally, ensuring that your governments are doing everything in their power to halt financing of the Taliban, whether through the legitimate banking system or illicitly through the drug trade. This should include strengthening counter-terrorism finance laws.

The final topic I want to discuss is related to what I’ve already mentioned: regional security through venues like the Gulf Cooperation Council and the Gulf Security Dialogue. While the GCC and the GSD cover a wide range of issues – from trade and energy infrastructure security to counter-terrorism and regional stability – I want to focus on two in particular: air and maritime security.

Along with the traditional challenges facing our nations, there is a range of diverse, unconventional threats that transcend national borders. Some are ancient – such as piracy, ethnic strife, and poverty. Others are of more recent vintage: terrorist networks harnessing new technologies; weapons proliferation; environmental degradation; and the emergence of deadly and contagious diseases that can spread more rapidly than ever before in human history.

What these challenges have in common is that they simply cannot be overcome by one, or even two countries, no matter how powerful or wealthy. They require multiple nations acting with uncommon unity.

That is particularly true of air defenses and maritime security – areas where multi-national cooperation is not just a preference, but a necessity.

The momentum from last year’s Gulf Security Dialogue meetings led to significant progress in air and missile defense throughout the Middle East. Several Gulf Cooperation Council nations are in the process of acquiring, or have expressed interest in, Shared Early Warning – near real-time information on air and missile attacks that would allow maximum time for a nation to defend itself.

Additionally, all GCC countries have expressed a desire to obtain, or are already obtaining, active defense systems. These procurements demonstrate the GCC’s commitment to regional security and interoperability with each other and the United States.

The need for increased maritime security – and potentially new and better means of cooperation – has been highlighted by the recent, high-profile acts of piracy off the coast of Somalia and the Gulf of Aden. As with terrorism, piracy is a problem that has serious international implications – and should be of particular concern to any nation that depends on the seas for commerce.

Earlier this year, the United States Fifth Fleet, based here in Bahrain, established a Maritime Security Patrol Area in the Gulf of Aden and is leading an international coalition to keep shipping lanes safe. I thank Saudi Arabia for agreeing to support the effort and encourage other nations to do so.

Given the vast coastal areas of Somalia and Kenya – more than one million square miles – there are limits to patrolling alone. More must be done.

Under the United Nations Security Council resolution passed last week, members of the international community must work together to aggressively pursue and deter piracy. Companies and ships must be more vigilant about staying in recommended traffic corridors – and should consider increasing their security personnel and non-lethal defensive capabilities. New efforts for countries represented here might include developing a maritime surface picture and standard operating procedures against seaborne threats beyond just piracy – such as terrorism, narcotics trafficking, and smuggling.

All told, multinational efforts like these are encouraging. They bolster the defensive capabilities of everyone involved, while not diminishing pre-existing bilateral or multilateral relationships. They are, I believe, a model for how all of us can better address the challenges of the 21st century by fostering cooperation between and among the nations of the Gulf.

Let me close with a personal observation. In preparing to – at some point – retire from government service, I have been pondering all I have seen since joining the United States government in 1966. There have been good times and bad times – great successes, and haunting failures. Yet, despite the challenges, no matter how tough the problems, I have always been amazed by the ability of many nations of the world to come together and get the big things right.

For so long, many of the problems in this part of the world have seemed intractable. I believe, however, that there are many reasons for optimism – from an Iraq that is fighting its way out from the darkness of recent decades to the unprecedented cooperation between the nations of the Gulf as they – and we – face incredibly difficult and dangerous threats.

As we look to the future, let us vow to continue and strengthen these activities – to cast aside old animosities and work together in the spirit of friendship – to forge, in the end, a better and brighter future for all of the peoples of the Middle East.

Thank you.

Source: Defense Link

Editor’s Note:

Each fall the National Council on US-Arab Relations brings together a distinguished group of diplomats, government officials, business people, military officials, scholars and others to tackle the thorny issues surrounding US-Arab relations. SUSRIS has provided AUSPC speakers’ remarks, which touch on the Saudi-US relationship, to you for over the last five years. In keeping with that practice we again provide for your consideration a collection of AUSPC presentations.

Today we present the remarks of Christopher Blanchard a Middle East Policy Analyst at the Congressional Research Service (CRS), the public policy research arm of the United States Congress. Mr. Blanchard provided an overview of the issues and challenges facing the new Administration and the new Congress. He was joined on the Security Cooperation panel by Doctor Anthony Cordesman, Mr. Jeffrey C. McCray, and Ambassador Barbara Bodine. Their remarks will be provided separately. The panel was chaired by Rear Admiral Harold J. Bernsen.

Additional AUSPC sessions which address U.S. and Saudi issues will be provided by SUSRIS in the coming days.
17th ANNUAL ARAB-U.S. POLICYMAKERS CONFERENCE
“Transitioning the White House: Challenges and Opportunities for Arab-U.S. Relations”
October 30-31, 2008 | Washington, DC

[RADM HAROLD J. BERNSEN] Our next presenter is Mr. Christopher Blanchard. He’s a Middle East policy analyst at the Congressional Research Service. And he’s come to our attention here at the Council through his very excellent work in authoring or co-authoring 13 Congressional Research Service Reports covering various aspects of Gulf security and we look forward to hearing from him. Chris.

[CHRISTOPHER BLANCHARD] Good morning. I’d like to thank Dr. Anthony and the Council first and foremost for the opportunity to address you this morning, and also to do so alongside such a distinguished panel.

My task as outlined by our hosts is to offer you some focused remarks on the U.S.-Arab security cooperation agenda for policymakers as we look forward to a new administration and to the beginning of the 111th Congress. I’ll start by underscoring that my remarks this morning are made in my personal capacity and do not reflect the views or opinions of the Congressional Research Service. Now in theory that allows me to actually say something stimulating to you so I’ll try to do that.

First, I’ll review the menu of security cooperation programs and initiatives that the new Administration and the new Congress will inherit in January 2009. Iraq notwithstanding, what will U.S.-Arab defense cooperation look like on day one? That includes initiatives in the Gulf but it also includes important initiatives beyond the Gulf that have to be taken into consideration when looking at the overall dynamic of defense cooperation. What commitments and constraints are already existing and what will the new Administration and Congress have to contend with?

Secondly, I’ll describe what I see as the most important unresolved issues and potential challenges related to those programs. In doing so I’ll try to identify some tangible policy questions and options for U.S. policymakers and their regional counterparts in the months and years ahead.

Now you heard a lot yesterday and earlier from Doctor Cordesman about the various pitfalls of the strategic environment upcoming in January but also pitfalls related to existing programs. Rather than add to that sobering list I’ll emphasize the elements I think are most relevant to U.S. security assistance programs.

Namely, first and foremost the continuing terrorist threat to governments’ critical infrastructure across the region. The need to respond to an assertive, if not capable, or maybe as threatening as we’ve been led to believe, Iranian regional policy and the need to address the weakness of state security institutions primarily in Iraq, Lebanon, the Palestinian territories and increasingly in Yemen.

Over the short term obviously U.S. security policymakers will be constrained in their ability to respond to these challenges by the need to manage the continuing investment of resources and manpower in Iraq and Afghanistan, and also the unclear political and security endgames in both of those countries.

To date the Bush Administration working with Congress has supported a variety of longstanding and new security cooperation programs to respond to these conditions and other conventional and unconventional threats. These programs include what I call legacy programs. These are longstanding programs, for example with Saudi Arabia, such as the Saudi Arabian National Guard modernization program, the Military Training Mission – these continue to serve as the principal U.S. military liaison relationships with the Saudi National Guard and the Ministry of Defense and Aviation. They continue to operate through the mechanism of the foreign military sales program and both programs in the last 12 months, 16 months have seen potential sales notifications to Congress that will extend the programs commitment and activities well into the next Administration.

As highlighted in yesterday’s ambassador roundtable the working groups of the U.S.-Saudi Strategic Dialogue have helped strengthen U.S.-Saudi cooperation in other areas outside these long established programs. In a parallel, if unmentioned yesterday, DoD-led initiative known as the Strategic Joint Planning Committee, has charted a new course for bilateral security cooperation in the further development of Saudi defense capabilities.

The other important legacy program to take note of is the U.S. defense cooperation program with Egypt, sort of conspicuously absent in many of our discussions. It continues to be anchored by an annual $1.3 billion dollar foreign military financing appropriation to support the acquisition of new defense systems, upgrades to existing technology and the support and maintenance of purchased equipment. There’s also continuing close coordination on the use of facilities for the transit of the Suez Canal. These are cornerstones that the new administration and Congress are going to have to take into consideration.

We’ve also seen the development of new bilateral programs outside of the Gulf. For example, U.S. security cooperation with Jordan has grown significantly. Again, through the use of foreign military financing assistance but recently last month codified in the signing of a five-year memorandum of understanding, subject to Congressional approval of course, that will provide up to $300 million a year in foreign military financing to support U.S.-Jordanian defense cooperation.

A similar new program with Lebanon, since 2006, in response to the summer conflict, Congress has appropriated over $400 million to new security assistance programs for Lebanese armed forces and internal security forces. These programs are designed to improve Lebanese government’s capability to assert control over its territory and meet security commitments under U.N. Security Council 1701. To date U.S. programs have delivered supplies, training, ammunition, communications gear, vehicles and the Bush administration has made a commitment that the new administration and Congress will have to take into account to continue quote enhancing the LAF’s capabilities. That’s likely to include new Congressional notifications and consideration of deliveries.

A third bilateral program that the new administration and Congress have to take into consideration is our security cooperation with the Palestinian Authority. This is a longer running program than many realize. It was derailed with the Hamas election in 2006 but was restarted in 2007 and has been supported through a $160 million appropriation, again, to improve the capabilities of these internal security forces.

To address some of the security cooperation challenges relative to the Gulf, the core program, there’s a multilateral initiative known as the Gulf Security Dialogue. Now there is a pitfall here, or potential for this to fall into the empty sloganeering that Doctor Cordesman warned us about. But what it represents is actually a fairly tangible and significant initiative by the administration to actually engage with the GCC in a comprehensive and repeated manner on subjects such as the improvement of their defense capabilities and interoperability, coordination on regional security issues, counter proliferation, counter terrorism, critical infrastructure protection. It represents a sustained, and really for the first time, interagency approach to the GCC partners to try and meet some of the challenges that Doctor Cordesman outlined.

Turning towards what I see as the unresolved issues and challenges for these programs and what are the new Administration and Congress and our regional partners likely to face?

The first important unresolved issue and really the most important is the definition of some organizing principle. Since the September 11th attacks, ushered in a moment when both dual containment and the Oslo Peace process were falling apart. Counter terrorism has really served as the overarching theme of U.S. security engagement with the region. However, the need to marshal regional support for U.S. efforts in Iraq and contain the effects of that security situation have prevented a real sort of clarification of what U.S. strategic objectives are in the region and the prioritization of those objectives and the clear communication of those ideas to our GCC partners and potential adversaries.

Post 2006 the Administration has taken new efforts to strengthen the capabilities of partner governments as I have laid out but also to respond to some of the more asymmetric threats posed by terrorist groups and by Iran to give a new direction to U.S. security cooperation policy in the region. However, a clear definition is still lacking. A post-9/11 or stable post-Iraq — even if we dare talk about that — paradigm, this is really the main issue the new Administration and Congress are going to have to identify through working with our regional partners, or in consultation with regional partners.

What that will lead to ideally is a review of what the U.S. defense posture in the region is and our core security cooperation programs. Obviously strategy dictates operations and tactics. So which facilities do we need to maintain? What partner capabilities do we need to encourage and develop? What sort of cooperation programs are required to complement what is likely to be a more residual U.S. presence in the region?

In reviewing the programs I described earlier the new administration and Congress and our regional partners should think carefully about how to match and reshape these programs to meet current and projected needs not just to continue to meet the status quo and continue decades-long programs designed to meet conventional threats that may or may not materialize.

It’s a question of means and ends. Is defense cooperation a means to an end or has defense cooperation in some instances, in some forms, become the end in and of itself? Again, we heard yesterday about some efforts to do that with the Saudi cooperation programs. However, I would echo Doctor Cordesman in emphasizing that Saudi Arabia’s more immediate security needs are critical infrastructure protection, border security and maritime defense and new opportunities exist to meet those.

To sum up, I would like to encourage both our U.S. policymakers in the audience and our regional partners to focus a little bit more on process. Last year on this panel, General Martin Dempsey stated that stovepipe authorities, a lack of clear vision, frustration with the pace of the foreign military sales program – these were things that were really limiting the effectiveness of U.S.-Arab military cooperation.

He suggested that those programs and procedures and objectives be revisited and streamlined. I would suggest that looking forward to the opening of the new administration that policymakers on both sides seriously consider General Dempsey’s recommendations and work together to chart a new course and really revitalize security cooperation programs to meet the serious threats that this conference has helped outline.

Thank you.

Source: Arab-US Policymakers Conference Web Site (AUSPC 2008)

Transcription Services by Ryan & Associates

About Mr. Christopher Blanchard

Christopher Blanchard is a Middle East Policy Analyst at the Congressional Research Service (CRS), the public policy research arm of the United States Congress. As a CRS analyst, Mr. Blanchard provides objective nonpartisan policy analysis and research support to the Members, committees, and staff of the U.S. Congress on a range of political, economic, and security issues in the Middle East. He has authored or co-authored 13 CRS reports for the Congress, including products on the Gulf Security Dialogue and related U.S. arms sales, U.S. relations with Saudi Arabia and Qatar, and regional perspectives on the Iraq conflict. His work has been included in national security syllabi at top U.S. universities and has been cited in a number of leading national and international publications. As a Presidential Management Fellow, Mr. Blanchard served as a policy advisor on the Middle East with the Office of Terrorist Financing and Financial Crime at the U.S. Department of the Treasury. He holds a Masters degree in International Affairs from Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs and completed his undergraduate studies at Boston College and the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Editor’s Note:

Each fall the National Council on US-Arab Relations brings together a distinguished group of diplomats, government officials, business people, military officials, scholars and others to tackle the thorny issues surrounding US-Arab relations. SUSRIS has provided AUSPC speakers’ remarks, which touch on the Saudi-US relationship, to you for over the last five years. In keeping with that practice we again provide for your consideration a collection of AUSPC presentations.

Today we present the remarks of General Joseph Hoar who led U.S. Central Command during his 37 years of service in the U.S. Marine Corps. As CENTCOM Commander in Chief in the early 1990s he was responsible for U.S. military forces in Southwest Asia, the Arabian Peninsula and the Gulf that were enforcing the American policy to contain Iran and Iraq, including enforcement of the “no-fly zone” in Southern Iraq. General Hoar was joined on the panel by Gen. Brent Scowcroft, Mr. Wayne White and Dr. Kenneth Katzman. Their remarks will be provided separately. The panel was introduced by Dr. John Duke Anthony, President of the National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations.

Additional AUSPC sessions which address U.S. and Saudi issues will be provided by SUSRIS in the coming days.
17th ANNUAL ARAB-U.S. POLICYMAKERS CONFERENCE
“Transitioning the White House: Challenges and Opportunities for Arab-U.S. Relations”
October 30-31, 2008 | Washington, DC

GEO-POLITICAL DYNAMICS: IRAN AND IRAQ

Chair: Dr. John Duke Anthony
Speakers:
Lt. Gen. Brent Scowcroft (USAF, Ret.)
Gen. Joseph P. Hoar (USMC Ret.)
Mr. Wayne White
Dr. Kenneth Katzman

Engagement is the Answer
Gen. Joseph P. Hoar

[JOHN DUKE ANTHONY] ..The next speaker is Retired General Joseph Hoar, who had a distinguished career of 37 years in the United States Marine Corps. And I first came to know him when he was Commander in Chief of the United States Central Command, whose area of responsibility then was just under 20 or just a few more than 20 countries, which has grown considerably since then. He served as the Chief of Staff to General Norman H. Schwarzkopf of renown in terms of Desert Shield/Desert Storm the reversal of Iraq’s aggression against Kuwait, the restoration of national sovereignty, political independence, and territorial integrity to Kuwait.

He also served as the Commander overseeing Operation Southern Watch to prevent another massacre of the southern Iraqi people that ensued after the liberation of Kuwait in 1991. He served also to enforce the naval blockade in the Persian Gulf, in the Arabian Sea, and he was in charge of overseeing American military and civil humanitarian operations in Kenya, as well as in Somalia and in Rwanda.

General Hoar, it’s a pleasure and a privilege to have you here, to reflect on this issue that was one that you dealt with before. Now that you’re out of uniform, not constrained so much by the policies, what can we learn from you in terms of focusing on this particular thorny controversial issue?

[GEN. JOSEPH P. HOAR] Thank you, John. I want to say, as I think most everybody else has, what a wonderful conference this is, and how well organized it is. And I suspect that the conferees all feel the same way. I think we’re blessed to have this opportunity and I’m delighted to be here to participate.

As you recall, the subject is challenges and opportunities for Iraq and Iran. One of the difficulties that we face is that we can change neither geography nor history of the region, and both are really important. And I’m not going to go into any great detail, but with respect to the geography, and General Scowcroft touched on this a moment ago, the solutions to both of these problems are in some measure greater or lesser, dependent on the neighbors. And if you start over in Central Asia, with India, with Afghanistan, go up into Central Asia, Russia, the countries in the Caucuses, Turkey, Ukraine, obviously Syria, Lebanon, Israel, not to mention the GCC countries and Egypt, all of these countries have a role to play to a greater or lesser degree. And we can’t expect that part of it to change.

But unfortunately here in the last several years, we’ve had opportunities to seize that might have made some difference, particularly with respect to Iraq. Many of you probably know it, was alluded to this morning, that going back to right after 9/11, the Syrians were willing to engage with us, and at one point talked about starting all over with a blank sheet of paper, with respect to coming to an agreement with Israel. How much different our ability to have dealt with Iraq might have been, had that process gone forward in 2002. Different for Syria, different for Lebanon, certainly different for Israel, and so these are the kind of things that impinge, and certainly make more complicated, how we’re going to deal with these two countries. Also, there’s the issue of history, of the First World War, and one type of imperialism of the Ottoman Empire, was replaced by two other empires, the British and the French. The legacy of that period is still with us today.

Now I don’t know that you agree with me, but the invasion of Iraq was mistake right from the start. It was wrong because Iraq was contained. They were not a danger to us. When Mr. Wolfowitz was asked about this, he indicated well we better do something, it’s costing us a half billion dollars a year. Well, that’s true. The tab was a half billion dollars a year, but an Arab country was paying that half billion dollars. The U.S. Government was not. And so the priorities then as now should be Al-Qaeda, Afghanistan, neutralizing the Taliban, continue to work on homeland security, and obviously progress on the Israeli-Palestinian issue.

There were early mistakes made without question, but today we should point out that as in every insurgency, if you plan to bring change about, you have to look at root causes. Root cause today in Iraq is the lack of political reconciliation among various regional groups, among religious groups. And we have been unable to encourage the Iraqis to move forward on some of these very, very difficult issues; the business of provincial elections, dividing up oil revenues, what to do with militias, and a whole host of other things. And there’s been some minor improvements but it’s useful to point out that both in Kirkuk and in Mosul these problems are bubbling up right now. And so while the surge helped and while security is better now than it was before, security improvement is ephemeral without change on the political side. The politics of this is going to actually make the difference in the long run.

I would just say very briefly because Brent covered it, but timetables are not a good idea. The enemy always gets a vote. I really like the sort of discussions that are taking place at the bilateral level between the United States and Iraq. We’re talking about a particular date, but it’s also tempered by the possibility that things may change between now and then. So before I leave Iraq, we probably ought to say a few things about what could be done in the future. I would say to begin with that the new President ought to concentrate on political change, on reconciliation. He’s got one of the very best ambassadors in Ryan Crocker out there. What he needs is to provide support and the direction from Washington, so that everybody knows the President is involved. He can let General Petraeus who will be at Central Command starting tomorrow, to deal with the nuts and bolts of the security issue. And then, if I were in that situation I’d find the best historian in the Ottoman Empire that I could and then get the best cultural anthropologist to keep him company, and I’d have them follow me around every place that I went, just to make sure that we got it right, finally.

Now, let’s talk a little bit about Iran. The first thing is, by attacking Iraq, we automatically made Iran a regional power. We took out their major adversary in Iraq, and we neutralized, if only temporarily, the Taliban, on the other side. And so now we see not only that they are regional powers, but clearly indications of aspirations to be perhaps a hegemon in the area, their role in Iraq, their role in Syria, in Lebanon as well. And I can tell you, and I think you’ve heard it already, that there is real fear among the GCC countries about where all of this is going. All of them have minorities, in one case it’s not a minority, it’s a majority of Shias, and as the Sheika correctly pointed out, they can’t exchange Iran for some place else. A friend of mine in Oman said maybe North Dakota would be nice as a replacement, but it won’t work. So they have to deal with the facts on the ground and so do we.

I mentioned earlier the European involvement. In no place is it more obvious than in Iran. The British extracted concessions for oil going back to 1872. One of the major reasons for overthrowing Mosaddegh in the early 50’s was the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company was about to be nationalized. One writer at the time said, speaking of the United States, by following British policy the U.S. will gain nothing but loss of prestige and hatred. And we really have to place this, our relationship with Iran, in that context.

And so the answer is really engagement, just as the five Secretaries of State said at the George Washington CNN conference a while back. When the Iraq Conference report came out, the Baker-Hamilton Report, Jim Baker was asked about engagement by Tim Russert on the Sunday morning talk show, and Mr. Baker said famously “engagement does not constitute endorsement.” And that’s how we should be going into it. And I again emphasize Brent’s point about preconditions. We need to sit down and we need to cast a very broad net of the players in the region and those other players like China and Russia, that are on the National Security Council, the U.N. Security Council, that will have a role to play in all of this. We need to bring in the IAEA. I had some experiences with them over several years, and it’s very easy to disparage them, but I think they’re a very effective organization. And the end result is going to be compromise.

Now, you shouldn’t let me get away without talking about the possibility of an air attack on nuclear positions in Iran. So let me try and talk about that for a few moments. I would say first of all that it’s one of two possibilities. The first is that this may be the best example in recent times of a highly coordinated threat of force against a country in order to bring about a diplomatic solution. The threat of force is far more useful than its actual application as I think everybody here understands. And so it’s possible that that’s what we’re observing. I’m not sure. However, I can tell you that for people that think this is serious, I would put it in the utter folly department. The people that fly airplanes and drop bombs that I talked to seem to think that “A”, we don’t know enough about where the facilities are and we don’t have the right kind of weapons to do the job.

Again, logistics and geography play a key role. Sure, we can force open the Straits of Hormuz. Sure we can do a lot of things. But I should also share with you a conversation that Hamad bin Jassim, at the time he was the Foreign Minister of the State of Qatar had in Tehran. He’s now the Prime Minister. Hamad bin Jassim went to Tehran and explained to his interlocutors that the State of Qatar had supported the United States in the attack against Iraq, but was not going to support the United States in an attack against Iran. And his interlocutors said to him you’ve got it all wrong. If we’re attacked by the United States, we don’t have the missiles to strike the United States. But we can certainly strike all of the facilities up and down the coast of your friends.

And so Qatar, as I think you know, has about a $20 billion capital expenditure in a joint venture with Qatar Gas and Exxon Mobile. And there are similar arrangements all over the region. This is perhaps why UAE is investigating getting anti-missile missiles. And I know that in some cases from personal experience that some of the GCC countries are carrying on engagement right at this very moment. And so it is going on.

The point is that we’re in a very dangerous situation. I think Brent described it very well. It’s in our interest to engage. It’s in our interest to broaden the base and bring as many other players in as we can. It’s in our interest to find a great compromise here that will work to everybody’s advantage. Thank you.

[ANTHONY] Thank you General Hoar.

QUESTIONS POSED TO GENERAL HOAR IN THE Q AND A PERIOD:

[ANTHONY] General Scowcroft, you may want to comment on this one as well, but I’ll ask it to General Hoar first, and others can comment if they like. With regard to the bunker buster bombs, the U.S. has sold one thousand of these to Israel. Comment on the implications of that and association with any delivery systems before or subsequently. And what about this strategic concept of mutually assured destruction that seemed to work in an East/West context during the Cold War, but hasn’t really even entered into serious or favorable consideration as being applicable to this particular situation between say, Israel and Iran, having mutually assured destruction, although it would not be really mutually assured. One has several hundred and the other, so far as we know, doesn’t have one yet. And related to that, I appreciate the humor in this person, prefacing, “I hope this question will not be thrown away, please. If Israel has 200 atomic bombs, why can’t Iran have only 2 to protect itself from Israel?”

[HOAR] I’ll give it a shot. I don’t know enough about what we have sold to Israel, but I know in talking to some of my peers that are aviators, and people that have been in this business for some time, they say the likelihood, lack of intelligence for one thing, and the second thing is we know these nuclear sites are dispersed.

And that secondly, conventional weapons are not powerful enough to get down to the depth at which these structures are built. I can’t comment beyond that because I don’t have any firsthand knowledge, and I suspect that some of this is not for public consumption in any case.

In respect to the mutual deterrent. I’m not really sure. I’m not really that familiar with the inside operations of Iran, but I have had some experience talking to the Pakistanis about their nuclear program. I think that this whole concept that it wouldn’t happen because the outcome might be too terrible to contemplate doesn’t necessarily have to be true in that part of the world. I always was concerned that there were people in the Pakistani government that seem to take that possibility with India very lightly, and I’m not sure that that’s true with respect to Iran or not. Brent or one of the other gentlemen would probably have a much better sense of that than I.

[OTHER PANELISTS]

[ANTHONY] This next question is also Iran-centric, but it has various pieces to it that I’m trying to mold into one. And any of you can take a whack at the answer. Will the reduction in oil prices effecting Iran’s budget impact Iran’s designs on Iraq? Another one related to that. Assume for the sake of argument Iran does not exist beside Iraq, and assume that it doesn’t interfere in Iraq’s affairs, do you not think that the Iraqis would still resist the occupation in any event? Thirdly, with regard to North Korea and the way that the United States has handled it diplomatically, strategically, politically, engagement wise, quite differently than Iran. Is there no applicability of what the United States has done towards North Korea and its nuclear situation to that pertaining to Iran? Is it that North Korea does not reside inside the jugular of the world’s energy preponderance that drives the economies of global economic growth? Is that the difference? Is it Iran’s strategic real estate, 550 miles of coastline on the Gulf, including the other side of the Hormuz Strait, versus Iraq’s having less than 50 miles on the Gulf? And could you comment as well about the reality, or feasibility of the statements that go practically unchallenged about Iran’s threats to close the Hormuz Strait, shut it down, when the totality of the maritime traffic going into the Hormuz Strait goes not through Iran’s waters, but through Oman’s waters, two mile wide zone going in, two mile wide zone going out, and a two mile separation zone between the two. Joe, you want to take a stab at that first? Because you have had to look at that issue.

[HOAR] Well, absolutely. You will recall that during the 80’s that we were involved, what Hal [Bernsen] used to do, which was called the tanker war, escorting reflagged Kuwaiti tankers through the Gulf. And there was a good deal of activity with the Iranians during that period. I don’t know whether Tony Less is still here this afternoon, but Admiral Tony Less presided over the largest naval engagement since the second World War in the Persian Gulf, in I want to say ’87. And so there were ships sunk, airplanes shot down, oil platforms destroyed and so forth. And so we’ve had some experience with this.

The earlier question about forcing the Strait of Hormuz, all of this is possible. We have enormous capabilities. But it’s important to note also that the way the Air Force goes about this is that you take out all the air defense first. There’s no sense in flying in to try to hit strategic targets with people shooting missiles at you. It tends to cause you to lose your concentration. And so the first thing that goes is the bad guys’ air defense. And then incrementally you are able to do some of the other things, which explains why we heard just a moment ago about the numbers of sorties and so forth.

But the Iranians have very sophisticated surface-to-surface missiles, Silkworm, the Seersucker and several others that are very effective. They have small boats that were armed with missiles. It would be a difficult task, and it would be very complicated, and of course we could prevail, but it would take more than a couple of carriers to do this. You would need to get Air Force units deployed into someplace in the GCC — UAE, Qatar, wherever. You’d have to get permission to do this. There wouldn’t be a lot of support for this, I don’t think. I think it would be difficult politically to make it happen. We would prevail but it would be at some cost. To Wayne White’s point. The result would be that we would have the makings of a very large fight on our hands as a result.

Source: Arab-US Policymakers Conference Web Site (AUSPC 2008)

Transcription Services by Ryan & Associates

About General Joseph P. Hoar, USMC (Ret)

General Hoar retired from the U.S. Marine Corps after 37 years of service. During his last three years of active service, he was the Commander in Chief, U.S. Central Command—the unified command that has the planning and operational responsibilities for 19 countries of the Middle East, South Asia, and the Horn of Africa. Operational highlights of his tenure include enforcing the naval embargo in the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf, enforcing the no-fly zone in the south of Iraq, the humanitarian and peacekeeping operations in Kenya and Somalia, support for operations in Rwanda, and the evacuation of U.S. civilians from Yemen during the 1994 civil war. General Hoar was the Deputy for Operations for the Marine Corps during the Gulf War, and, prior to that, he was General Norman Schwarzkopf’s Chief of Staff at Central Command.

As an infantry officer, Hoar commanded at all levels, from platoon to regiment. He also commanded three Marine Corps Air Ground Task Forces.

Since retiring, General Hoar has formed a consulting firm that is engaged in business development in the Middle East and Africa. He is a member of the Board of Directors of several non-profit organizations.

For more information: Arms Control Center

Editor’s Note:

The Hajj is over. The pilgrims are returning from Saudi Arabia to their homes around the world. And this year’s incident-free performance of a basic rite of Islam by over three million Muslims received extensive media coverage as illustrated in a report by Siraj Wahab in Arab News. Today we are pleased to share the last of five articles by Wahab that provides a wrap up of the Hajj from his perspective as well as links to his other Hajj diaries. Please also consider the insights of Dr. David Long who offered this comment in a 2005 SUSRIS exclusive interview, about what should we understand about the Hajj? He said:

“The Hajj creates an opportunity for non Muslims and people who don’t know much about Islam — particularly those people who have a totally negative view of Muslims as terrorists and the other images that are prominently displayed in the media — that this is a gathering of 2 million faithful people in a joyous time in the 21st century. With all the strife and all the suffering going on in the world it is just absolutely amazing. It shows as much as anything can, the collective heart of the largest religious group in the world — 1.2 billion people, more of them than anyone else. That in itself is not the lesson, the lesson is to get along in this world with anybody you need a sense of perspective. This is a great way of gaining perspective by looking at how so many people do an act of piety and religious obligation in an atmosphere of joy every year regardless of what’s going on in Iraq, or anywhere, and I think that would be a lesson to contemplate.”

Hajj Reflections Day 5: Media coverage this year was greater than ever

Siraj Wahab | Arab News

It has been a hugely successful Haj. The efforts of the Saudi government have been lauded again and again by pilgrims in Mina. The organization of the stoning ritual through the use of the new Jamrat complex was excellent. It is inconceivable that there could ever be another stampede tragedy. As we write, it is 5 p.m. and the pilgrims who are leaving on Wednesday from Mina are rushing to avail themselves of transport and be out of the city within the hour. Pilgrims not outside the environs of Mina by sunset must remain in their tents for one more night.

As per the order of the Haj organizers, the pilgrims were not allowed to carry bags and suitcases with them during the stoning ritual. This means that they had to stone the Jamrat after 12 p.m. and then return to their tents to collect their luggage before proceeding to Makkah for Tawaf Al-Wida — the final duty in Haj before they return home. Some groups tried to avoid taking women and the elderly with them for the last stoning in order to speed up the process. It is allowed for women and the weak to deputize others to stone on their behalf and we noticed that this dispensation was used more on the final day than on other days of the pilgrimage. Some pilgrims were quite exhausted by this point and needed to save their remaining strength for the farewell circumambulation. Having others do their stoning was a relief.

In the afternoon we went to Mina Al-Jesser Hospital. This is one of seven hospitals, four in Mina and three in Arafat, which open only during the Haj season. Dr. Waleed Al-Amri is the director of this facility. A Makkan himself, during the remainder of the year he is a pediatric emergency consultant at the Maternity and Children’s Hospital in Makkah. Dr. Al-Amri is 40 years old, a graduate of King Abdulaziz University in Jeddah and this is his 12th year offering his services for Haj.

When we asked him how it feels as a Saudi to serve the guests of Allah he replied: “Don’t ask me as a Saudi. Ask me as a Muslim. We Makkans take pride in serving Muslims throughout the year. Our city receives millions and millions of visitors annually, but Haj is very special. For me as a physician, I am able to offer a valuable service and I am grateful to the pilgrims that they trust in my skills and allow me to help them.”

Mina Al-Jessar hospital is not a small operation. This 122-bed facility boasts 330 staff members during Haj including 92 physicians and 140 nurses and lab assistants. The hospital also has four intensive care units — unusual at any general hospital but part of the essential requirements for a medical center at Haj.

“At Haj in years past, we often received large numbers of pilgrims requiring intensive medical care all at the same time. That is why we need so many beds with a large amount of supportive medical equipment. This year, thanks be to Allah and the efforts of the Saudi government, this was not the case,” explained Al-Amri. He said that the very worst year in his Haj service was in 1997, the year of the tent fire, in which more than 300 pilgrims were killed. He was assigned to Jabal Al-Rahmah hospital in Arafat that year. He remarked that such tragedies have required an enormous number of intensive care beds and medical facilities are upgraded annually based on a review of the event.

“My team was delighted to deliver four healthy babies at Mina this year,” said Al-Amri.

According to Al-Amri, this year the number of patients treated at the hospital was 50 percent less than last year. He attributed the decline to the strict enforcement of only allowing entry to Makkah for pilgrims with permits. “Pilgrims without permits often don’t have the required vaccinations. Additionally they won’t have a place to sleep or proper food available,” the doctor noted. “We do not differentiate between pilgrims with permits and those without when a patient comes to us for treatment. There is no doubt though that pilgrims with permits are better prepared for the strains of the event. Additionally, we help all the pilgrims under our care complete the rituals.”

By this the doctor meant that for pilgrims who were admitted to the hospital in the early days of Haj, special transport was brought in to take them to Arafat on the ninth of Dul Hijjah and then return them to the hospital after the completion of this essential Haj requirement. That might have entailed the pilgrim being accompanied by a nurse or doctor in an ambulance. There is no charge to the pilgrim for this service.

Although blessedly this year’s Haj was free from any disasters, the media’s coverage of the event was greater than ever. As recently as the late 1990s, there was almost no coverage of Haj outside the Middle East. Then a decade ago, Riz Khan covered the event for CNN and that was the start of major international media coverage of the event — even in countries without a Muslim majority.

For this Haj there were more than 250 media representatives from outside Saudi Arabia. Associated Press’ Ali Akbar Dareini, who is normally based in Tehran, was covering the event along with a photographer and two APTV staff. This was his second time at the Haj, the first time being more than 13 years ago. He is not a specialist in covering religious affairs, writing more on nuclear issues due to his normal assignment in Tehran.

“Saudi Arabia has finally understood how to manage this event,” said Dareini. “The organization of this year’s Haj shows the competence and skill levels of the Saudi authorities. They have become adept at crowd management. In the past, people were almost resigned to the stampedes at the Jamrat. Those tragic problems have now been resolved.”

Even as the potential for disaster at the Haj diminishes, Dareini would like to see more media attention and space given to Haj coverage. He pointed out that it is one of the largest annual events involving millions of average men and women from around the world. Its broad international appeal and impact have still not been fully realized.

Television producer Salim Salam of the UK’s Gazelle Media concurred with that sentiment. Assisted by Shariah Walker, Salam was filming footage of the Haj which will be sold to other international media organizations for use not only in immediate news stories but also in documentaries and special projects.

“I have filmed religious festivals and pilgrimages all over the world.. .. Haj is of course much bigger than most and better organized,” Salam said. “It does have commonalities with the others though such as the devotion of the pilgrims and the physical and spiritual journey involved. The rituals are different but these events all have rituals, dress codes and rules of behavior. Haj is unique in the unity of the world’s nations and the oneness of the event — all the pilgrims have come to praise one God.”

Kasim Irikur, from Kerala in India, is a journalist who also has covered many events of a political nature. This was his first year to be reporting from Haj and he was a pilgrim, too. “It was very difficult being both journalist and pilgrim. I was quite overwhelmed and it was hard for me to decide what my focus should be. There were so many possible stories and so much to be said. I was impressed by Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah’s speech on Tuesday in which he stated that extremism and narrow-mindedness have stunted the growth of the Muslim Ummah. Such understanding bodes well for Saudi Arabia and the future of the Muslim world.”

Let me end on a delightful note. On Tuesday this diarist narrated the story of Zebunissa Begum, an elderly pilgrim from Pakistan who became lost and was returned to her camp with the help of the India Fraternity Forum. While standing near the Jamrat Complex yesterday afternoon, I was accosted by an elderly woman, smiling from ear to ear. It was Hajjan Zebunissa Begum. Her Haj group had been horrified to see her dart off to accost a stranger but then there was much laughter and thanks when I approached them to explain how we had come to know each other. Hajjan Zebunissa is now on her way home and so am I. Haj Mabroor.

Source: Arab News

Editor’s Note:

Each fall the National Council on US-Arab Relations brings together a distinguished group of diplomats, government officials, business people, military officials, scholars and others to tackle the thorny issues surrounding US-Arab relations. SUSRIS has provided AUSPC speakers’ remarks, which touch on the Saudi-US relationship, to you for over the last five years. In keeping with that practice we again provide for your consideration a collection of AUSPC presentations.

Today we present the remarks of Nabilah Al-Tunisi, Director of the Ras Tanura Integrated Project (RTIP), a Saudi Aramco joint venture project with Dow Chemical to build one of the largest hydrocarbon and chemical complexes in the world near the Ras Tanura refinery in Saudi Arabia. Ms. Tunisi was joined on the panel by Karen Harbert of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Institute for 21st Century Energy, Ryan M. Lance of ConocoPhillips, Jay R. Pryor of Chevron and Jim Burkhard of Cambridge Energy Research Associates. Their remarks will be provided separately.

Additional AUSPC sessions which address U.S. and Saudi issues will be provided by SUSRIS in the coming days. For more transcripts online check the index and link below.

17th ANNUAL ARAB-U.S. POLICYMAKERS CONFERENCE
“Transitioning the White House: Challenges and Opportunities for Arab-U.S. Relations”
October 30-31, 2008 | Washington, DC

[KAREN HARBERT/PANEL CHAIR] ..We are very pleased to have Nabilah Al-Tunisi with us. She’s the director of the Saudi Aramco joint venture with Dow Chemical to build one of the largest hydrocarbon and chemical complexes in the world. It’s going to involve $25 billion of investment and it will be the largest petrochemical complex ever undertaken. Prior to that she has had a very long and distinguished career in Saudi Aramco and I will not go through her entire bio because we could be here for the duration of the panel, but it is in all of your information. But suffice to say that we are so delighted that she also studied here in the United States at the University of Portland in Oregon, and also at Oregon State University and at Stanford. So she has great experience on the left coast of the United States and a very distinguished career and we look forward to hearing from her.

[NABILAH AL-TUNISI] Thank you so much. Madam chairperson, distinguished delegates and colleagues, it’s an honor to be with you today and to address this important conference.

Energy is an essential driver of the world’s economic health and social well-being. And in some shape or form energy touches the daily life of all of us. It’s also a topic of immense professional interest and personal pride to me. And over the past 25 years a touchstone for policymakers and commentators associated with the National Council on U.S. Arab Relations.

Energy has been an integral element in the relationship between the United States and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for the last three quarters of a century. This year, in fact, Saudi Aramco is celebrating the 75th anniversary of signing the original concession agreement between the Saudi government and the Standard Oil Company of California, predecessor of today’s Chevron, which opened the Kingdom to oil exploration and marked the birth of our company. It took five more years of hard work in difficult conditions before oil was found in commercial quantities.

The discovery of Damman Number 7, the “Prosperity Well,” in 1938, opened the door of opportunities for the people of Saudi Arabia and also marked the debut on the global stage of what would become the world’s largest and most reliable petroleum sector. Even as well 7 was brought in, something else just as valuable was being forged; a unique sense of partnership between individual Americans and Saudis which would open the close relationship between our two nations.

Too often though, the energy relationship between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia is seen as a one-way street. Basically, Saudi petroleum bound for this country’s shores. The reality is much richer and more complex. Certainly, Saudi Aramco remains a major supplier of crude oil to the American market, something we take great pride in and toward which we feel an enormous sense of responsibility. And yet, our company also relies on the United States for its continued business success, on high quality goods and materials used throughout our operations on world class engineering project management and oil field services, on training and educational opportunities including academic programs at some of this country’s finest universities, and of course on the thousands of American men and women with Saudi Aramco’s workforce in the U.S., back in the Kingdom, and in locations all over the world.

In addition, joint venture partnerships are yet another important aspect of our bilateral energy relationship. These include, in the Kingdom, a refinery that we own and operate in conjunction with ExxonMobil as well as a project to build a major new export oriented refinery which we are pursuing with Conoco-Phillips. Actually, our U.S. partnership can be found as far afield as China, where we are partnering with ExxonMobil and China’s Sinopec to expand an existing refinery and construct integrated petrochemical facilities.

Here in the United States, there is our Motiva refining and distribution partnership with Shell, which boasts three major refineries and includes nearly 7700 Shell branded service stations in the Southern and Eastern United States. We are currently working with our partners at Shell to expand Motiva’s Port Arthur, Texas refinery in a project which will mark or make the facility the largest single refinery in the country.

And today, I am pleased to have the opportunity to discuss yet another landmark partnership between Saudi Aramco and a leading American petrochemical company, the Dow Chemical Company. This is the Ras Tanura Integrated Petrochemical Project, or RTIP. One of the most ambitious downstream petroleum and petrochemical projects ever undertaken.

It will be a major addition to Saudi-Aramco’s operational portfolio and the Kingdom’s economy. The Ras Tanura Integrated Petrochemical Project takes megaproject into a new level. Some even call it a “gigaproject.”

Whatever term you choose, RTIP is a giant step forward in the Kingdom’s use of its hydrocarbon resources and its ability to add value to those God-given petroleum assets. Once complete, RTIP will not only produce a stream of refined products and petrochemicals, but will also form the hub of an industrial cluster. This cluster is manufacturing and industrial companies that will transform the RTIP product stream into a wide range of essential materials and useful consumer products. This industrial cluster will increase the value of our petroleum production while creating good jobs and extending the process of economic diversification already underway in the Kingdom.

Let me begin my overview by noting that RTIP is at the core of the company’s strategy of capturing a greater share of the hydrocarbon value chain from its petroleum resources through investment and petrochemical assets. Those of you who did well in college chemistry will appreciate the product mix of this project; polyethylene, ethylene oxide, propylene oxide, and glycogloralkalide, venylchloride monomer, polyurethane components, epoxy resin, polycarbonates, amines, and glycol ethers. Those without chemical engineering degree might simply look at it as cracking open a single egg and using its content to create a chef’s surprise of almost unlimited recipes and dishes.

Of course, contemporary life is pretty much unimaginable without petrochemicals and the wide variety of products which are derived from them. Because of the hydrocarbon chain it’s so versatile it can be transformed into a wide array of everyday products such as plastics, clothing, packaging, CDs, automotive parts, medicine, fertilizer, eyeglasses, furniture, fillings, and the list goes on and on. RTIP will help to meet growing global demand for these industrial and consumer products. To be sure RTIP is an ambitious undertaking. The project will cost tens of billions of dollars and will require millions of man-hours of engineering and construction to develop, and once complete, it will occupy a site equal to a small city.

Editor’s Note:

Each fall the National Council on US-Arab Relations brings together a distinguished group of diplomats, government officials, business people, military officials, scholars and others to tackle the thorny issues surrounding US-Arab relations. SUSRIS has provided AUSPC speakers’ remarks, which touch on the Saudi-US relationship, to you for over the last five years. In keeping with that practice we again provide for your consideration a collection of AUSPC presentations.

Today we present the first of two parts of the AUSPC media panel addressing how the Arab world views the 2008 U.S. President election and transition. The panel was chaired by Dr. Abderrahim Foukara, Washington Bureau Chief for Al Jazeera International; Hisham Melham, Washington correspondent for several media outlets in the Middle East; Dalia Mogahed, Senior Analyst and Executive Director of the Gallup Center of Muslim Studies; and Mohamed Elmenshawy, editor in chief of Taqrir Washington. Part one provides the initial round of discussions among the panelists and part two will include the subsequent open Q and A session. The panel was introduced by Dr. John Duke Anthony, President of the National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations.

Additional AUSPC sessions which address U.S. and Saudi issues will be provided by SUSRIS in the coming days. For more transcripts online check the index and link below.

17th ANNUAL ARAB-U.S. POLICYMAKERS CONFERENCE
“Transitioning the White House: Challenges and Opportunities for Arab-U.S. Relations”
October 30-31, 2008 | Washington, DC

U.S. Presidential Election 2008: Views from the Arab World

Chair: Dr. Abderrahim Foukara
Speakers:
Mr. Hisham Melham
Ms. Dalia Mogahed
Mr. Mohamed Elmenshawy

[DR. JOHN DUKE ANTHONY] Ladies and gentleman, many people focus inappropriately on the role of the media and its position in the discourse of people’s effort to obtain relevant and truthful information and insight, and the relevance of both to enhance awareness, to increase knowledge and to deepen understanding. We have four individuals who do this all day, nearly every day of the week. And this has been their career. It represents among the four of them at least a century of effort of trying to tell the truth and do the right thing in the right way, for the right reasons, at the right time. It’s an uphill battle and if indeed the media, in many cases in the United States, has confused and misled us, it also has enormous potential to approach the soft underbelly of objectionable policies, namely public attitudes and key to public attitudes is information and the media plays a central role in that, not a marginal one.

We have Doctor Abderrahim Foukara to chair this session. Many will remember him from last year when we asked him to speak as much from the heart as from the head in terms of Arab feelings toward the United States in their multifaceted dynamics, aspects and dimensions. Born in Morocco – Morocco not being a marginal country at all – it’s an Arab country, Islamic country, Mediterranean country, African country – also happens to be without any competition, as America’s first friend during the time of the Administration of our first President George Washington. He went to Great Britain and obtained his doctorate at Columbia on Western and Colonial Imperial Literature and American and Western Literature focusing on the apartheid system of South Africa. He worked for the BBC for at least a decade, this was when I first met him, before relocating to the United States to Boston and New York where he has been involved in educational programming ever since and been in Washington as the head of the bureau of Al Jazeera International for the last two years where he produces and hosts a program called “From Washington” to help millions of Arabs understand American issues and policies. Doctor Foukara..

[ABDERRAHIM FOUKARA] Thank you very much, Doctor Anthony. It’s a real pleasure for me to be here today, to chair this panel. We are, as already has been pointed out, on the threshold of an American election obviously of historic importance.

This is actually my fourth election in terms of coverage. I covered 1996, 2000, 2004 and now this one and as far as my memory can go back every time that I approached the election thinking this is a historic event but I think there’s general consensus that this one is the one. For all the various reasons that we were going to try to look at in this panel. I’m obviously a journalist and we journalists tend to think that the world revolves around us. In some ways it does because we end up shaping perception. We, the four of us here, are responsible to one extent or another for shaping, or at least contributing to the shaping of Arab perception of this particular U.S. election. Without further ado I’m just going to open it up for discussion. I’m going to go to the panelists, introduce them quickly, and we’ll get going.

Hisham Melham is the Washington based correspondent for Annahar, the leading Lebanese daily; Al-Qabas, the Kuwaiti daily; and Radio Monte Carlo in France. He is currently the host of Across the Ocean a weekly talk show for Al Arrabiya. Hisham can be seen as a contributor to various programs and he has tremendous experience on the Washington scene. It will be interesting to hear his insights.

Then we have Dalia Mogahed. She is Senior Analyst and Executive Director of the Gallup Center of Muslim Studies, a non partisan research center dedicated to providing data-driven analysis on the views of Muslim populations around the world. With John Esposito, she is co-author of the book “Who Speaks for Islam?: What a Billion Muslims Really Think.” She is based in Washington, DC.

Then we have Mohamed Elmenshawy. He is editor in chief of Taqrir Washington. Before joining Taqrir Washington Mr. Elmenshawy worked as the managing editor for Global Issues, an Arabic-language bi-monthly publication. He also served as a Washington correspondent for the daily pan-Arab newspaper Asharq Alawsat where he covered the White House, the State Department and Congress. Now we get down to it.

Hisham if I may start with you. As I said in my opening remarks there’s virtually universal consensus that this is a historic election whether you talk to people from Africa, Latin America, Asia, they all agree that this is a historic election. In what way do you think we Arabs see it as being historic as different from the way others in other parts of the world do?

[HISHAM MELHAM] The world that the next American President is going to inherit from George Bush, probably Barack Obama, or at least if the world had any say, they already voted for Barack Obama, the world that the new President will inherit including the Middle East is radically different than the world George Bush inherited from Bill Clinton eight years ago. This is a more brittle world, this is a world that is facing economic and political uncertainty. As you’ve seen in this country recently.

As far as the Middle East is concerned the region that now during the George Bush reign we call it the Greater Middle East. after George Bush’s tsunami, or rampaging years, it’s more fragmented, politically, economically it’s facing a great deal of uncertainty with few islands of exceptions, such as in the Gulf, but even there, there’s new uncertainty on the horizon.

There is something that you haven’t seen in recent years, that is the rising tensions, the sectarian tensions between the Sunni and the Shia. Various entrenched Arab autocratic regimes as well as Iran, which is worse than autocratic, are facing tremendous social, economic challenges, not only from assertive and at times armed groups but also from the growing army of young men and women who are facing an uncertain future. Many of them are underemployed, many of them will be unemployed.

Beyond that obviously President Bush is going to bequeath to a new President two costly, bloody wars in Iraq and in Afghanistan. Two wars where we don’t see an end in sight anytime soon. A “war against terror” which is badly framed, conceptually flawed – because you cannot wage a war against a tactic – because terrorism is a tactic not an ideology. Instead of saying clearly we are waging a relentless, unmerciful, unending war against Al Qaeda and its like minded groups which will be understandable. Waging a war where we don’t talk about Crusades and where we don’t talk about Islamofacism, borrowing from European history and experiences things that are alien to the Middle East and then project them over the Arab and Muslim world.

Even the so-called Freedom Agenda that the President waged in the Middle East led to very painful results. In fact, George Bush, I give him credit, in his second inaugural speech he did say something that no previous American President since the Second World War dared to say, which is simply we the Americans through both Republican and Democratic administrations for the past 60 years looked the other way, when our buddies in the Arab and the Muslim world, our friends that we slept with were engaged in massive violations of the human rights of their own people, not their citizens, because they don’t have citizens, they have subjects there — and we look the other way in the name of stability, free flow of oil from the Gulf, and striking alliances with these regimes against the Soviet Union during the Cold War.

There was this naïve approach on the part of the Bush Administration that if you have snap elections in societies in the Middle East you will have the right people elected. Someone should have reminded them that democracy requires tradition, vibrant – or more or less – lively civil societies, and yet in a region that was pulverized literally and physically by autocratic regimes since the Second World War, political life was destroyed. The so-called liberal era in between the First War and the Second War, in places like Egypt and Iraq, where you did have a semblance of political life, this was destroyed and then we had these elections, these snap elections, in which the wrong people as far the Bush Administration, as far as I’m concerned got elected. So this legacy, two unending wars, two bloody wars, a badly framed war on terror, a badly executed freedom agenda – this is the legacy that George Bush is going to leave.

There is very good reason to be fascinated with the American election this year. It is the first time we see a credible woman candidate, Hillary Clinton, getting almost 18 million people, and then you have the candidacy of Barack Obama, because of his biography, because of his history, because of his views, because where he grew up, he fascinates the whole world, including the Arab world, people are looking at this election with a mixture of fascination and cynicism, fascination and even horror.

And the cynicism is understood because in the year 2000, who were cheerleading George Bush because they thought that he was going to be like his father were disappointed obviously. So people would tell you nothing will happen. The Americans will continue to be, you know the friends of Israel and the friends of Arab autocratic regimes and nothing will change.

On the other hand people look at Obama and they would hope that his views on Iraq, withdrawal, timetable for withdrawal, engaging Iran, could lead to a new page with the Middle East. And I think it is going to be funny watching Mahmoud Ahmadinejad trying to demonize an American President whose full name is Barack Hussein Obama. Good luck, Ahmadinejad. So, if Obama is elected the world will be more charitable to America. They will probably give us a longer honeymoon, a longer grace period. And, one final word, it’s funny in the Arab world when they, like the Europeans, like to lecture the Americans about tolerance and this and that. Many of my friends, people who studied in this country, speak beautiful English, got PhDs from the best American schools, come and whisper in my ear, “Do you really believe that the Americans will elect a black man?” They don’t know that they are projecting their own silly, stupid biases and prejudices and discrimination on the American electorate and I tell them, “Yes.” And if you want to know I voted for him. Anyway, the point is if Barack Obama is elected the world will be more understanding of America and I think the world will give us some more time to sort out the mess that was created during the eight years of the Bush reign.

[FOUKARA] Thank you, Hisham. Dalia, just to pick up where Hisham left off. The issue of Barack Obama, if, and it’s obviously a big if, all was hunky-dory between the United States and the Arab world, do you think the Arab world would have been excited and enthused about Barack Obama just on the merit that he is the first African-American candidate with a real shot at the Presidency?

[DALIA MOGAHED] Well, let me first start by asking the question, “Do Arabs believe that a change in the White House is a significant change in regards to policy toward their region.” And the answer to that question is, the majority do not.

So we have asked people around the world and the majority of Muslim countries if they think the change in Administration will make a difference, and the majority either say they don’t know or they say for sure they don’t think a difference will occur, primarily in the Palestinian Territories where 73% say it will make no difference. So let’s start with that as a basis.

What we’re looking at is a contest between people who look at Barack Obama as a hope and people who are indifferent. So our election in the Arab world is between Obama and indifference. Very few people support McCain. Now is there significance to his biography, to the fact that he’s a son of an African immigrant. I think the answer is definitely yes, but it’s more anecdotal than anything that would be measured more broadly. I think the real story out of the Arab world when it comes to this election is as significant as it is, as you rightly point out, and as different as it looks to the world, the Arab public has become so cynical and essentially so short in hope when it comes to American policy that even Obama isn’t succeeding in making them believe that anything will change. They are much more likely now to look to the East. China is much more popular in the Arab world than even Europe, and certainly more than the United States and, probably positively, they are much more likely to look inward, not toward their own government but toward themselves.

So when we ask Egyptians, what can Muslims do to help their own condition, the most frequent response Egyptians give is to stop depending on the United States, as just a spontaneous response, not something they are choosing from a list. So more and more I think we’re losing influence and people are losing any hope that America is the answer.

[FOUKARA] Mohammed we all follow the debate here in the United States and we all hear the umpteen statements that are made every day about John McCain and Barack Obama but we also hear it from those two camps about how the media have covered them. We hear complaints from the McCain camp, that’s what we’ve been hearing over the past couple of days, that the American media have been way too biased in favor of Obama. Now in the Arab world there are obviously over 20 different countries, there’s even an even bigger number of Muslim countries. We know that Barack Obama is a dove in certain situations but he is a hawk in certain other situations when it comes to sitting with the Iranians and using diplomacy he is on the dovish side when it comes to dealing with Al Qaeda in Pakistan for example he’s a hawk. Given this diversity of sensibilities in the Arab and Islamic worlds, what is it that unites all countries of the region when it comes to favorability vis a vis Barack Obama?

[MOHAMED ELMENSHAWY] Actually when I look to the Arab world that I visited in the past few months I see big division between the public and the elite in the Arab world looking at Obama. The public always asks will America ever elect a black son of poor immigrants who has some Islamic roots, educated in Islamic school in Indonesia. The answer is obvious, he’s a step away from the White House. The elite connected to the ruling regimes don’t really favor it. They don’t really like someone who has come from nowhere, two years only in the Senate to head a state, not just a state the entire free world. The White House itself. A very traditional society. They admire age. And they don’t understand this two years old senator asked his running mate who is 30 years older in the Senate to be his assistant or vice president here. They can’t get it. The dynamics of American politics and American life is not understandable among the elite level in the Arab world. Because they like the status quo and the rule of old people unfortunately.

When we talk about the public and I mean here the youth as we know Arab countries are very youthful in terms of the numbers. Seventy percent or plus are younger than 35 years old and they are really excited to a point I never saw before about the Obama thing. If you look at any Gallup poll 90 percent of average Arabs don’t like anything about the United States politics or American political system, or foreign policy, especially after 9/11, the invasion of Iraq, the relationship with Israel, or the Afghanistan war and occupations there. They can’t imagine with the reality that Americans are coming close to elect Obama, that two years old senator, who happened to be, has some Islamic roots.

And after 9/11 to imagine a President in America who has any Islamic roots it’s unimaginable in the Arab world. So youths, I believe, are very excited. They have some hope in Obama. It’s maybe illusion here because no doubt they will be disappointed if Obama wins because it won’t make a great difference in their immediate lives and they will have great disappointment if McCain wins of course.

The media like any other media, most Arab professionals in the media are highly educated like Americans, they lean toward the most intelligent candidate in this campaign who is obviously Obama, so are no different compared with European or Asian or even American media favoring Obama for the White House.

[FOUKARA] Thank you. I think now we can open it up for discussion and questions from the audience.

[Q and A continued in part two of this panel.]

Arab-US Policymakers Conference (AUSPC 2008)

Transcription Services by Ryan & Associates

Editor’s Note:

Each fall the National Council on US-Arab Relations brings together a distinguished group of diplomats, government officials, business people, military officials, scholars and others to tackle the thorny issues surrounding US-Arab relations. SUSRIS has provided AUSPC speakers’ remarks, which touch on the Saudi-US relationship, to you for over the last five years. In keeping with that practice we again provide for your consideration a collection of AUSPC presentations.

Today we present the remarks of Energy Panel chair Karen Harbert, Executive Vice President and Managing Director of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Institute for 21st Century Energy, a new institute dedicated to developing a comprehensive energy policy for the United States. Ms. Harbert was joined on the panel by Nabilah Al-Tunisi of Saudi Aramco, Ryan M. Lance of ConocoPhillips, Jay R. Pryor of Chevron and Jim Burkhard of Cambridge Energy Research Associates. Their remarks will be provided separately. The panel was introduced by Dr. John Duke Anthony, President of the National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations.

Additional AUSPC sessions which address U.S. and Saudi issues will be provided by SUSRIS in the coming days. For more transcripts online check the index and link below.

17th ANNUAL ARAB-U.S. POLICYMAKERS CONFERENCE

“Transitioning the White House: Challenges and Opportunities for Arab-U.S. Relations”
October 30-31, 2008 | Washington, DC

[DR. JOHN DUKE ANTHONY] Ladies and gentleman, we have a session that is as apropos and timely and relevant as any of those we’ve had thus far. Some may think even more relevant given the economic aspect of it, given some of the policy controversialities, given what both nominees for President have said or not said about it, and what many people pushing this or that policy have persuaded Americans to conclude the United States ought to do, should’ve done all along, and should put a kind of a Manhattan crisis degree of seriousness to America’s energy situation, and its challenges and opportunities, particularly so between the United States and the Arab world producers.

We have the Honorable Karen Harbert to chair this session. She is the Vice President and Managing Director of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s energy project, which is a bold new innovative, strategic, visionary project. And immediately before that was the Assistant Secretary of the Department of Energy International Affairs, and was a speaker at one of our Congressional briefing series, precisely on the questions of energy dependence, independence, or interdependence, this last spring. Karen Harbert.

[KAREN HARBERT] Thank you. It’s really wonderful to be here. And congratulations on this and all of your previous work this year that has been so important to strengthening our relations.

I would completely agree with you, there really is no issue that brings U.S.-Arab relations into starker relief than energy. It really highlights the opportunities and challenges of our relationship. It reveals a complex interdependence. It embodies the risks and rewards of collaboration. But most importantly, I think it shows the importance of maintaining and sustaining a healthy relationship between the Arab world and the United States people.

My job as chair of this panel is to do a little bit of a scene setter on trying to help you understand the world in which these companies are navigating, the landscape which they are operating, which I will do and then we will have each of them speak, then we will try and answer your questions.

I encourage you to write really hard questions, because I won’t have to answer them. But I will do my best to get answers for each of you.

First, what’s happening in the world energy market? Demand for energy is going to go up by over 50 percent between now and 2030. Seventy percent of that demand is going to be in the developing world. Electricity demand is going to go up by 100 percent, and yet one and a half billion people don’t have access to electricity.

So we have a very challenging demand forecast out there. How much money will it take to meet that demand? $20 trillion to meet that growing demand. Is that capital going to be available, and will that capital be able to be invested? What’s happening on the supply side? Well, access to hydrocarbons around the world is becoming increasingly difficult to get to. They are either geologically difficult to get to, they’re in geopolitically very difficult places, or some of them are in places that are increasingly hostile to foreign direct investment.

And we have new players on the market. The national oil companies are increasingly important. About 80 percent of the world’s proven reserves are owned by national oil companies. We’re seeing a significant rise in project costs around the world, whether it’s steel, or cement, or labor, the big infrastructure projects that are going to be meeting our demand are getting more and more expensive, and that’s a big drain on these companies capital budgets. And we’re seeing a lack of qualified engineers and skilled labor. In the United States, 50 percent of the energy workforce could retire in the next 10 years. It’s hard to get engineers. Are we, in the United States, are we in the Arab World investing enough in those qualified engineers to sustain the extraction, production, and delivery of hydrocarbons? And of course we’re seeing resource nationalism. We’re seeing countries that are manipulating their resources not to the benefit of the consuming nations. And in this country, we have a very, very difficult syndrome to deal with, it’s “banana.’ Build absolutely nothing anywhere near anyone or anything. And so while demand is growing, we can’t build anything. So that is going to be a big strain in our economy, and we have seen it in lots of infrastructure projects whether they be domestic or internationally financed.

Let’s not forget we live in a global market. China has 30 million cars on the road today. They’re going to have 300 million by 2025. India’s demand for oil has gone up 6-fold over the last 10 years. So competition for resources is out there, and there are new markets and new opportunities for producing nations. So what is the demand picture look like? In North America, we see demand go up overall by about 11 percent. In the United States that could be anywhere from about 19 to 29 percent. In Asia, and in the non OECD, Asia’s going to go up by over 100 percent. But what we don’t talk about a lot is what the increase is going to be in the Middle East. The Middle East is going to consume 62 percent more oil in 30 years than it does today. There’s a huge increase in the domestic demand in the Arab world for new hydrocarbons resources.

Where are those resources going to come from? Well, the call on OPEC oil is going to become more and more in the coming years. And certainly, where in the world are there resources heavily concentrated? Certainly in the Middle East. The Middle East owns or has, and is blessed with over half of the world’s proven oil reserves. So the call on those reserves is going to grow and the importance of those reserves is only going to grow.

What’s happening in the market in which these companies have to navigate every day. So it’s not just enough to get them out of the ground and getting them to where they need to be, but they have to deal with the markets in which they operate and the prices in which, the market that dictates the prices.

We know economic growth around the world is driving non-U.S. demand. We’re seeing demand in the United States fall right now. Last August demand was reduced and driving was reduced in this country by over five percent. And we now see the response from OPEC countries in reducing production. So we are living in a time of volatility and fluctuations between changing demand and supply and they’re very, very hard to predict. We’re living in a time of a financial crisis, and so we don’t know what that’s going to do to demand and it is certainly calling into question the ability of countries and the ability of companies to make new investments and very large, very capital intensive long term energy projects. And of course we’re living in a time when there are new players in the market. There are speculators, and we live in a time when the dollar is changing dramatically in value in very short time periods.

Back in July, there was a poll done of the American public by Bloomberg, CNN, and the LA Times and they asked has the recent rise in gas and oil prices caused you or your family any financial hardship. Seventy five percent of the American public said yes. And then they asked in a different survey well, of those 75 percent that are mad about this, what do you attribute it to? And they attributed it to not oil companies, which had been previously who they attributed the problem to, but to the international competition for oil and natural resources.

So that’s not a very heartwarming feeling of the American public about what’s happening internationally. And that’s going to affect how we make decisions, and that’s something I hope we get to today, about how we have to overcome that public sentiment. But really what’s important, that this panel really needs to think about is that we are having real economic impact from higher oil prices. And because of the financial crisis we’re seeing falling demand that brings unprecedented financial volatility into our markets, and it makes these companies have very, very difficult decisions to make about where they put their investments and when they put their investments in the ground.

We’re dealing with an American public that is mad and we’re dealing with two Senators running for President that both believe energy is one of the biggest economic security and national security challenges of our lifetime, and will do something about it in their administration.

So it’s very unpredictable and I look forward to hearing from our companies about how they’re going to navigate these waters, and how the relationships that we had with the Arab world will only be that much more important in the years to come.

Arab-US Policymakers Conference (AUSPC 2008)

Transcription Services by Ryan & Associates

About Karen Harbert

Karen Harbert is Executive Vice President and Managing Director of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Institute for 21st Century Energy, a new institute dedicated to developing a comprehensive energy policy for the United States. Harbert is the former Assistant Secretary for Policy and International Affairs at the U.S. Department of Energy, where she designed and implemented energy policy initiatives and oversaw budget reviews for fossil, nuclear and renewable energy and energy efficiency programs. Previously, Harbert was vice-chairman of the International Energy Agency (IEA); she coordinated the IEA response to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Before joining the IEA, she was Deputy Assistant Administrator for Latin American and the Caribbean at the U.S. Agency for International Development. In the private sector, Harbert worked for a developer of international infrastructure and power projects valued at over $9 billion in the Middle East, Asia and Latin America. Harbert received a degree in international policy studies and political science from Rice University.

For more information:
http://www.energyxxi.org
http://www.uschamber.com

Editor’s Note:

Each fall the National Council on US-Arab Relations brings together a distinguished group of diplomats, government officials, business people, military officials, scholars and others to tackle the thorny issues surrounding US-Arab relations. SUSRIS has provided AUSPC speakers’ remarks, which touch on the Saudi-US relationship, to you for over the last five years. In keeping with that practice we again provide for your consideration a collection of AUSPC presentations.

Today we present the remarks of Anthony Cordesman, who holds the Arleigh Burke Chair in Strategy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and is Co-Director of the Center’s Middle East Program. Anthony Cordesman was joined on the “Defense Cooperation” panel by Mr. Christopher Blanchard, Mr. Jeffrey C. McCray, and Ambassador Barbara Bodine. Their remarks will be provided separately. The panel was chaired by Rear Admiral Harold J. Bernsen, USN (Ret).

17th ANNUAL ARAB-U.S. POLICYMAKERS CONFERENCE

“Transitioning the White House: Challenges and Opportunities for Arab-U.S. Relations”
October 30-31, 2008 | Washington, DC

[RADM HAROLD J. BERNSEN] Today we will take up .. defense cooperation between the U.S. and its partners in the Gulf. Defense cooperation for many years has been considered an important, in fact, intrinsic aspect of our bilateral relationship with the Arab countries of the Gulf. In addition, basing in those countries and support from them are key elements in how well the United States carries out its current policies with respect to Iraq, Iran and, in fact, Afghanistan. The question for the next administration is how to improve and strengthen those relationships and the panelists this morning will explore this interesting subject from various aspects.

Our leadoff speaker is no stranger to the Policymakers Conferences, Doctor Tony Cordesman, the Arleigh Burke Chair in Strategy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. He’s really become a fixture. I think he’s spoken at perhaps all 17 conferences. We’re not quite sure. He’s an expert in every sense of the word. An informed analyst who is devoted to examining in detail the Middle East military, security climate and we’re most pleased that he’s back with us again today. Tony.

Anthony H. Cordesman

[DR. ANTHONY CORDESMAN] ..when we are talking about U.S. and Gulf military cooperation it is frighteningly easy to talk in terms of slogans, concepts and simplifications and we’ve been doing that basically with the Gulf Cooperation Council since 1980. And at the end of it there has been an amazing amount of expenditure and an amazing lack of integration, interoperability and effectiveness.

Now we do face an evolving range of threats. I’m not going to read you any of these PowerPoints [link below for briefing slides] but let me say that the goal here obviously is to avoid military action. It is to combine diplomacy, deterrence and defense on the part of the Gulf States, the United States and create a structure which can avoid conflict, which can move forward, which can allow the region to develop, rather than simply devolve into preventive or preemptive conflicts or repetitions of what we are going through in Iraq.

This is not something simple. But there is a point I really want to raise. When I go out to the Gulf, when I talk people in the region, again and again there is a discussion of Iran as if it was some kind of hegemon. If Iran is emerging in military terms it is not because of Iranian strength. It is because of the lack of progress, cooperation, focus, and effective resources by the individual Gulf States.

I have watched people in the GCC military now for more than twenty years set the right priorities. I watched U.S. commanders focus on the right goals. But the results, while they have often been a steady improvement in the military capabilities of individual states have not been to create an effective Gulf Cooperation Council or to create the climate where the role of the United States and outside powers can be minimized, and the role of the Gulf can be strengthened.

For those of you who can’t see this slide, it covers 10 years of military expenditures in the Gulf. During that period the Gulf spent over $400 billion on military forces and Iran spent $55 billion. The Gulf Cooperation Council, even without the United States, is spending 7.5 times as much on military forces, and it should, in the process, be able to get very high levels of effectiveness and create the basis for a very strong deterrence in defense without high levels of dependence on the U.S. for many scenarios.

If we look at arms sales the figures are far more impressive. Over the period from 1988 to 2007 the Gulf Cooperation Council states spent more than 15 times as much on imports as Iran. And while people talk about Iranian arms production, the numbers and the quality of what Iran produces as lead systems are little more than a military joke. And what you are watching in terms of the Gulf, in the Southern Gulf, is access to the most advanced arms and military technology in the world, most of which has been denied to Iran.

There are land force threats, but at this point in time, unless Iraq somehow comes under Iranian influence, a scenario for future meetings, John, since it seems remarkably improbable as something for the immediate future, the fact is that Iran has only one advantage, that’s manpower. In terms of armor, the Gulf States have far more armor than Iran. In terms of tanks Iran is a tank heavy army but it’s a force of obsolete tanks and the Gulf states have far more in terms of advanced tanks. And this ignores the ability of the United States to steadily improve its deployability of land forces.

In the air theater certainly Iran cannot be dismissed, particularly in terms of missile threats but if you look at Iran, Saudi Arabia alone has a vast lead in high quality aircraft over Iran. If the entire Gulf Cooperation Council is included and you look at advanced aircraft, it’s a lead of around, again, 15 to 1. If you can explain to me how that makes Iran into a military hegemon I would certainly like to hear it. It would be a very good way to get an article.

Naval forces, many of the ships you see here for Iran date back to the times when I was in Iran under Ambassador Helms in the early ‘70s. It’s nice to have companions in the process of aging but to see them as a military threat requires a great deal of caution. I would not dismiss Iran’s submarines, its missile boats, its asymmetric capabilities. But this is not a modern navy and it certainly does not compare with the modernization of the southern Gulf States.

The problem quite frankly is not the Iranian threat to the GCC or the U.S. or British or French role in the Gulf. The primary threat the Gulf Cooperation Council faces is the Gulf Cooperation Council. It is the lack of effective coordination. interoperability, mission priorities; and these are not a lack of military advice or expertise within the Gulf. Perhaps in the ‘70s you could say that you were not talking about advanced well-educated military leaderships. You can’t say that in the Gulf today and you can’t say it in terms of the advice.

None of these points today are being acted on with the effectiveness, the coherence and the cooperation that is needed. In every area, if they were, the level of deterrence and defense against Iran, the pressure on Iran to negotiate, the level of Gulf dependence on the United States could be sharply reduced.

Now this is a briefing on the Web, and asymmetric warfare is complex, it is difficult semantically. I’m not going to read you view graphs, but these are real cases, this is not a matter of misunderstanding, or dialogue or communication or the fact that perfectly rational bargainers on all sides do not meet with each other.

This a fact that military force gets used, it has been used, it is a threat and it is a growing threat as a result of Iranian actions. That is not simply the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, it is the Quds force, it is the use of the Vivak and a group of proxies and non-state actors.

Now we often hear the phrase, closing the Gulf. I think this is a worst case and a dangerous one. The problem is that what Iran can do is conduct long term wars of attrition at almost any level, against almost any kind of target in the Gulf with steadily improving anti ship capabilities, abilities to attack costal targets and abilities to attack off shore targets. That along with investments in long-range missiles and nuclear systems is where Iranian money is going. That is what you need to deter and that is what you need to defend against. And you have to do it through the entire Gulf. The constant focus on the Straight of Hormuz ignores the vulnerabilities of Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, most of the UAE — and these are matters of minutes in terms of anti ship missiles, and minutes in terms of strike aircraft. It is also obvious that no country can defend itself. This coast is a gulf coast. It is a coast with the Gulf Cooperation Council. Nations that do not have interoperable and integrated forces are throwing their money into the dessert or into the water, they are wasting and have wasted perhaps half or more of the sums that I showed you earlier because of a lack of effective movement forward. And yes the Straight of Hormuz, the Gulf of Oman, the Indian Ocean are vulnerable, and there are areas which are more than a matter of oil exports, they are a matter of Gulf imports.

Let me also note the unique vulnerability of the GCC states. We think in the United States in oil terms, the Gulf needs to think in terms of water. Seven to nine desalination plants basically make the Gulf survive. That seven to nine target complexes which Iran perfectly understands and commercial satellite photos will show you how weak the defense structures are at even the most basic levels.

The nuclear programs, this is complex, many of you have been trapped in reading about the NIE. Few people, even in journalism and even many experts, never read the entire reports of the international atomic energy agency and so what we often this strategic illiteracy in dealing with Iranian efforts.

I have tried to visualize this in ways people could understand and it isn’t a matter of maps and bases. Let me show you one Iranian facility, the key facility where there are putting the centrifuges. You may never have seen a satellite photo but this is like the entrance to the Reagan [Ronald Reagan Building in Washington] parking lot, it’s actually smaller. That is how they help conceal the facility because look at what it was like when they finished that facility. You’ll notice the dummy building. And unlike Iraq, take a look at this from the road. This is a facility where you can put over 50 thousand centrifuges. You do not go to this level of concealment and hardening out an altruistic interest to fund your electric power structures, and it is time to get real about this threat.

We saw it start under the Shah. We documented illegal arms imports or I should say technology imports under the Shah, and the process goes on. We’re talking about long-range missiles and while people often focus on Israel and Europe, something to remember about missiles is they have range payloads. You build large missiles because you may initially have large nuclear weapons. And you need them to cover targets in the region. Not remote targets or rationales for U.S. missile defense. And let me note it is my guess that we will have to live with Iran’s nuclear weapons, and with nuclear-armed missiles. But what people often forget are the lessons of the Cold War. A country that wishes to take risks and in fact a country that wants to avoid risks can deploy missiles with systems that launch on warning or launch under attack. Once this force is deployed the problem of deterrence becomes critical. The U.S. can offer extended deterrence as it did to Europe but ultimately you’re going to need some form of missile defense and missile cooperation. Again this is not the time to lecture all of you on the details of military cooperation. But I’m going to give you some checklists.

I’m also going to say, quite bluntly, there is not one useful piece of paper that has ever come out of the Gulf Cooperation Council that describes tangible progress in any of these areas. There is not a single sales pitch that I’ve seen by any defense contractor that explains how this should be done, I know that these recommendations have been made within the GCC headquarters. I know they have been made by U.S. military commanders, so I’m not giving you ideas that somehow have sprung from me. These are priorities, which in general have more than a decade of support by both the Gulf military and by the U.S. military, and which need action. Again, mission focus, interoperability, realistic large scale exercises, a focus on jointness, five-year plans that bring people towards integration and interoperability, these are mechanisms.

The tools apply to different kinds of war. It is not a matter of buying more arms in most cases. It is a matter of using arms wisely, with the integration with the training, with the manpower quality, and above all the unity that’s needed. We can provide technology. Britain can provide technology. France can provide technology. We can keep a technical edge as well as a resource edge if the Gulf States use this wisely. The same tools can be applied to areas like asymmetric warfare at least as long as we are dealing with a rational opponent in Iran to reinforcing deterrence and defense against Iran’s use of weapons of mass destruction.

Let me make a last point about this, yes missile defense, cooperation and counter terrorism where frankly I think the Gulf has done well on an individual level. Certainly countries like Saudi Arabia have demonstrated that they have lessons to teach us. But if we’re going to move forward here what we really need is to stop thinking this in terms of national secrets, national defense programs, arms buys where the key point is often the glitter factor, something different, something expensive, something better than anybody else.

What we need are credible defense plans, transparency, clear plans for cooperation on the part of Arab states — because it is cooperation within the Gulf States not between the United States and individual Gulf countries that is the key. And quite frankly it is transparency and public accountability. There is no reason in terms of security not to make these defense plans public. There is no reason that states cannot provide the same level of financial detail and the same explanations for arms buys that they provide for buying schools or roads or desalination plans. There is no excuse for what selling countries do today. And it is countries not contractors that deserve the blame. There is no excuse for what buying countries do. The next step in cooperation will only occur if we get credibility, effectiveness and transparency.

Thank You

[BERNSEN] Tony, thank you for those very interesting remarks.

QUESTIONS POSED TO DOCTOR CORDESMAN IN THE Q AND A PERIOD:

[BERNSEN] ..How has the debacle in Iraq and the other American foreign policies, which the Arab leaders have not agreed with, had an effect, a negative effect, on defense cooperation specifically reducing U.S. leadership and influence?

[CORDESMAN] I think all of us could answer that question. It is on the one hand quite clear from one opinion poll after another, just looking at the shift in some of the arms import patterns to Europe that might otherwise have been purchases from the U.S., that it has had an extremely powerful effect and I think all of us who visit the Gulf are aware of how many people in the Gulf particularly the southern Gulf are concerned with what happened in Iraq can see this.

The term debacle is not necessarily one I would use, but it’s scarcely something which met any of the neo-conservative objectives that were being discussed before we went in.

At the same time I do think that “A”, in terms of actual day to day military cooperation and cooperation in counter terrorism, that has often been very good. When it comes down to the discussion of defense issues, training, other areas, the extent we do have exercises, the cooperation remains. And I think that as Ambassador Bodine pointed out the real question may, for all of us, may be not whether mistakes were made in Iraq but how do you: rebalance the structures so the southern Gulf states emerge diplomatically, militarily strong enough to contain and deter Iran and other threats, remain tied to the United States as we reduce our presence to much lower levels without eliminating or reducing the confidence that southern Gulf and other states may have in our presence?

The only comment I would make is I don’t see any other country than the United States and the southern Gulf States that can provide any serious military and security cooperation. It isn’t going to be Britain. It isn’t going to be France. I am not terribly enamored about the idea of it being Russia or China. And until somebody can define where these people are coming from, my experience in watching this situation, is they aren’t coming and they can’t, at least the people we would like to have and I suspect the southern Gulf would like to have as allies, and people who can help deter and help secure them.

[OTHER Q AND A]

[BERNSEN] ..A rather provocative question, but a very good one. Isn’t it time, perhaps not necessarily for this panel, but it doesn’t directly relate to defense cooperation, however isn’t it time to publicly repudiate, make a clean break with the neo-con agenda, that Oslo is dead, that regime change in Syria and Iran are necessary. Do these still seem to define our foreign military paradigm even to this day? Or should we repudiate it? Would it be useful?

Nobody wants to touch that one.

[BODINE] I guess I’ll just say that the judgment on that will be made in less than a week. [U.S. Presidential Election]

[CORDESMAN] I can’t resist in making one comment. Some of you here are old enough to remember neo-liberals, and the best and brightest in Vietnam, and the problem I have is they seem to meet at a common point.

The fact is that it isn’t whether you’re neo-conservative or neo-liberal you either can cope with reality, show some adaptability to other societies and their priorities and you focus on what you can actually achieve or you don’t. So I would hope that what we get as of Tuesday, regardless of who is elected, is an administration that treats people as partners, focuses on reality and deals with the art of the achievable regardless of whether they are neo-conservatives, neo-liberals or as the ultimate threat vegetarians.

[OTHER Q AND A]

[BERNSEN] ..It seems that many U.S. policy makers are obsessed with Iran now just as they were obsessed with Iraq before. Do they realize that many Arabs now view the U.S. as more dangerous than Iran? We always seem, we the U.S., seem to always be obsessed with finding someone to destroy. Comment?

[CORDESMAN] You know, the reality is Iran does not emerge as a state whose actions are irrational. It does emerge as a state who actions are consistent in building up the resources to carry out asymmetric attacks. It does make use, for its own interest, of proxies, groups like al Quds force and non-state actors.

You cannot look at the Gulf and U.S. dependence on the Gulf as well as global dependence on the Gulf and ignore the realities of what it does in terms of missile forces and nuclear forces. Does that mean that Iran will act irrationally or that we will have to go to war, or that you can’t create security structures or look as Barbara suggested far beyond the military dimension.

The answers are no, but when you talked about military cooperation you look either at non state issues, terrorism because those are threats you have to deal with, or you look at the actors in the region which represent the most serious potential threats. To sort of wish all of this away is about as dangerous as to become obsessed with worst cases, which may never happen. You have to deal with the realities you face.

[OTHER Q AND A]

[BERNSEN] One more question for Doctor Cordesman. Tony, you talked about the Iranian influence on the Gulf, can you talk about the Iranian influence on the Caspian Sea and how that might effect regional stability in and out side the Gulf region?

[CORDESMAN] Iran’s influence in the Caspian obviously has created, and I’m not sure that in any way I would criticize Iran on this, a pressure for a Caspian solution to energy resources which Iran’s goal and national views are that if they have the energy that don’t want a regional solution because the energy is on their boundaries and they get more money that way.

I think that more broadly when you look at what is happening in this area you do not see a destabilizing Iranian presence as a key factor in the Caspian states. If anything it has stood aside from the obvious issues, the Armenians and the Azerbaijanis. But what you also see is a group of relatively weak states, which are not necessarily all that stable for the future with a very strong state to the north.

So I think that looking at the Caspian in Iranian terms is not the way I would look at it all. I would look at it in terms of each of the states involved and probably more in terms of their ability to take internal decisions which will give them stability and development, rather that somebody on the outside being the major problem.

[BERNSEN] In the late 70’s early 80’s the sale of AWACS to Saudi Arabia was opposed by AIPAC. At the end of the day the sale was successful. But there was virulent opposition. Would you comment on the situation today and have we learned any lessons?

[CORDESMAN] Well let me just make the point. You have to, in the Department of Defense, make a declaration to Congress, obviously of the sales and you have to list what programs are under way.

Mr. Blanchard was talking about some of these. You ought to take a look at those declarations because among other things we are now upgrading the AWACS with levels of technology transfer, which if you had anything like the problems we faced during the AWACS debate would never have taken place.

You have quiet cooperation and an awful lot of advanced technology not only with Saudi Arabia but countries like the United Arab Emirates who’ve been able to bargain their way into access to software and code data, which in the past would have been almost unthinkable.

In honesty I think you also have a much more conflicted view within AIPAC and Israel. Because you do not hear, when you are in Israel, rhetoric about Saudi Arabia. You hear rhetoric about Iran. You hear rhetoric about the Hezballah. You hear rhetoric about the different kinds of threats.

I’m not sure that means we’ve matured all that much, certainly any Arab state has to consider how the Congress will react and there’s been still a lot of Congressional rhetoric which frankly isn’t all that popular with people in the Israeli defense forces or foreign ministry, which often see it as more destabilizing than useful to Israel, which is always a kind of interesting perspective when you come from Tel Aviv and Jerusalem to Washington.

Is there still a problem? Yes. Do we have the kind of sensitivity we had then and the practical barriers we had then. No. I think that if anything the questions asked about Iraq are more relevant. Would Saudi Arabia have made exactly the aircraft purchases it is making today if we had not gone into Iraq? If we had been more flexible in dealing with the problems of the war on terrorism? If we had shown that we were more able, as Barbara has pointed out, to listen? I suspect it might have had a somewhat different purchase profile. But that is not something you can blame on AIPAC.

Source: Arab-US Policymakers Conference Web Site (AUSPC 2008)

Transcription Services by Ryan & Associates

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Anthony H. Cordesman

About Anthony H. Cordesman

Anthony H. Cordesman holds the Arleigh A. Burke Chair in Strategy at CSIS and acts as a national security analyst for ABC News. He is a recipient of the Department of Defense Distinguished Service Medal. During his time at CSIS, he has completed a wide variety of studies on energy, U.S. strategy and defense plans, the lessons of modern war, defense programming and budgeting, NATO modernization, Chinese military power, the lessons of modern warfare, proliferation, counterterrorism, armed nation building, the security of the Middle East, and the Afghan and Iraq conflicts. (Many of these studies can be downloaded from the Burke Chair section of the CSIS Web site at http://www.csis.org/program/burke-chair-strategy.) Cordesman has directed numerous CSIS study efforts on terrorism, energy, defense panning, modern conflicts, and the Middle East. He has traveled frequently to Afghanistan and Iraq to consult for MNF-I, ISAF, U.S. commands, and U.S. embassies on the wars in those countries, and he was a member of the Strategic Assessment Group that assisted General Stanley McChrystal in developing a new strategic for Afghanistan in 2009. He frequently acts as a consultant to the U.S. State Department, Defense Department, and intelligence community and has worked with U.S. officials on counteterrorism and security areas in a number of Middle East countries.

Before joining CSIS, Cordesman served as director of intelligence assessment in the Office of the Secretary of Defense and as civilian assistant to the deputy secretary of defense. He directed the analysis of the lessons of the October War for the secretary of defense in 1974, coordinating the U.S. military, intelligence, and civilian analysis of the conflict. He also served in numerous other government positions, including in the State Department and on NATO International Staff. In addition, he served as director of policy and planning for resource applications in the Energy Department and as national security assistant to Senator John McCain. He had numerous foreign assignments, including posts in the United Kingdom, Lebanon, Egypt, and Iran, as well as with NATO in Brussels and Paris. He has worked extensively in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf.

He is the author of a wide range of studies on energy policy, national security, and the Middle East, and his most recent publications include (CSIS, 2010), Iraq and the United States: Creating a Strategic Partnership (CSIS, 2010), Saudi Arabia: National Security in a Troubled Region (Praeger, 2009), Iranian Weapons of Mass Destruction: The Birth of a Regional Nuclear Arms Race? (Praeger, 2009), Withdrawal from Iraq: Assessing the Readiness of Iraqi Security Forces (CSIS, 2009), and Winning in Afghanistan: Creating Effective Afghan Security Forces (CSIS, 2009).

Source: CSIS

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Full List of Anthony Cordesman’s Publications (Source: CSIS) [LINK HERE]

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Articles and Interviews on SUSRIS by and with Anthony Cordesman

• U.S. Strategy in the Gulf – Cordesman – SUSRIS – Apr 18, 2011
• Understanding Saudi Stability and Instability – Cordesman – SUSRIS – Mar 1, 2011
• AUSPC Panel: Defense Cooperation – SUSRIS – Oct 26, 2010
• US-Saudi Security Cooperation, Impact of Arms Sales – Cordesman – SUSRIS – Sep 17, 2010
• The New Saudi Arms Deal – Cordesman – SUSRIS – Sep 17, 2010
• Reality in the Gulf – Cordesman – SUSRIS – Jul 22, 2010
• Saudi Arabia and Gulf Security – Cordesman – SUSRIS – May 18, 2010
• Saudi Arabia: National Security in a Troubled Region – Anthony H. Cordesman – SUSRIS – Oct 10, 2009
• Gulf Threats, Risks and Vulnerabilities: Terrorism and Assymetric Warfare – Anthony H. Cordesman and Adam C. Seitz – SUSRIS – Aug 31, 2009
• Regional Defense: A Need for Credibility, Effectiveness and Transparency (AUSPC 2008)- Anthony Cordesman – SUSRIS – Dec 8, 2008
• Saudi National Security and the Saudi-US Strategic Partnership By Anthony Cordesman – SUSRIS – Dec 4, 2008
• Security Cooperation in the Gulf – SUSRIS – Nov 22, 2008
• The US, Israel, the Arab States and a Nuclear Iran – Cordesman – SUSRIS – Oct 10, 2008
• Conventional Armed Forces in the Gulf – Cordesman – SUSRIS – Aug 23, 2008
• President Bush’s Trip to the Middle East – Briefing by Anthony Cordesman and Jon Alterman of CSIS – SUSRIS IOI – May 14, 2008
• Security Challenges and Threats in the Gulf – SUSRIS – Mar 28, 2008
• The Gulf Arms Sales: A Background Paper – Anthony H. Cordesman – SUSRIS IOI – Feb 5, 2008
• Security Cooperation in the Middle East – Anthony Cordesman – SUSRIS IOI – Nov 27, 2007
• Saudi Military Modernization – A Conversation with Anthony Cordesman – Interview – Nov 23, 2007
• Weapons of Mass Preservation – Anthony H. Cordesman – SUSRIS IOI – Aug 20, 2007
• Iran, Oil, and the Strait of Hormuz – Anthony H. Cordesman – SUSRIS IOI – Mar 27, 2007
• Global Energy Security – Anthony H. Cordesman – SUSRIS IOI – Nov 15, 2006
• The Impact on Saudi Regional Stability – Anthony H. Cordesman – SUSRIS IOI – Aug 2, 2005
• Saudi Arabia and the Struggle Against Terrorism by Dr. Anthony Cordesman – SUSRIS IOI – Apr 11, 2005
• Why Reforge the U.S. and Saudi Relationship? An Interview with Anthony Cordesman – SUSRIS IOI – Sep 28, 2004
• The Prospects for Stability in 2004 — The Issue of Political, Economic and Social Reform – Anthony H. Cordesman – Part 1 – SUSRIS – Feb. 23, 2004
• The Prospects for Stability in 2004 — The Issue of Political, Economic and Social Reform – Anthony H. Cordesman – Part 2 – SUSRIS – Feb. 23, 2004
• The Prospects for Stability in 2004 — The Issue of Political, Economic and Social Reform – Anthony H. Cordesman – Part 3 – SUSRIS – Feb. 23, 2004
• The 9/11 Commission Report: Strengths and Weaknesses – Anthony H. Cordesman – SUSRIS – Jul. 29, 2004
• Developments in Iraq at the End of 2003: Adapting U.S. Policy to Stay the Course,” by Anthony H. Cordesman, GulfWire Perspectives, January 7, 2004
• “Four Wars and Counting: Rethinking the Strategic Meaning of the Iraq War,” by Anthony H. Cordesman, GulfWire Perspectives, December 5, 2003
• “Iraq: Too Uncertain to Call,” by Anthony H. Cordesman, GulfWire Perspectives, November 18, 2003
• Saudi Redeployment of the F-15 to Tabuk – Anthony H. Cordesman – SUSRIS – November 1, 2003
• “Iranian Security Threats and US Policy: Finding the Proper Response,” by Anthony H. Cordesman, GulfWire Perspectives, October 28, 2003
• “What is Next in Iraq? Military Developments, Military Requirements and Armed Nation Building,” by Anthony H. Cordesman, GulfWire Perspectives, August 22, 2003
• Saudi Government Counterterrorism: Counter Extremism Actions – Anthony H. Cordesman – SUSRIS -August 4, 2003
• “Saudi Arabia: Don’t Let Bin Laden Win!”, by Anthony H. Cordesman, Saudi-American Forum Item of Interest, May 16, 2003
• “Postwar Iraq: The New Old Middle East,” by Anthony H. Cordesman, GulfWire Perspectives, April 16, 2003
• “Iraq’s Warfighting Strategy,” by Anthony H. Cordesman, GulfWire Perspectives, March 11, 2003
• “Reforming the Middle East: President Bush’s Neo-Con Logic Versus Regional Reality,” by Anthony H. Cordesman, GulfWire Perspectives, February 27, 2003
• “The Great Iraq Missile Mystery,” by Anthony H. Cordesman, GulfWire Perspectives, February 26, 2003
• “Iraq Security Roundtable at CSFS: A Discussion With Dr. Anthony Cordesman,” Center for Strategic and Future Studies, GulfWire Perspectives, January 28, 2003
• “A Coalition of the Unwilling: Arms Control as an Extension of War By Other Means,” By Anthony H. Cordesman, GulfWire Perspectives, January 25, 2003
• “Is Iraq In Material Breach? What Hans Blix, Colin Powell, And Jack Straw Actually Said,” By Anthony H. Cordesman, GulfWire Perspectives, December 20, 2002
• “Saudi Arabia: Opposition, Islamic Extremism And Terrorism,” by Anthony H. Cordesman, GulfWire Perspectives, December 1, 2002
• “Planning For A Self-Inflicted Wound: U.S. Policy To Reshape A Post-Saddam Iraq,” by Anthony H. Cordesman, GulfWire Perspectives, November 24, 2002
• “The West And The Arab World – Partnership Or A ‘Clash Of Civilizations?’” By Anthony H. Cordesman, GulfWire Perspectives, November 12, 2002
• “Strategy In The Middle East: The Gap Between Strategic Theory And Operational Reality,” by Dr. Anthony H. Cordesman, GulfWire Perspectives, October 22, 2002
• “A Firsthand Look At Saudi Arabia Since 9-11,” GulfWire’s Interview With Dr. Anthony Cordesman In Saudi Arabia, GulfWire Perspectives October 10, 2002
• “Escalating To Nowhere: The Israeli And Palestinian Strategic Failure,” By Anthony H. Cordesman, GulfWire Perspectives, April 8, 2002
• “Reforging The U.S. And Saudi Strategic Partnership,” by Dr. Anthony H. Cordesman, GulfWire Perspectives, January 28, 2002

[GulfWire Articles are being added to SUSRIS. Please check Dr. Cordesman's SUSRIS page for updates.]

Editor’s Note:

This article, part five of a series of five reports, originally appeared in the online edition of The Christian Science Monitor and is reprinted to mark the current Hajj in Saudi Arabia. Also check the SUSRIS Special Section “Hajj 2008″ on the web site.

The Reluctant Pilgrim’s Grudging Return Home
By Faiza Saleh Ambah
Part 5

MECCA, SAUDI ARABIA – At the goodbye circling of the Grand Mosque, the final rite of the hajj, a Jordanian woman holding hands with her husband turns around for a last look at the Kaaba. Tears fill her eyes.

I know how she feels.

“Is that it? Aren’t there any more rites we can do?” I ask my cousin Allal. He laughs, but he understands.

In the middle of our final walk around the Kaaba, the geographic and spiritual center of Muslim prayers the world over, my cousin Allal succumbs too.

“God you are the Generous. God you are the Mighty. God, you who are capable of all things, help us defeat our enemies. Help us defeat our laziness. Strengthen our faith and bring us back soon to visit your house,” he says before his voice breaks from emotion.

I repeat after Allal, but my mind and eye wander, distracted by the colors, smells, and languages around me. In the mass of circling pilgrims, I see two Sufis in white turbans, their eyes closed, chanting in Turkish accents, “God is Great, God is Great, God is Great.”

Tradition says that the Kaaba was built by Adam and rebuilt by Abraham and the descendants of Noah. It is known as the House of God and is the center of our circumambulations. At one point, the crowd circling the large cube slows as we make our way around four Lebanese women causing a traffic jam. They have stopped to pray, kneeling on the marble skirt that surrounds the Kaaba, and just in front of a shrine that contains the footsteps of Abraham. Their husbands are standing and holding hands, forming a human chain around them.

On my left a group of Malaysians in purple and white outfits perform their Tawaf [the circling of the Kaaba] prayers in a singsong of heavily-accented Arabic, shuffling their feet to the rhythm. I join in with them, but Allal turns around and gives me a “keep up with me” look as we finish the last of our seven turns. Am I missing the point? I wonder. Isn’t being a spoke in this colorful wheel of humanity part of the point?

An hour later, squeezed in the back of the car returning to Jeddah, everyone around me is sleeping. But I am too scared to nod off. I have become very comfortable in this sanctified world of the past five days. I’ve been free of worries about money, how I look, jealousy, and envy. I don’t want to expose my self to the real world again.

When we arrive at my parents house, there’s a goat running around the garden. “You haven’t slaughtered it yet?” Allal asks the driver, and I look away from the goat with a splotch of green dye on its head, knowing it will be sacrificed soon.

The sacrifice represents the lamb with which Abraham’s son Ishmael was replaced at the last moment. We will dine on part of it, and the rest will go to feeding the poor.

Allal joins us for dinner and my sisters and I appear in our jeans and T-shirts. It’s the first time our hair has been uncovered since last Friday.

The television in the living room is broadcasting a scene from Mina in front of the Jamaraat pillars, and Allal can’t help but give a final lecture. “Do you realize the importance of stoning the devil? The 70 stones we threw at the devil mean the next 70 times he tries to whisper in our ear he’s already defeated.”

I smile because I’ve got 100 whispers from the devil to go before he reaches me; I was throwing pebbles in bunches on the third and final day.

A quarter of the sacrificial lamb is set at the dinner table but I don’t have any. Though I’m not a vegetarian, I’m disturbed by the sacrifice.

“It is symbolic of following God’s orders, whether or not you know what’s behind them, because God’s words always have wisdom behind them that we don’t understand,” my sister Reem says.

“In the sacrifice, it’s not the meat nor the blood that reaches God, but our piety, explains Taghreed.

It feels strange to sit around with my sisters, Reem’s long wavy hair still wet from washing, looking just like we did a week ago, but feeling that we’re not the same.

“What did you get out of the hajj?” I ask

“It made me realize that we are only here on this earth temporarily. Our real destination is the hereafter,” says Reem. “If you have fun going out with men, or to New Year’s parties, you want to have more parties and you forget God. But the hajj made very clear to me that we’re in transit. I want to prepare, from now, for the hereafter. Some people use drugs, or relationships in their search for God, but there’s a more direct way. Praying and continuously remembering Him.”

“Is the hajj something you can take with you?” I ask.

“We can leave the hajj with the experience of it inside us. We now know that being close to God works and makes you feel at peace,” says Taghreed. “We barely slept, we were up at dawn everyday praying, but the presence of God was energizing, instead of tiring.”

Alone in my room I stare at the mirror. I’m still not sure why we had to go around the Kaaba seven times, or the significance of reenacting Hagar’s search for water between the hills of Safa and Marwa. But I do feel different – more than the sum of my appearance, job, money, and education. I feel more centered and balanced, my backbone straighter. My inner space is larger and richer.

I want something to mark and remind me of this feeling, something I can wear or keep with me. I fumble around in my purse looking for a way to keep the hajj with me. I find only the badge which let me in and out of our camp in Mina and consider wearing it like a necklace, but discard the idea. I guess I won’t be able to use props. I’m going to have to remind myself – with a little help from above.

Last in a series.

Previously published by the Christian Science Monitor and reprinted with permission.

Sunday, Dec. 7, 2008 – CBS News’ 60 Minutes presents a report on Saudi Arabia called “The Oil Kingdom.”

THE OIL KINGDOM – Despite the pledge of President-elect Barack Obama and others to lessen America’s use of foreign oil, Saudi Arabia – the world’s largest oil supplier – isn’t worried. That’s what Saudi officials told Lesley Stahl when she visited the oil kingdom and toured its vast petroleum facilities, which are gearing up to produce even more. Richard Bonin and Kathy Liu are the producers. This is a double length segment.

Source: 60 Minutes/CBS News

Related Items:

60 Minutes: 1974: The Oil Kingdom – Mike Wallace traveled to Saudi Arabia, in 1974, and reported on Aramco, the American company controlling the Middle Eastern nation’s oil production.

60 Minutes: Saudi Arabia Bullish on Oil’s Future

60 Minutes: Stahl’s Reporter’s Notebook – 60 Minutes correspondent Lesley Stahl discusses her upcoming report on the oil industry in Saudi Arabia, as she gained exclusive access to this Middle Eastern nation’s petroleum facilities.

60 Minutes: Aramco’s High Tech Control Room

60 Minutes: The Oil Kingdom

SUSRIS Items:

Energy, Recession and Responsibility – SUSRIS IOI – Oct 18, 2008

Saudi Arabia – Country Analysis Brief – Energy Information Administration – SUSRIS IOI – Aug 15, 2008

Editor’s Note:

This article, part four of a series of five reports, originally appeared in the online edition of The Christian Science Monitor and is reprinted to mark the current Hajj in Saudi Arabia. Also check the SUSRIS Special Section “Hajj 2008″ on the web site

A Hajj Diary: Pelting the Pillars, Again
Faiza Saleh Ambah
Part 4

MINA, SAUDI ARABIA – Our walk around the Kaaba Sunday night signals the end of our sanctified state, but not of the hajj. We perform dawn prayers Monday at the Grand Mosque in Mecca and head back to Mina for the two days of stoning the pillars representing the devil.

My sisters change into their regular clothes under their black abaya robes. I find myself clinging to the sanctity my white robes represent, but add a black and white head scarf.

Sunday’s deaths at the pillars give us pause. We want to continue our rites, but spend the day at the camp, waiting for the crowds to ease.

Monday evening, my sister Reem runs into our tent waving a set of pens and exclaims: “We won. We won.”

After sunset prayers, religious quiz contests are held in the men’s and women’s prayer rooms. Her team came second. Reem’s winning answer: a quote by the Prophet about what to say after prayers.

About an hour before midnight, my cousin Allal storms into our tent’s living room. “Get up, girls. Get ready. It’s time.”

Like soldiers preparing for battle, we put on our face masks, strap on our waist pouches, and count our pebbles – we need 21 today, seven for each of the Jamaraat pillars.

We’re told that tradition dictates that we go from the smallest obelisk to the largest. They represent the devil’s three appearances before Abraham. Pilgrims throw pebbles to send away Satan in the same way Abraham is said to have done.

There’s a sense of excitement and adventure and danger as we move slowly behind a camp employee carrying a banner with the name of our camp, The House of Faith. “If he drops the banner, I’ll pick it up and continue walking,” jokes Reem. “You guys just follow me.”

It’s close to midnight when we arrive at the bridge, lit up with fluorescent lights where we will stone the pillars at the second open-air level. Pilgrims with small red and white Turkish flags stitched on their vests speed by us trying to stay with a group led by a man shouting through a bullhorn. By the side of the bridge eight Albanians strike a pose like soccer players for the camera.

I feel a thrill when we get close to the first pillar. I spot a narrow opening in the crowd, grab the hand of my nephew Saleh, and move in. The crowd in front of me is four meters deep. I say, “In the name of God,” and jump up to free my arm so I can throw a pebble. After the third throw my pouch is empty. My pebbles must have fallen out while I was jumping. Saleh is out of ammo too, and starts picking up pebbles from the ground, and I join him.

We hurry to the second pillar, weaving through the crowd. I get so close my stomach is pressing against the wall surrounding the pillar. I can see the pilgrims on the ground level throwing their stones. Yesterday, my stones hit people in the back of the head. Today, it’s my turn to be pelted. I smile. I am happy I’ve gotten this close.

I push my way out of the crowd and meet up with Reem and Taghreed. We’re all smiling, as if our team’s just won the stoning championships. “We got him,” I say, referring to the devil.

We head back to our camp, pushing against the tide moving toward the pillar area. The main road is packed with vehicles. A bus stops across from the stairs that lead to the pillars, blocking a motorcycle and a police car accompanying a V.I.P. in a Mercedes with tinted windows.

Two policemen on the street start hitting the bus with their hands. “Move. Move now. ” It doesn’t budge.

I wait to see what happens. Such displays of defiance of authority are rare in Saudi Arabia.

“I’m discharging pilgrims,” the bus driver shouts back. I’ll move when they get out.”

I smile at his determination and walk off to join my sisters.

We’re strolling along beside people sleeping under trucks, in the baggage compartment of buses, under plastic sheeting, and in one-man pup tents. We move forward, and almost step on a man and his wife sitting on floor mats, chatting and sipping tea. About a dozen Filipinos are eating dinner – noodle soup with coconut shavings – on mats spread out on the road. A file of young men with long beards walks past chanting, Allah akbar (God is great). We’re across the street from them but Taghreed joins in, chanting until they pass.

I look at her as she watches their receding backs. Though everyone here is going about their business, I sense that we are all connected by the experience.

Reem stops by a stall selling long robes and buys one for Saleh. I buy some prayer beads. Taghreed asks for cigarettes but can’t find any.

She bites into her apple. “That was really fun. I feel exhilarated. I feel as if a huge load’s been lifted off my shoulders.”

I’m not sure if it’s the disjointed sleep, or the changed eating habits, or being in the same tight space as 2 million praying pilgrims, but I, too, have started to feel lighter, with an unexpected warmth in my chest.

Next: Our last trip to Mecca

Previously published by the Christian Science Monitor and reprinted with permission.

Editor’s Note:

This article, part three of a series of five reports, originally appeared in the online edition of The Christian Science Monitor and is reprinted to mark the current Hajj in Saudi Arabia. Also check the SUSRIS Special Section “Hajj 2008″ on the web site.

A Pilgrim Fends Off Temptation with Pebbles and Prayers
By Faiza Saleh Ambah

[Part 3 of 5]

FEB. 1, MINA, SAUDI ARABIA – I haven’t listened to music, watched television, or read a novel since last Thursday. My hajj so far has been three days of sermons, lectures, and rites; a bit like religion camp.

After dawn prayers Saturday in Mina, the 10 of us squeeze into the four-wheel drive heading for Arafat, where we will spend the day in prayer until sunset. We’re seated in the back and I ask my sisters Reem and Taghreed if, like me, they find our guide attractive. Reem’s answer is a smile. She intones the Talbiya (the oft-repeated hajj prayer): “Here I am God. Here I am. Answering your call. Here I am, God, at your service..”

“What? You mean I shouldn’t even think that?” I ask.

“You can think it, but then take it out of your mind,” Taghreed says. “And not share it,” adds Reem.

I look out the window. The three-lane road from Mina to Arafat is covered with men and women in white walking, riding double-decker buses, or sitting on top of buses where the baggage is supposed to go. Cops in fluorescent vests and face masks keep traffic circulating and huge police tow trucks are parked at intervals.

The line of people moving toward Arafat stretches as far as I can see and the five-mile journey takes us a little over an hour and a half.

The Plain of Arafat is where Adam and Eve were reunited after leaving Eden. This is meant to be the apogee of the hajj. We are to spend the day supplicating God and begging for His forgiveness. By the end of the day, all our sins will be forgiven.

At the camp in Arafat, our tents are the real thing – cloth, pitched in sand, with rugs on the floor and low cushions lining the walls. In keeping with the spirit of things, minarets are printed on the inside of the tent.

My nephew Saleh and I go exploring. Men in the back of a large truck are tossing off boxes of free water and free meals. A couple of adolescents are calling out “Sabeel ” (charity), and offering apples and tangerines. A Pakistani pilgrim makes a beeline for a handicapped African man on crutches and slips money into his hand.

An old woman sits on a collapsed cardboard box begging in the middle of the road.

I walk behind a group of women with small Iraqi flags sewn on the back of their white head scarves. Hajjis From Iraq is stitched underneath it in black.

We head for the Namira Mosque, where the prophet gave his last sermon. It’s so crowded with people that the two- or three-block walk takes us half an hour.

The Day of Arafat is officially over at sunset, and so shortly before the last rays paint the sky everything comes to a halt. People lay their mats on the road and start praying, their hands in the air. The rows of petitioners spread out on the asphalt road are so tightly packed that even walking past them is difficult.

Saleh and I navigate our way back with the help of the three huge balloons flying several hundred yards in the sky marking the three largest camps.

I go with my sisters to the prayer tent where a Saudi scholar is giving that day’s sermon and prayer session.

“Today is the day to ask God for everything you want, in detail, nothing is too small or too insignificant. He hears everything you say. He will answer all your prayers. He has promised. He loves you. He wants to make your every wish come true but He wants you to ask.”

A chorus of “amens” goes up as many of the women raise their hands in supplication. Some are crying.

“There are three conditions,” she continues. “You must be patient. Your hajj should not be made with money gained unlawfully or sinfully. And you must believe in His good intentions. You must have faith in Him.”

She tells the story of a woman who tried to conceive through artificial insemination 19 times. On the Day of Arafat, she spread her prayer rug and insisted. “God, I want a child. I want to be a mother. You are going to give me a baby because I’m asking you here in Arafat, on the day of Arafat.”

The lecturer starts weeping when she gets to the part about the woman becoming pregnant several months later. I, too, am crying, touched by the idea of a God who loves us. So is my sister Taghreed and all the other women in the tent.

I’m still weeping when the sermon ends. I want so much to believe everything this woman is saying but something stubborn inside me gets in the way. Maybe it’s the devil whispering in my ear. But I’m getting ahead of myself, that’s the next stage of the journey.

After sunset prayers the whole procession moves to Muzdalifah. We spend some time under the stars, eating, praying, and picking up stones the size of chick peas for the stoning of the pillars. This ritual commemorates Abraham’s stoning of Satan when the latter tried to tempt him to disobey God.

By two in the morning, we’ve reached Mina and the area with the three pillars, which are under a bridge. It’s getting crowded. A group of Egyptian pilgrims is chanting the Talbiya, their voices echoing under the steel beams. A group of about 50 follows a pilgrim guide carrying a large blue banner, a smaller group follows an old man carrying a stick with an orange scarf tied at the end. I see a woman coming in the opposite direction separated from her group. “China’s Pilgrims” is written on her colored skirt.

Hundreds of pilgrims have died in stampedes here – in 2001, 1998, and 1994 – and as we get closer to the large pillar we will stone, the crowds get tighter, and tenser. I know this is the most dangerous part of the hajj. The sound of a distant ambulance echoing under the bridge scares a group of Malaysians, and they start running towards the pillar.

Reem and I do some of our own pushing and get as close to the pillar as we can.

“In the name of God. God is great,” we say and fling our first pebble. I cringe as my stone lands on the back of the head of a pilgrim in front of me. There’s no room to move my arm to throw. So do the next two. I jump up to free my arm for the next tosses and the last four fall in the general area of the pillar.

We push back through the throng, and return to our tent in Mina to sleep for a few hours. Sunday morning I’m awakened by my cell phone – my mother is calling to see if we are OK. It’s the first of many urgent calls. Family and friends tell us the news: 244 people were crushed to death in a stampede near the pillars six hours after we left. Fifty-four Indonesians and 36 Pakistanis are among the dead, we hear later in the news reports.

I feel a deep sadness and find myself asking God to be kind to them. But I feel it’s so unfair that they should die this way.

To control the size of the crowds, in recent years the Saudi government has set quotas for the number of pilgrims from each country. There were 10,000 security forces on duty in the area. But it wasn’t enough.

“God chose for them to die during hajj. Their time had come. They will go straight to heaven,” Reem tells me.

After sunset prayers Sunday a former Egyptian movie star turned preacher gives that day’s religious sermon in the women’s prayer room.

“You are all newborns today. All your sins have been erased. You have been given a miraculous chance and should try to maintain this pure state. From now on you should live according to God’s orders. Not your husband’s, not your children’s, not your workplace. On the day of judgment, nothing will count except your relationship with God.”

Later, alone in my room, I get a call on my cell phone from a male friend. He starts to flirt. I find myself going cold and changing the subject. I’ve never been in a sanctified state before and I find, to my surprise, that I don’t want to lose it. There’s something very pleasant about it. Something more attractive than even my friend. I feel a lightness, a sense of security, a warm feeling. Maybe this is what if feels like to start a relationship with God. And if everybody here is to be believed, it lasts longer than marriages, kids, work, beauty, youth, and money.

Tomorrow: We circle the Kaaba.

Previously published by the Christian Science Monitor and reprinted with permission.

Saudi National Security and the Saudi-US Strategic Partnership
By Anthony Cordesman

The US faces major problems in restoring its reputation and strategic partnerships all over the world. Every opinion poll that has addressed the subject has shown that the last eight years have done immense damage to America’s position. There are few areas, however, where US action is more urgent than in the Gulf and in dealing with Saudi Arabia.

The US has now agreed to withdraw from Iraq. There never was a significant chance that Iraq would emerge as a stable strategic partner, and it is now clear that any degree of partnership will be limited and constantly subject to the uncertainties of Iraqi politics and sectarian and ethnic tensions. It has been nearly 30 years since anyone could think of Iran as a “pillar” in US security, and it is clear that even the most successful dialog with Iran will still leave the need to deter and defend against Iranian opportunism in the Gulf. The worst case is a nuclear-armed Iran that seeks some form of regional hegemony.

The US has made little, if any, progress against global religious extremism and terrorism since 9/11. The only question is whether Al Qa’ida is marginally stronger or weaker operating out of Pakistan in 2008 than it was in operating of Afghanistan on 9/11.

Campaign promise and pundits aside, the US will remain directly dependent on massive energy imports well beyond 2030, and equally dependent on a global economy fueled by Gulf oil. The flow of oil, gas, and petroleum exports not only requires the security of key exporting states; it requires the security of regional pipelines and shipping routes. These not only involve the security of the Persian Gulf, but the Gulf of Oman, Indian Ocean, and Red Sea. Piracy has now joined the risk of conventional and asymmetric warfare in threatening the region.

This makes understanding Saudi national security and its strengths and weaknesses a critical priority for the new Administration, the new Congress, and the US. The US has valuable relations with Egypt, Israel, and Jordan. Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, and Oman all offer key bases and strategic facilities. Only one state, however, has the geographic position, military forces, strategic depth, and common interests to be a key strategic partner in the Gulf. The US needs Saudi Arabia as much as Saudi Arabia needs the US.

The US needs to understand what it can do to rebuild and strengthen its relations with Saudi Arabia as it reshapes its entire strategic position in the region. It needs to understand Saudi concerns and capabilities, the key security problems and threats the Saudis face, the nature of US and Saudi engagement, and the broader range of problems that the US must deal with to restore its reputation in Saudi Arabia and the Arab world.

The Burke Chair has prepared a draft briefing, entitled Saudi National Security and the Saudi-US Strategic Partnership, drawing on research in Saudi Arabia and consultation with US and Saudi officials. This briefing addresses all of these issues and is available on the CSIS web site.

The briefing will be revised over time, and comments and suggested changes would be most helpful. These can be addressed to acordesman@gmail.com. The briefing will also be followed by a book on Saudi National Security. A review draft will be circulated during the coming month.

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Anthony H. Cordesman

About Anthony H. Cordesman

Anthony H. Cordesman holds the Arleigh A. Burke Chair in Strategy at CSIS and acts as a national security analyst for ABC News. He is a recipient of the Department of Defense Distinguished Service Medal. During his time at CSIS, he has completed a wide variety of studies on energy, U.S. strategy and defense plans, the lessons of modern war, defense programming and budgeting, NATO modernization, Chinese military power, the lessons of modern warfare, proliferation, counterterrorism, armed nation building, the security of the Middle East, and the Afghan and Iraq conflicts. (Many of these studies can be downloaded from the Burke Chair section of the CSIS Web site at http://www.csis.org/program/burke-chair-strategy.) Cordesman has directed numerous CSIS study efforts on terrorism, energy, defense panning, modern conflicts, and the Middle East. He has traveled frequently to Afghanistan and Iraq to consult for MNF-I, ISAF, U.S. commands, and U.S. embassies on the wars in those countries, and he was a member of the Strategic Assessment Group that assisted General Stanley McChrystal in developing a new strategic for Afghanistan in 2009. He frequently acts as a consultant to the U.S. State Department, Defense Department, and intelligence community and has worked with U.S. officials on counteterrorism and security areas in a number of Middle East countries.

Before joining CSIS, Cordesman served as director of intelligence assessment in the Office of the Secretary of Defense and as civilian assistant to the deputy secretary of defense. He directed the analysis of the lessons of the October War for the secretary of defense in 1974, coordinating the U.S. military, intelligence, and civilian analysis of the conflict. He also served in numerous other government positions, including in the State Department and on NATO International Staff. In addition, he served as director of policy and planning for resource applications in the Energy Department and as national security assistant to Senator John McCain. He had numerous foreign assignments, including posts in the United Kingdom, Lebanon, Egypt, and Iran, as well as with NATO in Brussels and Paris. He has worked extensively in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf.

He is the author of a wide range of studies on energy policy, national security, and the Middle East, and his most recent publications include (CSIS, 2010), Iraq and the United States: Creating a Strategic Partnership (CSIS, 2010), Saudi Arabia: National Security in a Troubled Region (Praeger, 2009), Iranian Weapons of Mass Destruction: The Birth of a Regional Nuclear Arms Race? (Praeger, 2009), Withdrawal from Iraq: Assessing the Readiness of Iraqi Security Forces (CSIS, 2009), and Winning in Afghanistan: Creating Effective Afghan Security Forces (CSIS, 2009).

Source: CSIS

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Full List of Anthony Cordesman’s Publications (Source: CSIS) [LINK HERE]

***

Articles and Interviews on SUSRIS by and with Anthony Cordesman

• U.S. Strategy in the Gulf – Cordesman – SUSRIS – Apr 18, 2011
• Understanding Saudi Stability and Instability – Cordesman – SUSRIS – Mar 1, 2011
• AUSPC Panel: Defense Cooperation – SUSRIS – Oct 26, 2010
• US-Saudi Security Cooperation, Impact of Arms Sales – Cordesman – SUSRIS – Sep 17, 2010
• The New Saudi Arms Deal – Cordesman – SUSRIS – Sep 17, 2010
• Reality in the Gulf – Cordesman – SUSRIS – Jul 22, 2010
• Saudi Arabia and Gulf Security – Cordesman – SUSRIS – May 18, 2010
• Saudi Arabia: National Security in a Troubled Region – Anthony H. Cordesman – SUSRIS – Oct 10, 2009
• Gulf Threats, Risks and Vulnerabilities: Terrorism and Assymetric Warfare – Anthony H. Cordesman and Adam C. Seitz – SUSRIS – Aug 31, 2009
• Regional Defense: A Need for Credibility, Effectiveness and Transparency (AUSPC 2008)- Anthony Cordesman – SUSRIS – Dec 8, 2008
• Saudi National Security and the Saudi-US Strategic Partnership By Anthony Cordesman – SUSRIS – Dec 4, 2008
• Security Cooperation in the Gulf – SUSRIS – Nov 22, 2008
• The US, Israel, the Arab States and a Nuclear Iran – Cordesman – SUSRIS – Oct 10, 2008
• Conventional Armed Forces in the Gulf – Cordesman – SUSRIS – Aug 23, 2008
• President Bush’s Trip to the Middle East – Briefing by Anthony Cordesman and Jon Alterman of CSIS – SUSRIS IOI – May 14, 2008
• Security Challenges and Threats in the Gulf – SUSRIS – Mar 28, 2008
• The Gulf Arms Sales: A Background Paper – Anthony H. Cordesman – SUSRIS IOI – Feb 5, 2008
• Security Cooperation in the Middle East – Anthony Cordesman – SUSRIS IOI – Nov 27, 2007
• Saudi Military Modernization – A Conversation with Anthony Cordesman – Interview – Nov 23, 2007
• Weapons of Mass Preservation – Anthony H. Cordesman – SUSRIS IOI – Aug 20, 2007
• Iran, Oil, and the Strait of Hormuz – Anthony H. Cordesman – SUSRIS IOI – Mar 27, 2007
• Global Energy Security – Anthony H. Cordesman – SUSRIS IOI – Nov 15, 2006
• The Impact on Saudi Regional Stability – Anthony H. Cordesman – SUSRIS IOI – Aug 2, 2005
• Saudi Arabia and the Struggle Against Terrorism by Dr. Anthony Cordesman – SUSRIS IOI – Apr 11, 2005
• Why Reforge the U.S. and Saudi Relationship? An Interview with Anthony Cordesman – SUSRIS IOI – Sep 28, 2004
• The Prospects for Stability in 2004 — The Issue of Political, Economic and Social Reform – Anthony H. Cordesman – Part 1 – SUSRIS – Feb. 23, 2004
• The Prospects for Stability in 2004 — The Issue of Political, Economic and Social Reform – Anthony H. Cordesman – Part 2 – SUSRIS – Feb. 23, 2004
• The Prospects for Stability in 2004 — The Issue of Political, Economic and Social Reform – Anthony H. Cordesman – Part 3 – SUSRIS – Feb. 23, 2004
• The 9/11 Commission Report: Strengths and Weaknesses – Anthony H. Cordesman – SUSRIS – Jul. 29, 2004
• Developments in Iraq at the End of 2003: Adapting U.S. Policy to Stay the Course,” by Anthony H. Cordesman, GulfWire Perspectives, January 7, 2004
• “Four Wars and Counting: Rethinking the Strategic Meaning of the Iraq War,” by Anthony H. Cordesman, GulfWire Perspectives, December 5, 2003
• “Iraq: Too Uncertain to Call,” by Anthony H. Cordesman, GulfWire Perspectives, November 18, 2003
• Saudi Redeployment of the F-15 to Tabuk – Anthony H. Cordesman – SUSRIS – November 1, 2003
• “Iranian Security Threats and US Policy: Finding the Proper Response,” by Anthony H. Cordesman, GulfWire Perspectives, October 28, 2003
• “What is Next in Iraq? Military Developments, Military Requirements and Armed Nation Building,” by Anthony H. Cordesman, GulfWire Perspectives, August 22, 2003
• Saudi Government Counterterrorism: Counter Extremism Actions – Anthony H. Cordesman – SUSRIS -August 4, 2003
• “Saudi Arabia: Don’t Let Bin Laden Win!”, by Anthony H. Cordesman, Saudi-American Forum Item of Interest, May 16, 2003
• “Postwar Iraq: The New Old Middle East,” by Anthony H. Cordesman, GulfWire Perspectives, April 16, 2003
• “Iraq’s Warfighting Strategy,” by Anthony H. Cordesman, GulfWire Perspectives, March 11, 2003
• “Reforming the Middle East: President Bush’s Neo-Con Logic Versus Regional Reality,” by Anthony H. Cordesman, GulfWire Perspectives, February 27, 2003
• “The Great Iraq Missile Mystery,” by Anthony H. Cordesman, GulfWire Perspectives, February 26, 2003
• “Iraq Security Roundtable at CSFS: A Discussion With Dr. Anthony Cordesman,” Center for Strategic and Future Studies, GulfWire Perspectives, January 28, 2003
• “A Coalition of the Unwilling: Arms Control as an Extension of War By Other Means,” By Anthony H. Cordesman, GulfWire Perspectives, January 25, 2003
• “Is Iraq In Material Breach? What Hans Blix, Colin Powell, And Jack Straw Actually Said,” By Anthony H. Cordesman, GulfWire Perspectives, December 20, 2002
• “Saudi Arabia: Opposition, Islamic Extremism And Terrorism,” by Anthony H. Cordesman, GulfWire Perspectives, December 1, 2002
• “Planning For A Self-Inflicted Wound: U.S. Policy To Reshape A Post-Saddam Iraq,” by Anthony H. Cordesman, GulfWire Perspectives, November 24, 2002
• “The West And The Arab World – Partnership Or A ‘Clash Of Civilizations?’” By Anthony H. Cordesman, GulfWire Perspectives, November 12, 2002
• “Strategy In The Middle East: The Gap Between Strategic Theory And Operational Reality,” by Dr. Anthony H. Cordesman, GulfWire Perspectives, October 22, 2002
• “A Firsthand Look At Saudi Arabia Since 9-11,” GulfWire’s Interview With Dr. Anthony Cordesman In Saudi Arabia, GulfWire Perspectives October 10, 2002
• “Escalating To Nowhere: The Israeli And Palestinian Strategic Failure,” By Anthony H. Cordesman, GulfWire Perspectives, April 8, 2002
• “Reforging The U.S. And Saudi Strategic Partnership,” by Dr. Anthony H. Cordesman, GulfWire Perspectives, January 28, 2002

[GulfWire Articles are being added to SUSRIS. Please check Dr. Cordesman's SUSRIS page for updates.]

Editor’s Note:

This article, part two of a series of five reports, originally appeared in the online edition of The Christian Science Monitor and is reprinted to mark the current Hajj in Saudi Arabia. Also check the SUSRIS Special Section “Hajj 2008″ on the web site.

On Hajj, Battling Sin and Doubt
Millions of Muslims from around the world are attending the hajj (pilgrimage) in Saudi Arabia.
By Faiza Saleh Ambah

[Part 2 of 5]

FRIDAY, JAN. 29, MINA, SAUDI ARABIA – For the next five days I’m asked to concentrate only on God. “We’re not going to talk about guys, or gossip or anything,” Reem warns me. “I’m going to take advantage of the next five days and I don’t want the two of you to distract me,” she says, but I think she means mainly me.

Consider hajj a short board meeting, says my cousin Allal. “Concentrate on prayers and God and trying to be a better person during the next five days and forget everything else.”

As we head to our rooms to get ready for ihram (state of hajj-related sacredness; also the pilgrims’ garb), she looks closely at my hands. “Is that nail polish? And on your feet too?” She shakes her head in consternation and fetches cotton and nail polish remover.

“Hurry up, we don’t have much time.”

As I pass the cotton over my nails, I try to get into the right frame of mind. Alone in my room, I pack my purse, removing my lipstick, perfume, and blush. Then I cut my nails, bathe, and wash my hair. As I go through my ihram preparations I try purposefully to shed the worldly and concentrate on the Godly.

I look in the mirror as I put on my white head scarf, T-shirt, pantaloons, and white robe and talk myself into a spiritual immersion to accompany the physical transformation.

Suddenly the smile of a man I recently had dinner with comes to mind. I shoo the image away but continue to trip over my thoughts as I try to clear my mind of everything but God.

“It’s all right,” says Reem. “Just do your best and try to get your thoughts back on track.” Soon it’s time for the hajj intention prayer before we set off. “You remember how, don’t you?” she asks.

I don’t answer and she lays out a prayer rug in front of us. “Repeat to yourself what I say out loud.”

The Koranic verses are as familiar to me as the voice of my mother and father. But the prostrations are not. With a sideways glance, I follow Reem’s choreography closely, checking to see whether she will go down halfway, her hands on her knees, or if it’s time for us to prostrate fully with our forehead on the floor.

I make it without major mistakes.

The sun is gentle as we set off for Mina, where we will spend the night. On the way, I see cars and buses and pickup trucks loaded with men in the ihram. I feel close to those strangers, and it reminds me of the feeling of belonging when I was a child and we would go to the beach with my uncles in a caravan of five cars. We reach Mina several hours later and are led to our first-class accommodation; luxurious prefabricated structures with open tent-like awnings for ceilings and portable bathrooms with sink, shower, and toilet. With my cousin and his wife’s family there are 10 of us sharing four rooms and a living room with a computer, television, telephones, and Internet access. But these lodgings are atypical.

A dozen pilgrims often share one room and many sleep outdoors on mats if the weather permits. After a nap, I decide to go out exploring with my nephew. Taghreed, a heavy smoker who left her cigarettes behind on purpose, gives me money when I head out. “Marlboro Lights please,” she says, then gives me a ‘Don’t cross me’ look.

My nephew Saleh and I put on our badges, which get us back into our camp and help us find it if we get lost, and head off. The tiny city of Mina, a valley partly enclosed by a range of mountains, is like a huge picnic ground. There’s a festive air to the city, which comes alive one week out of the year, as cars compete for space on the roads and bridges and highways with the huge crowds. Families spread colored mats on the sidewalks and other open areas as they read, relax, sleep, and eat. A man on a bicycle sells blue face masks, which a lot of the police officers and hajjis are wearing this year. A peddler hawks Hajj Mats with Inflatable Pillow Made in China to passersby. I hear Urdu, Hindi, Turkish, Arabic, and English as we stroll.

After sundown prayers, mosques around the city are broadcasting Koranic verses, sermons, and information about the hajj. The message: If you make it through the next three to five days without sinning or harming yourself or anyone, you will have accomplished a successful hajj. There’s an aura of anticipation in our camp; tomorrow everyone will get a chance to have their sins forgiven and have their prayers answered, and they want to get it right. In the women’s lecture room, in a tent near ours, the Islamic scholar is asked about cigarettes. Harmful, she says. And men who look at you? Try to avoid their gaze, she advises.

Back in my room, I hear a preacher talking over the loudspeakers about the meaning of the Day of Standing Together Before God, or Yawm al-Wukuf, which takes place the next day. “God will forgive us all our sins. We will be as sinless as the day we were born,” are the last clear words I hear before he breaks down weeping. Soon I hear a second broadcast from another mosque.

I ask Taghreed what she’s going to pray for the following day, but I can hardly hear her for the cacophony of the competing sermons blaring from the loudspeakers.

The lectures are over after the final evening prayers and Taghreed finishes her list of names of family and friends she wants to pray for. Reem, who’s already done, contemplates what she’s going to ask for herself. “Tomorrow I’m going to forgive everyone who has ever harmed me because I expect God to forgive me everything,” she says.

An Egyptian sheikh comes over to talk to us and I ask him about the significance of the Day of Standing Together Before God. “This is God’s favorite time and place. He has asked us to come to Him with our prayers at Mount Mercy in Arafat on the ninth day of this month. He has said he will forgive all our sins on this day.”

“Why?” I ask. “What’s so special about tomorrow?”

“When you love someone, you do as he says, and we love God and follow what he asks us to do. We don’t have to understand before we do it, we will understand later. It’s a matter of putting faith over curiosity and human nature.”

The sheikh’s answer sounds familiar. You will only know once you believe.

I am hoping that despite my doubts and curiosity, I will be considered enough of a believer to reap rewards at the plain of Arafat, though I’m not sure exactly what. As an outward sign of my good intentions, I refuse to kill the large mosquitoes that are sticking their noses through my robe and biting my calves, so that I don’t break my ihram.

Previously published by the Christian Science Monitor and reprinted with permission.

Editor’s Note:

This article originally appeared in the online edition of The Christian Science Monitor on January 30, 2004. This article is part one of a series that will be provided in SUSRIS over the coming days as we mark this year’s Hajj in Saudi Arabia. Also check the SUSRIS Special Section “Hajj 2008″ on the web site.

The Pilgrimage to Mecca: One Woman’s Journey
A Saudi journalist prepares to participate in a 1,300-year-old Muslim ritual
By Faiza Saleh Ambah
[Part 1 of 5]

THURSDAY, JAN. 29, JEDDAH, SAUDI ARABIA – Tomorrow, I leave to perform a central pillar of Islam, the five-day hajj. But I must confess that as Saudis go, I’m not particularly religious.

Spending a week with two million Muslims from more than 120 countries, performing rituals more ancient than Islam itself, in the largest single gathering at one place for one purpose in the world, appeals more to the journalist than the Muslim in me.

I am wary of, but no less excited by, the idea of an appointment in the desert with God. Pilgrims performing the hajj, which starts Jan. 30 (the eighth day of the last month of the Muslim lunar year), seem to be answering a call, keeping a promise. “Here I am lord, at your service, here I am,” is the chant that announces the start of the pilgrimage.

As a Muslim with more questions than certainties, I wonder at the meaning of the daily rituals that make up the pilgrimage: the seven circuits around the Kaaba (the cube-shaped stone structure in the middle of the Grand Mosque) in Mecca, the reenactment of the search for water by Ishmael’s mother Hagar, the march to and from the desert, and the vigil on Mount Mercy on the plains of Arafat, where the last verses of the Koran were revealed.

My sisters Reem and Taghreed, devout and practicing Muslims for years, don’t share my uncertainties. “We don’t know the exact reasons for everything. But we don’t have to. God told us to perform those specific rituals so we do them,” Reem tells me. They both ask me to keep an open mind and perform the hajj with sincere intentions, which should erase all my sins and leave me as pure as the day I was born.

Taghreed – a perennial student living in Paris – is very devout, but wants to get closer to God and is hoping that the strenuous and physically demanding hajj will boost her faith. “God said following my orders will bring us closer. And he’s asked us to perform the hajj if we’re able to.”

Reem, a divorcée with her own business in Dubai, has a more checkered past and wants to consolidate a new, more devout persona.

She looks critically in the mirror as she tries on the white head scarf and long white robe she will wear, checking to ensure that the contours of her body are not showing.

“I want a fresh start. Performing the hajj properly will erase all my sins and give me a clean slate.” She smiles and puts out her cigarette. “It’s like going through a detoxification program, and going to the hajj will motivate me to stay clean.”

Before we set off, we will bathe, wear our special ihram clothes, state our intention to perform the hajj at one of the five entry points into the sanctified area where the rituals are performed, and enter a sanctified state called ihram. During the ritual, which reenacts the pilgrimage made by Muhammad in 632, sexual abstinence is imposed, and killing or even harming anyone or anything, including insects and plants, is forbidden.

As an outward sign of this state of consecration, women usually wear white scarves and long robes and are banned from beautifying themselves or trying to attract male attention. Men wear white towels, one around the waist and one slung over the left shoulder, leaving the right shoulder exposed. They must also be bareheaded and unshod, but slippers and sandals are acceptable. The reason, says my cousin Allal – a businessman who has studied with Islamic scholars – is that all men will be equal before God physically as well as spiritually. Over dinner he give us a lecture about the meaning of hajj. This is also a dress rehearsal for the day of judgment, he warns. “Like a quiz before the test, to prepare us. Those who are not there will not be prepared.”

In preparation for this journey, which every able-bodied Muslim is supposed to perform at least once in his or her lifetime, I am reading “One Thousand Roads to Mecca” an anthology of 10 centuries of travelers writing about the hajj, edited by Michael Wolfe.

The appearance of the hajj has changed dramatically, with jets flying people in, buses and cars replacing camels, and Internet access and surveillance cameras set up all over the four cities in which the hajj is performed. Yet the actual ritual has remained unchanged in more than 1,300 years.

The past few nights, I’ve drifted to sleep with the tales of various accounts by converts, Arab Muslims, spies, and fake- Muslim adventurers in my head. I’m starting to realize that though hajj is a community ritual, it is also a very personal journey, and like almost everything else in life, you get out of it only as much as you put in.

For that reason, I will try to perform these rituals with an open mind and an open heart. I might not share my sisters’ devotion, but I will at least try to grasp and convey it.

Next: My first day on the hajj

Editor’s Note:

Each fall the National Council on US-Arab Relations brings together a distinguished group of diplomats, government officials, business people, military officials, scholars and others to tackle the thorny issues surrounding US-Arab relations. SUSRIS has provided AUSPC speakers’ remarks, which touch on the Saudi-US relationship, to you for over the last five years. In keeping with that practice we again provide for your consideration a collection of AUSPC presentations.

Today we present the remarks of General Brent Scowcroft, National Security Advisor to President George H. W. Bush from 1989 to 1993 in addition to numerous other distinguished posts in and out of government, from a panel reviewing the challenges posed by Iran and Iraq to US policymakers. General Scowcroft was joined on the panel by Gen. Joseph P. Hoar, Mr. Wayne White and Dr. Kenneth Katzman. Their remarks will be provided separately. The panelists were introduced by Dr. John Duke Anthony, President of the National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations.

Additional AUSPC sessions which address U.S. and Saudi issues will be provided by SUSRIS in the coming days.

17th ANNUAL ARAB-U.S. POLICYMAKERS CONFERENCE
“Transitioning the White House: Challenges and Opportunities for Arab-U.S. Relations”
October 30-31, 2008 | Washington, DC

[DR. JOHN DUKE ANTHONY] Thank you. General Scowcroft. Lieutenant General, retired. He’s one of America’s foremost and most prominent analysts on foreign policy issues. He’s had a distinguished career in and out of government, on the inside dealing with the challenges and opportunities and also burdens of promoting America’s national security interests and key foreign policy objectives across the spectrum, be they strategic, economic, political, commercial, defense, and then the people to people private sector relations.

He is the founder and President of the Forum for International Policy. This is a non-partisan, non governmental organization, which provides independent analysis and perspective on major foreign policy issues. He’s also President of the Scowcroft Group, an international business advisory firm, and he served as assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, to President Gerald Ford and President Richard Nixon as military assistant, but National Security Affairs Advisor also to President George H. W. Bush. And it was particularly during that tenure in the White House that one of the longest wars of the 20th century, namely the Iran-Iraq War, starting in September of 1980 and ending with a cease fire August 18th, 1988. This was on General Scowcroft’s watch.

And in many people’s minds, that was a successful U.S. mobilization and deployment of force. Twenty four other nations stood with the United States in an internationally concerted action to bring about the ceasefire. There was cooperation with all the members of the United Nations Security Council, with 15 out of 15 members, on July the 15th 1987, passing Resolution 598, the first unanimous resolution in the United Nations Security Council since the Korean War, directly dealing with an issue of war and peace. General Scowcroft was centrally, pivotally involved in helping one, to bring about an end to the Iran-Iraq War; two, to prevent the Iranian Revolution from spreading to the western side of the Gulf to eastern Arabia and at the same time part and parcel of the ending of the Cold War with a defeat of the Soviet Union through another internationally concerted action pertaining to Afghanistan. General Scowcroft.

[LT. GEN. BRENT SCOWCROFT] Thank you very much Doctor Anthony, it’s a great pleasure for me to be here with such a distinguished group of speakers and a wonderful audience, and I want to congratulate you on the subject for this year.

It’s a very critical time, and the title of the conference “Transitioning the White House” is very important. Now we’re supposed to talk about Iran and Iraq, but I want to make a couple of preliminary comments because I think there’s some danger in separating the various issues of the region because they tend to spill over on each other in a variety of ways. And what I want to say is just a few words about the Palestinian peace process. I think it is a major source of the problems in the region. It’s a major source of anti-Americanism in the region. It’s a major rallying point for extremists in the region. And the solution to that problem would make a great contribution to the other issues that beset us in the region.

I am personally very disappointed that the efforts of this administrations have not produced success, but I think that the day that the new President sits in the White House, the first thing he ought to think about, there are a lot of first things, but one of the very first things is renewing the Palestinian peace process, because it’s one of those things that if we’re not moving forwards, we’re moving backwards, and I think that’s a real, a real danger. We cannot succeed in that without the direct personal involvement, I don’t think, of the President of the United States, in a heavy way.

Success in this venture though, would first of all change the psychological climate of the region. It would restore the general attitude that the United States is a force for good in the region, a force for progress in the region, not simply in there for its own narrow national aims. It would change the psychological climate in no other way. It would move Iran from the offensive to the defensive, because Iran plays on the Palestinian peace process, through Hezbollah, through Hamas. Now they are organizations that are not wholly dependent on the Palestinian issue but they get their strength and they feed on the Palestinian issue. So to me, this is one thing that the President has to focus on.

Now turning to Iraq. If this conference last year had focused on Iraq it would be gloom and doom. The attitude has changed much, and I think the attitude has changed much because the situation has changed significantly. Progress is being made. But it’s a very fragile process, and it’s, I think, easily subject to reversal. It has been something of an issue in the Presidential campaign although not so much recently. And to me, what we need to focus on is what we really need in Iraq. And it seems to me what we need in Iraq is a country that is an influence for stability in the region, not for conflict and chaos. And it’s getting to that point now that I think it is reversible, and so I think while the U.S. can probably begin to reduce some troops as the security situation improves, we have to be very careful about pulling out before we have a situation there that is clearly able to be sustained by the local system. And therefore, I would caution against a withdrawal of the United States according to a calendar, rather than according to the situation on the ground.

In Iran, I think there are two general problems with Iran. The first one is Iran and the region, and the second is Iran and nuclear weapons. Thus far, what we can do or can’t do with Iran is for the United States pretty much of a mystery, because we have not been prepared to explore with them what the possibilities are. Now it’s difficult to explore with Iran because in a sense there are two different structures there. There is a governmental structure and there is a fundamental power structure, and it depends a lot who you talk to. But setting that aside, it seems to me that making discussions subject to preconditions before you will sit down and talk is not a recipe for understanding or for finding out what goes on. That is one of the purposes of talking, and talking in itself is not necessarily a concession.

On Iran in the region, I think we need to know more about what Iran’s fundamental designs are, with respect to Iraq for example. There’s no question that they take great comfort from our problems in Iraq, and I think they undoubtedly contribute to those problems. But what do they really want to see? What kind of an Iraq? They were subject to a seven-year war with Iraq, which I’m sure they wouldn’t like repeated, and therefore they have a concern about a powerful Iraq. Would they rather have an Iraq which splintered into its major constituent parts, a Shia state in the south, a Sunni state in the center, and a Kurdish state in the north? From a power position, that might be very attractive to them.

But a Kurdish state in the north is no less a problem for the Iranians than it is for the Turks, given the spread of the Turkish population in that region. But we don’t know, we don’t really know if there’s anything here in respect to Iraq that we might be able to work with the Iranians on.

Then there’s Iran and nuclear weapons. There is no doubt that Iran considers itself in a difficult region. And I think that a turn to nuclear weapons is in many cases what appears to be a logical result for countries that live in difficult regions. But it’s not that simple, and for the United States, and for the rest of the world, it is not just Iran developing the nuclear weapons, it is what that means to the whole non-proliferation regime around the world. Because if Iran is allowed to develop the enrichment of uranium to the point that it can develop a nuclear weapons capability, then it seems to me we have made a very deep hole in the non-proliferation regime.

It is difficult for me to see that that would not be followed by perhaps Egypt, perhaps Saudi Arabia, perhaps Turkey in the region, and by similar states with similar problems around the world. That is not a better world. What can we do? Again, I think discussion is important. This time discussion I think needs to be preceded by a very careful understanding among the negotiators on this issue, and that is the British, the French, the Germans, the United States, Russia, and China. None of those parties want Iran to develop nuclear weapons, but they all have different sorts of concerns. It seems to me that what we need to do is to agree first among those parties. We do not want Iran to develop nuclear weapons. What are the steps to be taken to avoid that as an outcome? That will take a level of cooperation, which so far we haven’t really achieved. Will it work? I don’t know. But it seems to me that is the approach to take rather than assuming that Iran cannot be dissuaded, and that it is either acquiescence or the use of force. I’ll stop there.

QUESTIONS POSED TO GENERAL SCOWCROFT IN THE Q AND A PERIOD:

[ANTHONY] ..One for General Scowcroft, could you be a bit more specific of what kind of great initiative the new American President might realistically, might feasibly launch, given the domestic pressures, the special interests, and how difficult this might be as a sell to elements of the American public?.. ..General Scowcroft, you want to take the first one about realistically feasibly given domestic and special interests constraints and pressures might you conceive of a successful or at least a beginning initiative.

[SCOWCROFT] Yes, I’d be happy to. I think it is feasible and realistic. One of the things that we haven’t really thought so much about is the growing sentiment, especially among Palestinians, that they don’t want a two state solution. It seems to me that the perils of that for all concerned should put an impetus behind a renewed effort. I think that we’re actually closer to a solution than most people realize. If you look back at the Taba Accords in late 2000, early 2001, the two sides agreed on almost everything.

Now there are some problems that one side or the other has to give way on, but this is not like starting all over again. Enormous progress has been made. One of the difficulties right now is in the recent negotiations is that both sides are relatively weak. They don’t represent strength back home. And therefore it’s difficult for them to reach out. What I sense is that if the United States had proposed a solution fundamentally along the lines of the Taba Accord and said, “This is what we think is fair to both sides. If you two can agree on modifications in it, fine.” But we didn’t do that. And I think that’s still what a, what the next President will have to do.

It’s going to be probably somewhat more difficult because Israel is in a state of political turmoil right now. And how that gets resolved could have a considerable impact on the ability to negotiate. But it seems to me that the notion that the United State provides the meeting room and we say you two sit down and you come up with a solution, that that time has passed, and we need to be more assertive and I think it would work.

[OTHER QUESTIONS]

[ANTHONY] This last question will have 2 or 3 parts to it, and General Scowcroft may want to take 2 of the 3, or actually 4 parts to it.

One is, there have been three wars in this area in the last 30 years; the first Iran-Iraq War, then Desert Shield/Desert Storm, and now Operation Iraqi Freedom. And perhaps one could’ve added the Iranian Revolution of 1979. In terms of the lessons learned from what we have done, certainly for the first two of these that I mention, the Iran-Iraq War and Desert Shield/Desert Storm, where the United States was roundly lauded and applauded from one end of the Gulf to the other. But the exact opposite since Operation Iraqi Freedom, where all the countries in the Gulf, with one exception, that would be Kuwait, that saw its situation in an existential circumstance, advised us that we didn’t know what we were getting into, we would be in over our head, we would rue the day, it would make things further complex in the region, and America’s friends would feel the rug was being pulled out from under them because they would be seen and tarred with the brush of moderates, etc. Being America’s Arabs, lackies, running dogs, that old jargon.

Why such a contrast between the lauding and applauding of America’s response and policies and positions and actions and attitude towards those first two big ones, but the exact opposite largely for the, the one that we’re still dealing with there?

And then secondly, was it not true that under the Kissinger Secretary of Stateship that was either an agreement or on acceptance or on acquiescence or on accommodation to the Shah’s wanting to become a nuclear power? And of course, the relationship with Iran during that time between the United States was intimate, strategic, economic, political, and commercial, writ large. This was before the Shah really hit the fan there, and it’s been something quite different now. Could you square that, that we are on record as having been not uncomfortable, let alone opposing the idea of Iran being a nuclear power?

So those are the two pieces that pertain to you, and I’ll ask the others of the others.

[SCOWCROFT] Well, on the first one, I think the difference in the attitude of the region towards the United States and some of the people in the region know better what their attitudes were than we. We were seen in the first two conflicts to be trying to help the region. We were out trying on behalf of the region.

And indeed, when Saddam went into Kuwait, one of the first things he did was say now let’s have a conference on the peace process. And we said no, we deal with your aggression. But then quietly we said to the region let’s do this and then we will address the peace conference, and we did at the Conference on Madrid.

Whereas, as you pointed out in the last Gulf War, we were advised by everyone else except Kuwait, which is a special thing, but not to do it. So we were seen not to be helping the region with its problems, but dealing with a problem we have within the region. And I think that accounts for, that’s why I said I think if we start with the Palestinian peace process, we can reverse that, and get back to where we were before.

In the first Gulf War, we had Egyptian troops, we had Moroccan troops, we had Syrian troops. It was a very different kind of an attitude, and it seems to me that’s part of what we need to get back to. That we’re there not for our narrow goals, but we’re there to help the region with its problems, which also helps us in a more general way.

The Shah. No it’s not true. My guess is the Shah in the back of his mind eventually had the notion of being a nuclear power. I think had he continued in power he probably would’ve gone down that road. And yet this was, we supported him; we didn’t think it was maybe the smartest thing for him to do. We supported him in his goal to develop nuclear energy. We said you know, you’re one of the richest oil companies in the world, why do you need that? Well he said, the oil’s going to run out eventually. Now whether it’s that or whether it was a nuclear program in disguise, I don’t know. But that simply is not true.

Source: Arab-US Policymakers Conference Web Site (AUSPC 2008)

Transcription Services by Ryan & Associates

About Lt. Gen. Brent Scowcroft, USAF (Ret)

Lieutenant General Brent Scowcroft, USAF (Ret.), is one of the nation’s preeminent authorities on international policy. He is the founder and President of The Forum for International Policy, a non-partisan, non-profit organization providing independent analyses and perspectives on major foreign policy issues. He is also President of The Scowcroft Group, Inc., an international business advisory firm.

General Scowcroft served as Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs to Presidents Gerald Ford and George H. W. Bush. He also served as Military Assistant to President Nixon and as Deputy Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs to Presidents Ford and Nixon. Prior to joining the Bush Administration, General Scowcroft was Vice Chairman of Kissinger Associates, Inc.

In the course of his military career, General Scowcroft held positions in the Organization of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; Headquarters of the U.S. Air Force; and the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs. Other assignments included faculty positions at the U. S. Air Force Academy and the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, and Assistant Air Attaché in the American Embassy in Belgrade, Yugoslavia.

General Scowcroft currently serves as a Director of the Qualcomm Corporation. He also serves on the University of California President’s Council on the National Laboratories. He serves as Chairman of the American-Turkish Council (ATC). He is President of the George Bush Presidential Library Foundation and the International Advisory Board of the Atlantic Council of the United States. He is also a Member of the Board of the Gerald R. Ford Foundation, the George C. Marshall Foundation, the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), the International Republican Institute, the National Defense University, and the American Council on Germany. He also serves as an Advisory Board Member of Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs.

General Scowcroft has chaired or served on a number of policy advisory councils, including the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board; the United Nations Secretary-General’s High-Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change; the Eisenhower Institute; the President’s General Advisory Committee on Arms Control; the President’s Commission on Strategic Forces; the President’s Blue Ribbon Commission on Defense Management; the Defense Policy Board; and the President’s Special Review Board (Tower Board) investigating the Iran-Contra affair.

General Scowcroft has an aeronautical rating as a pilot and has numerous military decorations and awards. In addition, President George H. W. Bush presented him with the Medal of Freedom Award in 1991, the nation’s highest civilian award. In 1993, he was presented with the insignia of an Honorary Knight of the British Empire (K.B.E.) by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth at Buckingham Palace.

General Scowcroft was born in Ogden, Utah. He received his undergraduate degree and commission into the Army Air Forces from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, where he was recently recognized as a Distinguished Graduate. He received M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from Columbia University. He also is the recipient of the following honorary degrees: Doctor of National Security Affairs from National Defense University; Doctor of Humane Letters from the Medical University of South Carolina; Public Service Doctorate from Brigham Young University; Doctor of Humanities from the University of Utah; LHD from the College of William and Mary; LLD from Columbia University; Degree from DePaul University; and LLD from George Washington University.

Editors Note:

Tennessee Technological University is a school of about 10,000 students in the town of Cookeville, in Tennessee’s Upper Cumberland region. It is the state’s only technological university and provides outstanding programs in engineering, the sciences, and other areas that benefit Tennesseans and the nation. Tech offers 44 bachelor’s and 20 graduate degrees within six academic divisions and is consistently ranked as one of the best higher education institutions in the Southeast. The student body consists of students from across the State of Tennessee and from around the United States, as well as a diverse representation from around the world.

Cookeville is a charming southern town of about 25,000 that offers the ‘amenities’ of being a college town – arts and culture, sports and more – along with the outdoor recreation available through several State Parks and large lakes within 30 minutes of town. Of course, we may be a little biased as SUSRIS makes its home in Cookeville.

We recently had a chance to host a young Saudi college student, Zeyad Al Shammari, President of the TTU Saudi Students Club as an intern in our office. One of his assignments was to interview Tennessee Tech President Dr. Bob Bell. Here for your consideration is that conversation.

***

Saudi Students at Tennessee Tech: A Conversation with Dr. Robert Bell

Zeyad Al-Shammari of the Saudi Students Club and Tennessee Tech University President Dr. Robert Bell.

[Zeyad Al Shammari] First of all, thank you so much for giving us the opportunity to see you today. I will start with my first question. Hundreds of thousands of Saudis have studied in America over the years but Tennessee Tech has not traditionally been one of the American universities that hosted students from Saudi Arabia. Now there are over 70 Saudi students here. What are your observations regarding the arrival of so many students from Saudi Arabia to Tennessee Tech?

[Dr. Robert Bell] First of all, it’s an honor to have you here and to do the interview. My observations are ones of delight. When I first heard that a large number of students were coming I was delighted and talked to [Associate VP for Student Affairs] Dr. Mark Stephens and to others about that. I think it is a wonderful opportunity for all of the students here at the university, not just the Saudi students, to get a chance to experience the culture of another country. That is true with students from any other country, but it’s special that we have this large number coming from Saudi Arabia.

My impressions of the relationships have been very good and I’m hopeful that this interaction gives the Saudi students a good impression and a better understanding of American culture, and particularly the culture of Tennessee, while giving them an outstanding education. I also hope it helps all of our students here at the university a better understanding of our world and the cultures in other places in our world.

[Al Shammari] How do you view the contribution American education makes to Saudi students and to the health of the relationship between Saudi Arabia and the United States?

[Bell] I think it is very important that countries all over the world understand other countries and other cultures and one way to do that is through student exchange, student visits, and students taking degree programs. I think the contributions are, in one sense, technical – for example, in engineering or business education. When they go back to their home country they take with them a perspective on engineering or a perspective on business, or whatever major they are in, that may be different than they would have gotten in their home country. Again, to me, the big perspective is a better understanding and comfort with the culture of the host country and I think that is more valuable than the education – than the classroom degree – that they receive.

[Al Shammari] So you think that the culture is important?

[Bell] I think it’s very important and its one of the things here at Tennessee Tech that we have tried to do in the last few years has been, not just bringing students from other cultures here, but also sending our students out to experience other cultures. You know, when I travel abroad I learn more and I bring back a significant understanding of something new about that culture. I have never been to Saudi Arabia and would love to go sometime, but wherever you go I think you understand more about the country and its people.

[Al Shammari] I wish you could go to Saudi Arabia and learn about the culture in the Kingdom. What would you tell Americans who ask why international students, especially in the case of Saudi Arabian students, are here at Tennessee Tech?

Tennessee Technological University President Dr. Robert Bell was interviewed by Zeyad Al-Shammari of the Saudi Students Club.

[Bell] Have you seen this book? It’s been on my desk for several years. It’s called “The World Is Flat.” [Thomas Friedman] It is basically a book about the fact that we all have to understand other cultures and that truly the world is a big family and we need to understand that. Like a family, we don’t all think alike and we don’t all agree on everything but we have to understand each other and that’s the first thing I would say to people in Tennessee about why we encourage students from other nations to come here to study.

The other thing I would say is that I would like to think that when those students go back to their home country they are going to influence people in a whole set of countries, not just their own. If they go back to Berlin, for instance, they’ll be working in London and Paris and they’ll do more than just domestic work in Germany. The same thing is true in Saudi Arabia. I’d rather others to be influenced by people who have a Tennessee Tech degree and by people who have studied here in the United States. Our students are well trained and they’re going to be excellent leaders. So I think it’s valuable to our world and I think it’s valuable to our country to train students from all over the world.

[Al Shammari] Who do you think has created differences between Saudi Arabia and the United States? Some people here misunderstand Saudi culture, habits and communities. Do you think the media and politics contributed to the differences?

[Bell] I think the media can be both helpful and harmful in understanding the differences. When I’m in other countries I always try to listen to what is being said about America, particularly in the native television stations, not CNN International or one of the other American broadcasting corporations, but the local stations. I think the media of every country presents a biased opinion of what that country really is like. You certainly don’t get the same perspective in the media like that which personal experience gives you.

At the same time I think the media has helped Americans, especially, to understand the rest of the world. Many Americans would never get a chance to travel, but they can see the rest of the world in many different settings through the media. I think overall, the media has been helpful but I believe that there is also a downside and that they occasionally give a warped portrayal of other countries.

Tennessee Tech Saudi Students Club at the TTU Window on the World Festival

[Al Shammari] There is a saying we use in Arabic, but I will translate it to English, that I used when our group of students met King Abdullah,“All the Saudis here, as your sons.” What advice would you have for Saudi students about academics and campus life at Tennessee Tech? Give them advice as you would advise your son.

[Bell] Well said. I have two sons, and a daughter, and one of my sons studied in Europe and I gave him advice when he left. He was there for three months so it was not a year-long study experience, but I guess my advice to a student – like to my son going anywhere – is, first, to absorb as much of the culture as you can. Americans have a statement called “going native.” It means especially for people like diplomats that when you’ve spent years in a culture you adopt many of the things in that culture. If a student can come here for a year or two — knowing they’re not going to do it all of their life — they can learn and experience the ways of the local culture.

That is, by far, the most valuable thing that they can do. I advised my son to live with a host family, for instance, during his time abroad. So one thing I would say is don’t just experience the academic side and don’t just assume that only the university students portray the real culture of the host country. They are a good start but they are not the entire set of cultural experiences.

Certainly, the university president in me would say don’t forget to study and be sure to do the academics well, too, because that can get you in a difficult spot. The third thing that I would say, and this is certainly as true for an American student going abroad as for a student from any other country coming here, is there will be differences between the local culture and things you are accustomed to. They may be religious. They may be dining habits, food preferences, or whatever. There has to be a broader tolerance on both sides then maybe you would have if you were in your own country.

When I went to Japan I ate foods that I didn’t believe I would ever eat and I found a way to enjoy those foods. I don’t eat them now but I enjoyed them while I was there. I would say to expect that there will be differences and maybe even questions about some of the things that you take for granted and that’s just a healthy learning experience, for both parties. Try to share those things and begin to have dialogue about them.

I lead a Bible study at my church and one Sunday I had a college-age class and we had studied the Koran at one point and I started reading a set of versus to them some of them said, “Oh, that’s terrible, that can’t be.” And I said, “This isn’t the Koran, I’m reading from the Christian Bible. This is Corinthians and this is the apostle Paul talking, not the Koran or something else.” So I think at times it opens up, when you can share in a positive way you begin to understand there are a lot more commonalities to things then there are differences. But you have to start by saying why is that different, why do we do things differently? Again, I think the Saudi student will learn some things about American culture but the Americans that he is talking to will learn a great deal about Saudi culture, too, and I think that is valuable.

So experience the culture. Open the communications where you don’t just expect it’ll be exactly like it was at home. And don’t automatically be offended or put off by something that the American culture might invite you to do. Then study hard. Those would be my primary points of advice to my son.

[Al Shammari] I think these are good ideas. Does Tennessee Tech have to consider the different cultures and religions that international students bring to campus and in what ways does it do that?

[Bell] That’s a very good question and there seem to be two questions there. What does the law require and what should Tennessee Tech be doing in addition to the law. Clearly, in the law, there are many things dealing with freedom of religion and freedom of expression that would say we have to consider those kinds of things. But Tennessee Tech, even beyond the law, has tried to make this an inviting environment for people from every culture in the world. We are not as accomplished at that as we should be. We’re not really good at it because we don’t think about it as often as we should, but we want to go beyond just saying, “We’re glad you are here.” We want to do some things that are more welcoming to students and encouraging for more students to come to Tennessee Tech. We have a campus diversity council, for instance.

One of the issues from the American side is simply race relations, but it is a much broader charter for that council to consider cultural relations and to make certain that we don’t do things that are offensive. Or if we do unintentionally offend, we recognize it and find a way not to do it again.

So one good step was the creation of this new diversity council, which is now in its third year. It was part of our strategic decision to offer more outreach. We also have a number of programs here on the campus that are international in nature. The programs are intended to offer a welcoming environment and to celebrate other cultures. We need to do more of that than we’re doing, but should we consider other cultures and other religions in our outreach? Absolutely. Have we done a really good job of that? I’d give us a B as a grade for that. We haven’t done outstanding work yet but I think we’re moving in the right direction.

[Al Shammari] There is a high number of senior officials in the Saudi Arabian government, 70% of the council of ministers, who have studied in the United States. But people do not understand the ties created by living and working in the United States. What do you think about that statement?

[Bell] I applaud the statement. I think it is true in every sense, that people don’t understand the profound influence that study abroad has on the leadership in a country or the leadership in an organization. And I applaud the fact that so many Saudi nationals who have gone into leadership positions or who have known they were going to be in leadership positions have chosen to study in the United States. I think that’s good for both nations and our world. There is a university in Japan where the chancellor received his Ph.D. here at Tennessee Tech, so obviously I have a home at that university in Japan any time I go to visit. So I think it is good for the United States to have influenced those individuals, hopefully with an understanding that the culture here is welcoming and it is may be helpful in their policy decisions. Hopefully it helps them understand how America may sometimes react to things.

[Al Shammari] Do you agree with what former American Ambassador to Saudi Arabia Charles Freeman said in a Washington conference, “The relationship between Saudi Arabia and America is like a good marriage; it goes up and down. Sometimes you have good times, bad times…”?

[Bell] I use the term family because I think it is just that. That does not mean that a marriage doesn’t have conflict or at times the partners don’t understand each other. In fact, I think often the two partners in a marriage, certainly the 15 or 20 people in a family, don’t all think alike and they may argue sometimes but they still know they’re part of family and they still have a affection and respect for each other at the fundamental level.

[Al Shammari] If you had three tickets from Tennessee Tech to go to any country you choose, which would you choose and why?

[Bell] I’m cutting budgets right now so I don’t have three tickets [laughter]. But if I were choosing based on just my favorite place I’ve ever been, to return to, it would be the Indian Ocean and a country called Mauritius. If I were choosing today, based on Tennessee Tech’s needs, probably the top three would be China, simply because of strategic initiatives of the university there, probably Saudi Arabia because of the new initiatives and the increased presence here on the campus that would make me think there is more opportunity for exchanges there. We were just talking about a trip to Egypt through the Rotary Club and I’m probably not going to make it on that trip now. Third though would probably be Mexico because we still have strong relationships with some universities there and there is an untapped potential for more. I love to travel and see other cultures so those places would be fun. Mauritius would be a fun trip but would not be one that I need to go to for the university.

Tennessee Tech Saudi Students Club at the TTU Window on the World Festival

[Al Shammari] I have heard you like travel and other cultures and you are very multicultural.

[Bell] In some ways, yet I also recognize all of my experience that has been in the United States. I was in Germany talking with a doctoral student from the university of Moscow. He spoke five languages fluently. We were sitting at a table and someone would come by and speak in French and he would react and then he’d be speaking German, and then Russian. I said I have such respect for him doing that and he said, “You have to understand, we are sitting in Berlin. If you were in Chicago and moved 400 miles in any direction you’re still speaking English. In Berlin if you move 90 miles in any direction you’re speaking a different language.” You have to have that ability there, where in America you have been deprived in some ways because while you have cultural diversity it’s a common language. So I was born in Illinois and grew up in Florida and now I’m in Tennessee and those are three different cultures and yet, from a worldview, they are all the same. The fundamentals are all the same.

[Al Shammari] Do you have any last thoughts about the educational opportunity provided to Saudi Arabian students here?

[Bell] I hope that they experience an outstanding education and I think the opportunities are here for students who want to get an outstanding degree. I think the values of this kind of a campus are that it is reasonably small so students can get to know other students and the community easier than they can if they are, perhaps, in a bigger kind of environment. And as you said, I think the City of Cookeville and the State of Tennessee is a welcoming environment. It, like all places, has things that take a little bit of adjustment and there will be some situations that are not as welcoming as others, but in general, it’s a very good environment. There is a lot of value in coming to a campus like Tennessee Tech. From our perspective we are delighted when students come and we want to continue to expand the number of students who are coming here to study. It’s good for Tennessee Tech and good for our world.

[Al Shammari] Thank you so much for the interview and for the opportunity to see you and talk to you.

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About President Robert Bell

President Bell is the chief executive officer of the university and responsible for official communication with the Tennessee Board of Regents. He directs the establishment of and commitment to the University’s mission, strategic goals and objectives, and affirmative action. He directs the administration of and approves fiscal and physical planning as well as educational, research, and public service operations and policies of the institution. The vice presidents of Academic Affairs, Business and Planning, and University Advancement report directly to the president, as does the Director of Internal Audit, Director of Athletics and the Coordinator of Affirmative Action.

Source: Tennessee Tech University

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About Tech

As a comprehensive university, Tennessee Tech offers 44 bachelor’s and 20 graduate degree programs within six academic divisions: Agricultural and Human Sciences, Arts and Sciences, Business, Education, Engineering, and Interdisciplinary Studies and Extended Education.
A university that the Princeton Review consistently calls one of the best in the Southeast, Tennessee Tech offers students the true college experience. The University is committed to the life-long success of students in its undergraduate, master’s, specialist, and doctoral degree granting programs through high-quality instruction and learning experiences.

The University is engaged in scholarly activity, especially basic and applied research, creative endeavors, and public service, with special emphasis on community and economic development. The University supports student participation in a broad array of extracurricular activities as an integral component of its commitment to student life and success.

Small Enrollment, Personalized Setting

Although our enrollment exceeds 11,500, more than half of our classes have fewer than 25 students. That means students are more than just a number here and that strong faculty/staff relationships are typical of an education at TTU. Students are immersed in experiential learning. They learn to write and direct plays, build robots, help cardiac patients with nutrition, improve nanotechnology, and more.

A Beautiful Place to Call Home

Located in Cookeville, Tennessee, a town of about 25,000 residents, TTU offers the best of both rural and urban living. We’re situated near scenic state parks like Burgess Falls and Fall Creek Falls, yet around an hour from three of the state’s biggest metro areas – Nashville, Knoxville, and Chattanooga.

Consistent Top Rankings

Tennessee Tech University is one of the nation’s 50 “Best Value” public colleges and universities according to The Princeton Review. TTU was one of only three public universities in Tennessee and the only TBR institution on the 2010 list. TTU has been named one of America’s 100 Best College Buys, earning designation several years in a row as one of the nation’s best college educations for the cost. USNews & World Report has chosen TTU as one of the Top Public Schools in the South on multiple occasions, and the University has been chosen as a “Best Southeastern College” by The Princeton Review for several years. These accolades are a reflection of the commitment our university has toward the lifelong success of our students. Read more about the rankings and how they reflect our commitment to students.

Source: Tennessee Tech University

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Tech Today

Since Tennessee Tech was established, the university has blossomed from three buildings located on the fringes of a daisy field to an 87-building complex situated on 235 acres. The faculty have grown from the 13 men and women whose responsibilities included greeting students at the Tennessee Central depot to about 370 today. Curricula have changed from programs leading to high school and associate’s degrees to undergraduate and graduate programs, including the M.B.A., the Ed.S., and the Ph.D. in education, engineering and environmental sciences. From the first class of 19 students, Tennessee Tech’s enrollment has grown to more than 10,800. Among the 65,000-plus men and women who have received degrees from Tennessee Tech are the former president of Boeing Corp., a two-time space shuttle astronaut, an NFL pro-bowl player, a New York Times assistant managing editor, a country music superstar, and a four-star general.

This exclusive interview originally appeared in SUSRIS on January 23, 2005 and is reprinted today to mark the eve of this year’s Hajj. You can find these reports and more articles, links and resources at a SUSRIS Special Section on Hajj 2008.

Editor’s Note:

The annual Hajj, the annual pilgrimage of Muslims performing one of the basic duties of their faith – a joyous profession of their faith, will begin this week, in Saudi Arabia. Today we are pleased to mark the Hajj with an interview with Dr. David E. Long. For more on the Hajj we suggest you also read Dr. Long’s essay “The Hajj and Its Impact on Saudi Arabia and the Muslim World,” which was reprinted yesterday (links below).

A career foreign service officer before retiring to become a consultant on Middle East affairs, he is author of numerous books on the Middle East and his “Kingdom of Saudi Arabia” is among the definitive texts on the subject.

Dr. Long was interviewed by telephone from his home in Northern Virginia on January 14, 2005.

Interview

SUSRIS: Thank you, Dr. Long for taking time today to talk with us about the Hajj. What is the Hajj and why do people do it?

Dr. Long: The Hajj is one of the five pillars or the foundation of Islam and therefore it is the obligation of everyone who is physically and financially able to do so to make the Hajj once in their lifetimes. Pilgrimages to Makkah actually predate Islam, but the Hajj is considered by all Muslims to be divinely inspired by God as set down in the Qur’an and the Sunna. It is one of the Five Pillars of Islam, the others being: the profession of faith – “there is no God but God and Mohammed is the messenger of God”; Zakat or charity; prayer five times a day, and fasting during Ramadan. The rites are based on the instructions Muhammad gave in his Farewell Hajj just before he died. They have remained virtually unchanged to this day

SUSRIS: What role has Saudi Arabia played in hosting the pilgrims?

Dr. Long: That is a fascinating question. There was great fear when the Saudis took Makkah and annexed the Hijaz that they would do things that were not in line with the established practices. The fear first arose when the puritanical Islamic revival movement of Muhammed Ibn Abu Wahhab spread from Najd throughout Arabia, beginning in the 18th century.

Ibn Abu Wahhab preached that all sorts of innovations had been introduced into Islam since the time of Mohammed; his reform movement was basically a movement to get back to the original Islam. The centerpiece of his reform movement was Tawhid, or monotheism. The religious establishment who ran the Hajj feared that if the people followed the reform movement, it would cost them both economically and influence they held with the people. For example, one of the things that the movement called for was banning the practice of seeking intercession with God through Muslim saints by making pilgrimages to their tombs – very lucrative for those who controlled the tombs. Mohammed Ibn Abu Wahhab considered intercession heretical as it denigrated the sovereignty and omnipotence of God.

But when the Al Sauds annexed the Hijaz and took over the administration of the Hajj in 1925-1926, it soon became apparent that the fears were unfounded. From that time to this, the Saudi regime has gone all out to make sure it was available to all those who were able to attend. As a token of this responsibility, King Fahd assumed the title Khatim al-Haramain (Custodian of the Two Holy Places, i.e. Makkah and al-Madinah).

The job has not always been easy. Not only are the administrative tasks of providing services to over two million pilgrims enormous, but there have been all sorts or political divisions and problems that posed dilemmas for the Saudis.

For example, during the period of Nasserism and secular Arab nationalism there were many people who wanted to use the Hajj as a platform for political protest and the Saudis absolutely forbade that. They said it was not a time for politics; the Hajj was purely religious and they wanted to keep it that way. They would not allow protest over secular political issues — even if they agreed with them — that they did not feel were legitimately in the context of religious celebration.

After the 1979 revolution, Iranian provocateurs stirred up trouble at the Hajj. It was partly religious but it was mostly political. It was an attempt to undermine the Islamic world’s acceptance of Saudi custodianship, to undermine their reputation for running Hajj. But it backfired; it did not work, in fact, just the opposite. On the whole, I think that the record of the Saudis has been fairly good in terms of their striving to help people meet the obligation to come to the Hajj without being subjected to political protest.

Now that’s on the political side. The administrative problems the Saudis have had to encounter have in many ways been even more daunting. In the beginning, the Saudi Government was far less advanced than the former Hijazi government and not capable of administering such a huge task. What they came up with, I think, was pretty ingenious: a public utility concept — my term not theirs – similar to public utilities in the United States. The Hajj is administered primarily by the private sector but it is closely regulated by the government, which even collects the fees from the Hajjis and remits it to the private Hajj service sector to insure that the pilgrims are being fairly treated. Had the government tried to nationalize Hajj administration, there would likely have been chaos. But instead, they allowed private guilds (somewhat like guilds in medieval Europe) that had been guiding pilgrims for centuries, to continue to administer the Hajj but under strict supervision.

The principal guild consists of mutawwiffin (sing. mutawwif). They are sort of like family-run religious tour guide companies, if you will. Collectively, the mutawwiffin are responsible for pilgrims from every country in the world. For example, there is a mutawwif responsible for all the pilgrims coming from the United States. Closely associated with the mutawwifin are the Wukala’ (sing Wakil), or Agents. Located in the port city of Jiddah, they are responsible for meeting pilgrims arriving by air or sea, seeing them safely off to Makkah and seeing them off on the return trip home. (With the creation of an all-weather road system, an increasing number once again travel overland by car or bus.)

There is another guild in Makkah, the Zamazimah (sing. Zamzami). Historically, their task was to provide pilgrims with the holy water of Zamzam, a well inside the Haram Mosque. That has become a major undertaking with the great increase in numbers. Can you imagine when you have two million people who want to drink Zamzam water that’s a pretty big task? They do that, but their skill has expanded and that is why they are called Zamazimah. In fact they bottle Zamzam water — the real Zamzam water — send it all over the world. It is a non-profit foundation to raise money for worthy causes.

Finally, to meet, guide and see off the Hajjis that visit al-Madinah, the guild of Adilla (sing. Dalil) are located in al-Madinah where they meet, guide and see off the Hajjis that visit that city.

Compare the Hajj to a city of two million people. Over two million people attend the Hajj each year. Think about it – providing transportation, sanitation, health care, food, and drink. What happens if somebody gets lost and speaks an uncommon language? There are some pilgrims in their 60s and 70s who have saved up for a lifetime to make the Hajj. The chances of a medical emergency among this group are high, particularly in the summer months when the temperature can reach 135 degrees Fahrenheit, and they are usually outside or living in a tent. Throughout the area, the government has installed high overhead sprinklers to lower the chances of heat stroke. These are not conditions on the magnitude of the South Asia tsunami, but they must be dealt with on a yearly basis. It is truly a mind-boggling task.

SUSRIS: Your analogy of a population, an overnight collection, of two million people, equivalent to a US metropolitan region is interesting. Can you give us a sense of the magnitude of the event?

Dr. Long: I think that puts it in the right perspective. When you have that many people, there are bound to be glitches here and there. What is amazing is that there aren’t more. For example, let’s talk about transportation. Let me walk you through the Hajj.

When pilgrims near Makkah, whether by air, land or sea, they must enter a ritual state of purification called Ihram. It includes wearing Hajj garments — women do not wear veils – and refraining from cutting hair or nails, or having sex. Those in Ihram are easily recognizable by the garments they wear – two seamless pieces of white terry cloth for men and a long white robe for women. Women do not wear veils.

Upon reaching Makkah, one goes to the great Haram Mosque. The first rite is the Tawaf, the seven-fold circumambulation of the Kaaba, the dark stone cubic building in the center of the main mosque area. One then takes a drink of holy Zamzam water and then makes seven one way trips between Safa and Marwah, which are two little hills that are now incorporated into the mosque complex. That commemorates when Hagar was frantically looking for water for her infant son, Isma’il. In response, according to Islamic tradition, God struck open a rock and out came the water of Zamzam.

The logistics of moving the pilgrims through these rites are not particularly difficult. They are done ad seriatim as people arrive, not all at the same time. Afterwards, all the pilgrims travel east of Makkah to the Plain of Arafat. The choicest place to be is a small hill called the Mount of Mercy, but as all two million arrive, a tent city to accommodate them, replete with shops, first aid stations, fire stations, sanitations facilities, communications and transportation, stretches for miles across the plain.

It is at the Plain of Arafat that the Hajj culminates at sunset on Standing Day, the ninth day of the Muslim lunar month of Thul-Hijjah (which occurs eleven days earlier each year on the solar calendar – this year on January 20). Everyone – all two million plus– must say prayers at Arafat at sunset on that day else the Hajj is forfeited.

Following prayers, everyone must travel back toward Makkah to another location, Mina for the beginning of the Eid al-Adha (The Great Feast of the Sacrifice), which is celebrated throughout the Muslim world. The trek is called the Rush (Nafrah), but it takes about 12 hours to get everyone there. Think about two million people leaving from the same place at the same time, and going to the same place. Think about the Super Bowl or a World Series game, and what kind of traffic jam that causes. Multiply that by twenty, but instead of going north, south, east and west think of them all going in the same direction and out of piety many of them want to walk. We’re talking about the biggest traffic jam ever.

So transportation, the problems they have to address are mind-boggling. They have everything from taxicabs to big buses that come down from Turkey and Central Asia with the Hajis living in them. Think of all the fender benders and that’s just one thing.

SUSRIS: And they are from all corners of the globe?

Dr. Long: Yes, from all corners of the globe. And speaking over 100 languages or dialects and a large number of them up in years. But the gargantuan logistical task does not end there. During the Eid al Adha each family is supposed to sacrifice an animal. Of course many insist on a sheep, nothing smaller. For years, hundreds of thousands of sheep were slaughtered, and after families took what they could use, the rest was simply buried because of the lack of processing facilities for sheep sacrificed one day of the year. But the goal of the Eid is to give up something valuable, not blood sacrifice, and so now it is possible to purchase a sheep, have it slaughtered in the correct way and have the meat distributed worldwide to the needy. It is both practical and a suitable act of piety.

These are just some of the logistical problems that confront the Saudis. It is a Herculean job. One of the things that makes it all work is the attitude of the people. The Hajj is an incredibly and deeply joyous time — not the sort of the manufactured happiness of New Year’s Eve West where everyone goes out and tries to pretend they are having a great time. People from all over the Muslim world who attend are overflowing with good will.

One can feel it feel it even watching on Saudi television where it is broadcast. Watching the broadcast, one can hear a spontaneous chanting of the Talbiyyah, a ritual prayer repeated throughout the Hajj. First will come one or two voices, then a dozen, and then thousands are chanting it. Even for those not physically present, it is hard not to have chills run up and down your back

SUSRIS: How does the role of Saudi Arabia as the custodian of the two holy places and the role as host for the pilgrimage effect the thinking of the people and government of Saudi Arabia?

Dr. Long: The attitude toward the Hajj in Saudi Arabia may be somewhat analogous to being a Catholic living in Rome. You might take it for granted, but at the same time it permeates your whole life. Proximity to the Muslim holy places can indeed be taken for granted by Saudis, particularly those who live in Makkah and al-Madinah and nearby towns and cities. But on the other hand, Islam in all its dimensions is just a part of one’s daily life in a way that is difficult to duplicate in many other places throughout the Muslim world.

One of the issues now facing Saudis and others from the Gulf is that physically there are only so many people who can do this each year and they are about to max out. They have spent literally millions of dollars expanding the capacity of the holy cities and the holy mosques to accommodate these people. You remember when I said the two little hills that were incorporated into the complex — Safa and Marwah. You’ve seen pictures of the Prophet’s Mosque in Al-Madinah. These are huge places, and they can accommodate over a million people at the same time — that is just mind-boggling.

But still, the government has had to say to people who live in Saudi Arabia and neighboring states that they cannot go to the Hajj more than once every five years. Because there are so many people living in Saudi Arabia, there are three million people living in nearby Jeddah — what if they all showed up? It is a difficult dilemma for the government to limit local attendance at the holy places during the Hajj, but it must be done to make room for those attending for the first and perhaps last time in their lives.

SUSRIS: A news report said this year’s visa quota for the Hajj was 1.2 million.

Dr. Long: Yes they do limit visas. They have to. The people in the Arabian Peninsula don’t need a Hajj visa.

They have to do this in order to accommodate people because it is a religious obligation and they take it very seriously. Again that is another logistic problem they have to address. Security is the same way. As people found out back during the Arab nationalist era and as the Iranians discovered after the Islamic revolution, there is a backlash against people who try to use the Hajj for political purposes. This is a very holy celebration and anybody who tries to stir up trouble is subject to a backlash, a feeling against them.

SUSRIS: Does Saudi Arabia exercise any special place in the Islamic world since it is the home of the holy sites?

Dr. Long: I think that it would be precise to say that Saudi Arabia feels a special responsibility to the rest of the Muslim world as the birthplace of Islam and the location of its two holiest places. They do place great importance on their relations with other Muslim states, and to increase good relations throughout the Muslim world they created the OIC [Organization of the Islamic Conference]. It is probably fair to say that they do exercise a special place in the Islamic world, but it is not an ‘imperial’ thing. They feel that as the keepers of the holy places and the birthplace of Islam they have to be concerned about the hearts and minds of Muslims. But that doesn’t translate into Saudi hegemony over anything because it wouldn’t be Saudi hegemony, it would be God’s hegemony over the world in an Islamic context.

SUSRIS: How does the Hajj fit into the changing security posture in the Kingdom – given the Al Qaeda attacks of recent years?

Dr. Long: People should always be mindful of the security situation anywhere they go. But there are two other considerations here: one, any terrorist group that seeks legitimacy from some Muslim constituency would be foolish indeed to commit an act of violence at such a holy celebration. Those who have tried in past years have found it overwhelmingly counterproductive. One must assume that they seek to recruit followers and it is not going to win hearts and influence people to kill your own people during the holiest gathering of the year.

SUSRIS: Is there potential for some activity to embarrass the Saudis as the hosts.

Dr. Long: There is always that potential but as the Iranians found out the odds that it would be totally counterproductive and backfiring are huge. The terrorists in Saudi Arabia have found out that the people turned against them when they started killing Muslims. One of the reasons they went for the Interior Ministry last month was to isolate them in the minds of people as the enemy rather than as Muslims.

Al-Qaeda is expounding a cause, but no matter how fanatical they might be, they cannot succeed by alienating the very people you are supposedly trying to protect from the outside enemy. There may be some organization with a kind of Jim Jones mentality that does something really irrational, but Al-Qaeda does not appear to me to be that irrational. They may be zealots but they think rationally. You can’t rule it out but I would find it incredible that they would be so stupid.

SUSRIS: So the security challenges are just the physical accommodation of over two million people.

Dr. Long: Nothing of the magnitude of the Hajj is that simple, and of course, the Saudis are going to have to worry about political security. But Hajj administration is such a gigantic undertaking that they will have plenty of other, more mundane forms of security to worry about.

SUSRIS: What is it about the Hajj that people should understand? How should people put it in the context of world events?

Dr. Long: There are many ways you can do that. The first that comes to mind is that the Hajj creates an opportunity for non Muslims and people who don’t know much about Islam — particularly those people who have a totally negative view of Muslims as terrorists and the other images that are prominently displayed in the media — that this is a gathering of 2 million faithful people in a joyous time in the 21st century. With all the strife and all the suffering going on in the world it is just absolutely amazing.

It shows as much as anything can, the collective heart of the largest religious group in the world — 1.2 billion people, more of them than anyone else. That in itself is not the lesson, the lesson is to get along in this world with anybody you need a sense of perspective. This is a great way of gaining perspective by looking at how so many people do an act of piety and religious obligation in an atmosphere of joy every year regardless of what’s going on in Iraq, or anywhere, and I think that would be a lesson to contemplate.

SUSRIS: That’s a great observation. Thank you, Dr. Long for sharing your insight on the Hajj with us today.

About Dr. Long

David E. Long is a consultant on Middle East and Gulf affairs and international terrorism. He joined the U.S. Foreign Service in 1962 and served in Washington and abroad until 1993, with assignments in the Sudan, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan. His Washington assignments included Deputy Director of the State Department’s Office of Counter Terrorism for Regional Policy, a member of the Secretary of State’s Policy Planning Staff, and Chief of the Near East Research Division in the Bureau of Intelligence and Research Bureau. He was also detailed to the Institute for National Strategic Studies of the National Defense University in Washington, 1991-92, and to the United States Coast Guard Academy, 1989-91, where he served as Visiting Professor of International Relations and in 1990-91 as Acting Head of the Humanities Department.

A native of Florida, he received an AB in history from Davidson College, an MA in political science from the University of North Carolina, an MA in international relations from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy and a Ph.D. in International Relations from the George Washington University.

In 1974 -1975, Dr. Long was an International Affairs Fellow of the Council on Foreign Relations and concurrently a Senior Fellow at the Georgetown University Center for Strategic and International Studies. While on leave of absence from the State Department, he was the first Executive Director of the Georgetown University Center for Contemporary Arab Studies, 1974-1975. In 1982-1983, he was a Senior Fellow of the Middle East Research Institute and Adjunct Professor of Political Science at the University of Pennsylvania, and in 1987-1989, he was a Diplomat in Residence and Research Professor of International Affairs at Georgetown.

Dr. Long has been an adjunct professor at several Washington area universities, including Georgetown, George Washington and American Universities and the Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies. He has also lectured extensively in the United States and abroad on topics relating to the Islam, the Middle East and terrorism.

His publications include The Government and Politics of the Middle East and North Africa (co-editor with Bernard Reich, 4th ed. 2002), Gulf Security in the Twenty-First Century (co-editor with Christian Koch, 1998), The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (1997), The Anatomy of Terrorism (1990), The United States and Saudi Arabia: Ambivalent Allies (1985), Saudi Arabian Modernization (with John Shaw, 1982), The Hajj Today: A Survey of the Contemporary Makkah Pilgrimage (1979), Saudi Arabia (1976) and The Persian Gulf (1976, revised 1978).