Editor’s Note:

Today we provide for your consideration part one of our exclusive interview with British historian Robert Lacey, author of “Inside the Kingdom: Kings, Clerics, Modernists, Terrorists, and the Struggle for Saudi Arabia,” published in October. It updates the story of Saudi Arabia Lacey began telling in 1981 with the landmark book “The Kingdom.”

The interview focused on what he calls Saudi “Glasnost,” the current pace and scope of reforms in Saudi Arabia and about the conflict between progressive elements and the religious establishment. Mr. Lacey was interviewed by phone and email from his base in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, by Patrick Ryan during December 2009.

“Saudi Glasnost”
A Conversation with Robert Lacey

[SUSRIS] Thank you for taking time to talk about your new book, “Inside the Kingdom: Kings, Clerics, Modernists, Terrorists, and the Struggle for Saudi Arabia” and your perspectives on recent developments. Let’s start with the struggle in the push and pull of modernity and traditionalism. Can you talk about the current conflict between progressives and the religious establishment?

[Robert Lacey] Well, we’re right in the middle of it at the moment. The creation of KAUST, King Abdullah’s new university that opened this fall, has had a great impact, more rapidly than anyone expected. The reactions for and against gender mixing — the educating of young men and young women side by side on this campus — has provoked some angry debate across the Kingdom.

What you see at the moment is the next stage. SUSRIS has covered Sheikh Al-Shethri, a senior cleric, speaking out against gender mixing, and how he was sacked by the King from his influential position on the Ulema, the Council of Senior Scholars. Since then we’ve seen Sheikh Al-Ghamdi, head of the Hai’a in Mecca, the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice in the Kingdom, the Hai’a, speaking out for it and praising KAUST. He has been supported by Sheikh Abdul-Rahman Al-Sudais, a much more major figure, one of the imams of the Grand Mosque, who has preached a sermon in support of KAUST. On the other hand, Sheikh Salih Al-Fawzan, a senior member of the Ulema has written a letter in the opposite direction, supporting Al-Shethri — and Al-Fawzan has not been sacked.

The liberals here are taking great heart from the way in which conservative religious figures are fighting each other so bitterly. There’s the feeling that change is coming in this area. But like everything in the Kingdom, it is going to take time, and that makes a lot of sense in my opinion. The pattern in tradition-based societies where change goes too fast is often counter-revolution — and then change can go backwards.

Apart from the controversy over the launch of the KAUST and its coeducational policy, there is a very interesting experiment at the other end of the education spectrum, in kindergarten through grade 2. This fall there is a trial of mixed gender elementary schools in 15 private schools for girls that will accept boys, not in the same classrooms but in the same facilities. The experiment is something that has been little noticed — some private kindergartens have quietly been “mixing” for years — but it has the blessing of the new Minister of Education and is an indicator of reforms that lie ahead.

[SUSRIS] What is the impetus for the reforms you talk about?

[Lacey] As I say in my book — and this may be a difficult thing for Americans to take — 9/11 was the best thing that could have happened for the cause of reform in Saudi Arabia, since it showed the tragic consequences of yielding too much power to religious extremists. The Saudis are no better than anyone else at apologizing — you know how we all have friends who can’t actually say “sorry” but nonetheless demonstrate they are sorry through their behavior. Well, that is what is going on now — though, to be sure, these reforms are being primarily pursued for their own sake and for the needs of facing the future.

One of the big challenges, however, will arise when the current surge of higher education produces tens of thousands of new graduates. That’s just a few years away. Will the economy have the jobs for all these educated and innovative, alert, young people who are being taught — many of them in America — to think more independently? The economic cities, the new mega-cities, are supposed to provide the solution; they are supposed to be ready with the jobs for the graduates produced for the “knowledge society.” But for all sorts of reasons the economic cities won’t be ready any time soon. So there’s a danger that the explosion of qualified graduates is going to create dissatisfaction and redundancy. KAUST has surprised everybody with both the speed with which it was completed and the social impact it has had — but that puts the economic cities on their mettle. Either they buck up, or some alternative must be found — and I can’t see what that alternative might be.

[SUSRIS] If developments like KAUST and fights over questions like gender mixing have heartened liberals, do you see the progressive movement as having the initiative at this point?

[Lacey] In the ’80s and ’90s there was government-sponsored conservatism in Saudi Arabia. Now there is government-sponsored liberalism — Saudi ” Glasnost.” So the conservatives are currently on the back foot. But they consider they are fighting for crucial traditional values and they are fighting with pull and with passion. We saw their power this summer with the battle over cinema, and the shutting down of the Jeddah film festival, which had been operating for three years. Every discussion you have with people in Saudi Arabia is about what I call the speedometer. How fast should this car be travelling?

[SUSRIS] What about the “odometer”? How “far” should the car go?

[Lacey] That’s the heart of the matter. Let me tell you there was quite a lot of popular support here recently for the severe punishment handed out to the so-called sex braggart, who boasted about his sex life on television. A lot of Saudis thought he had gone too far. There are many aspects of western culture — particularly its overt sexuality — that most Saudis just don’t want to see happen in the Kingdom.

Take, for example, the appearance in July 2009 of the religious police in one of the north Jeddah beach resorts from which they were previously excluded. That was not imposed from the outside. The Hai’a were requested by senior members of the community who felt that young people were getting out of hand: boys trying to pick up girls, young women dressing provocatively, loud parties and, worst of all, young people who were arrogant and dismissive — the security staff couldn’t cope. So these residents asked to have a religious policeman in the guardhouse to enforce discipline — you don’t play around with the Hai’a. So here’s a change, apparently a step backwards, coming from wealthy and Westernized middle-aged men who don’t like what they see happening, especially around their daughters.

In Riyadh the religious police have declared war on the new fashion fad among young men — low slung jeans that reveal undershorts or even bits of bare backside. It may sound trivial, but it’s an overt and rebellious western fashion statement that offends many Saudis, and it’s often associated with heavy metal T-shirts that carry Satanic images. So the religious police are rounding up young men on the streets and taking them home, and from what I hear, many parents welcome the backup in their own domestic battles with their rebellious teenagers. Isn’t this the sort of thing that local police chiefs used to do quite routinely in small town America?

It’s a reminder that Saudi Arabians want to pick and choose. They are not rejecting the modern world, but they hold this dream that the Islamic holy land — Saudi Arabia — can preserve old fashioned family values. After all, when you look in the Saudi Basic Law — what we would call the Constitution — it’s written there very clearly, that the purpose of the state is to encourage virtue, to discourage vice and also to preserve family values. So if you are going to lay down moral and social “red lines” you have got to have something like the religious police to enforce them. The Hai’a are not some some passing trend or eccentricity in Saudi Arabia. Love ‘em or loathe ‘em, they are right at the heart of what the Kingdom is all about. They have been there from the very beginning. All Saudis complain about the religious police — who likes the school prefects? — but if you then ask them if they’d like to do away with the Hai’a, most of them say “Certainly not.”

[SUSRIS] What concerns are there about the long-term commitment to reforms, especially given the age of the King and the health concerns of the Crown Prince, who only recently returned from a year-long medical hiatus outside the Kingdom?

[Lacey] While the Crown Prince was abroad, the King appointed Prince Naif, the long-serving Minister of Interior, as the Second Deputy Prime Minister and I agree with those who say this puts him in position for the throne behind the Crown Prince. The prospect of “King Naif” has been greeted with dismay by many western observers and by Saudi progressives who fear he will try to set the clock back — but I think the fear is exaggerated.

I have interviewed Prince Naif. He is certainly cautious and suspicious of the Israel-American axis and many aspects of the west — and in that he accurately reflects the instincts of the average Saudi. But he is a thoroughly hard-headed and pragmatic man who gets results. He has a very sophisticated staff of advisers, many of them western-educated to a high level. He has had a particular job to do as Interior Minister, and he has delivered. When I came to the Kingdom thirty years ago, there was a standard question that every journalist asked: “How long do you give the House of Saud?” Well, nobody asks that any more. Prince Naif has been a big factor in keeping his family firmly in control of their realm

And it was Prince Naif, as I revealed in my book, who broke a deadlock among members of the Royal Family deliberating a new electoral system for succession, the Bayaa or Allegiance Institution. You might have expected that one of the inner circle Sudairi princes, like Prince Naif, who already have their own very strong power network inside the family, would have felt threatened by this electoral expansion on the question of succession. But I am told it was Naif who backed King Abdullah on the reform and pushed it through. He is a man who likes to get things done. Look at his role as Minister of the Interior at facilitating and supporting his son Prince Mohammed’s much-praised program for the rehabilitation of radicals. The basis of that program is the implicit admission that the Saudi-Wahhabi system helped produce these extremists and must now try to un-produce them. Prince Naif has since started his own personal equivalent of that, the ambitious new “Mind Security” program which has got very little attention in the West, but which he inaugurated this year and which directly targets religious extremism as a matter of Interior Ministry policy.

We should remember how 20 or 30 years ago Western observers feared the advent of Prince Abdullah. He seemed a dark and rather rough figure who had a considerable military power base in the Saudi Arabian National Guard. Few would have foreseen his role in social, political and economic reforms, his religious interfaith initiative, the national dialogue, more rights for women, a women deputy education minister being named. You would never have forecast these things for Prince Abdullah. In the same fashion, Naif may convey a “backwoods” image, but that is in the context of the whole family’s shrewd instinct for balance and their track record of survival. They are like a huge one-party state — not democratic, but highly skilled at reflecting and juggling different interest groups. Many religious conservatives are reassured to see Prince Naif so prominent in the Saudi power structure — and at the moment that is actually helping the acceptance of reform.

[SUSRIS] You first wrote about Saudi Arabia in 1982. “The Kingdom” was banned in the Kingdom. Tell us about the prospects for your new book in that respect, and what you see happening with media openness in a general sense.

[Lacey] Well, “Inside the Kingdom” has already been banned in Bahrain. I asked my publisher what they didn’t like about it and the answer was the Bahrainis hadn’t read it. Just the fact that it was about politics and Saudi Arabia and the Royal Family, meant they weren’t going to touch it — more Catholic than the Pope. As far as the Kingdom itself is concerned, we are waiting to hear if permission will be given to distribute it. We shall just have to see what happens. In Britain we have the concept of the “Loyal Opposition,” and I hope that the quite numerous criticisms in my book will be viewed as friendly and constructive dialogue.

On the question of media openness I would say that the voices being heard in the Kingdom these days surprise many visitors. We’re seeing a lot of it at the moment in the reporting and opinion on the Jeddah floods of a few weeks ago. The coverage has literally opened floodgates of critical discussion in the press, focusing on corruption, incompetence, and mismanagement in a very frank way.

The Saudi press is filled with young journalists who investigate human rights abuses, young girls being married to older men, abuse and exploitation of immigrant workers. The press does not criticize the government directly — that is taboo now and in the foreseeable future –- but in these areas of social concern and human rights abuses young Saudi journalists go for it as freely as their Western counterparts. I have Saudi friends who went off to Dubai and elsewhere in the Gulf to work there thinking there would be more press freedom. They have returned saying there is less freedom, that there’s more interference in the other Gulf states than there is in the Saudi press. That’s not to say that there are not the very well-defined “red lines” that people know they do not cross. But there’s a constant and very exciting level of semi-private social discussion in the tradition of the “dewaniya” where men, and sometimes women, gather to discuss and debate. People are getting more outspoken and I think that is permeating the whole society.

[SUSRIS] You mentioned the recent flooding in Jeddah that claimed over 100 lives. As a resident of that city and observer of the local reporting of the catastrophe what are your impressions of the reactions in the Kingdom?

[Lacey] I was caught in the rain on the very first day. It was indeed a ferocious and frightful downpour. When you see an underpass from a brand new highway — something built in the last year or so — turn into a swimming pool because there’s no drainage or because the drainage wasn’t working, that indicts a whole range of people from municipal officials to the private contractors. The weather may have been a “God given” catastrophe, but the lack of human preparedness and practical measures was a failing for which specific men were responsible.

The traditional response would be for the King to promise money to the victims — and he has. But he has also accepted responsibility himself, for the fact that it happened on his watch. The challenge is to make sure all those angry criticisms and fine words are translated into real action.

You may recall the fire at a Mecca girls school in 2002 which resulted in 14 deaths, some a result of overzealous religious guardians who got in the way because the girls were not wearing correct Islamic dress as they fled. That tragedy produced results in terms of new leadership in women’s education. The hope is that the Jeddah tragedy will, in a similar way, produce change — though that is by no means certain. A young friend living in Mecca tells me that in the weeks since the floods he has encountered conservative preachers who are taking the microphone to give short, informal sermons, just two or three minutes, after the mid-afternoon prayer. They seem to be delivering a quietist message in which they instruct people not to be angry at ‘others’ and to accept what has happened as fate. They don’t seem to be organized, but who knows where they are coming from?

Next – Saudi Arabia’s leadership in the region and the world and its relationship with the United States.

About Robert Lacey

Robert Lacey is the author of “Majesty,” the classic biography of Queen Elizabeth II. A distinguished journalist with a love of history, he wrote the series “Great Tales from English History,” and was co-author of the best-selling “Year 1000.” In 1979, he moved with his family to Saudi Arabia for eighteen months to research “The Kingdom,” his penetrating study of the country’s complex and often paradoxical culture, which was banned in Saudi Arabia. For the past three years, Robert has been based in Jeddah and Riyadh, gathering material for this sequel — a completely new book which relates the Saudi role in the years of terror.

Source: InsidetheKingdom.net

About the Book – “Inside the Kingdom: Kings, Clerics, Modernists, Terrorists, and the Struggle for Saudi Arabia”

Commentary from Robert Lacey — “The Saudi Enigma” – “Larry King Live blog”

“Nothing is easier than to denounce the evil-doer. Nothing is more difficult than to understand him.”

– Fyodor Dostoevsky — “The Possessed”

I chose these words to open my new book Inside the Kingdom, because I needed to understand the tragedy of 9/11 and the nation that produced no less than fifteen of the nineteen hijackers on those planes. Saudi Arabia has never been a spot that wins much favor in the west. How can you love a country that charges you $70 or more for a product that costs less than $10 to get out of the ground – and then gives you terrorists as well?

But I wanted to go beyond that – to find out how the culture and religion of a society could go so wrong as to produce such a poisonous boiling-over of intolerance and hatred. In theory Saudi Arabia should not exist – its survival defies the laws of logic and history. Look at its princely rulers, dressed in funny clothes, trusting in God rather than man, and running their government on principles that most of the world has abandoned with relief. Shops closed for prayer five times a day, executions in the street – and let us not even get started on the status of women. For many the Kingdom remains one of the planet’s enduring – and, for some, quite offensive – enigmas. [for more of this commentary Click Here]

..for the book:
“Inside the Kingdom: Kings, Clerics, Modernists, Terrorists, and the Struggle for Saudi Arabia“

Editor’s Note:

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 2009.

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.

The Hajj in Perspective:
A Conversation with David Long

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

About the Author:

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).

Editor’s Note:

The Group of Twenty key industrialized and developing countries completed a two-day Summit in late September agreeing to launch a new framework for strong, sustainable and balanced growth by this month. This past weekend G-20 finance ministers and central bankers agreed to keep stimulus measures in place until economic recovery was assured.

In the Summit communique the leaders, from the European Union and 19 countries that contain most of the world’s population and economic power, claimed success in pulling the global economy back from the “the edge of depression” faced when they last met in April. The Saudi Arabian delegation was led by Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al-Faisal, and included Minister of Finance, Dr. Ibrahim Al-Assaf and the Governor of the Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency (SAMA), Dr. Muhammad Al-Jasser.

The Summit communiqué called for reform of the global economic architecture including designation of the G-20 as the “premier forum for international economic cooperation” and the establishment of a Financial Stability Board to coordinate and monitor progress in strengthening financial regulation. The International Monetary Fund quota system will be revised to reflect “dynamic emerging markets and developing countries” and recognize those countries that are currently under-represented. In the energy sector the communiqué called for the phasing out of fossil fuel subsidies and promoting energy market transparency and market stability as part of a wider effort to avoid market volatility.

To get insights into Saudi Arabia’s role in the G-20 and measures at the Summit that affect the Kingdom we called upon Professor Jean Francois Seznec, a Visiting Professor at Georgetown University. He has over 25 years experience in international finance and banking, including a decade in the Gulf. He regularly shares his expertise on Middle East affairs through numerous articles and television and radio appearances, and previous SUSRIS interviews.

Saudi Arabia’s Role in Global Economic Leadership: The G20 Summit
A Conversation with Jean Francois Seznec

SUSRIS: The closing “Leaders’ Statement” at the Pittsburgh Summit of the Group of Twenty declared the G20 to be the “premier forum” for international cooperation. What does it say that Saudi Arabia — the only Middle East country, the only Arab country and the only Opec member — is among the 19 countries and the EU in the Group?

Seznec: It is recognition of Saudi Arabia on the world stage and recognition of the Kingdom’s importance as a major, stable, credible economic power. Such is not the case with other Arab countries. The fact that Egypt is not included is very telling. Although it is a very large country with a large number of well educated people it has not been chosen, which speaks to the lack of vision of the government. Saudi Arabia, however, is moving in a direction that appeals to the others in the Group, and the Kingdom’s view of the world is consistent with other G-20 members.

SUSRIS: The primary focus of the Pittsburgh G-20 Summit was to calibrate the recovery efforts the Group agreed to at the Washington and London Summits over the last 12 months. There was also agreement on issues of particular interest to Riyadh, such as the measure to “phase out and rationalize the medium term inefficient fossil fuel subsidies.” Energy and Finance Ministers were asked to produce their strategies by the next G-20 meeting. Some of the language gets a bit arcane but what do you see as the impact on Saudi energy policies from measures such as this?

Seznec: The word “arcane” is probably an understatement. There are two things here to consider. On the one hand there are probably a number of experts in Saudi Arabia who worry if there was a major effort to cut subsidies, to cut emissions in the world as well, that it would mean less crude oil consumption, with a negative impact on the Kingdom.

On the other hand some Saudis are quite in favor of these prospects given the direction the Saudi leadership wants to take the economy. They might favor worldwide subsidy and emission cuts. Saudi Arabia wants to move away from being seen as the “Central Bank” of oil –they tell everybody that they are not the “Central Bank” of oil.

They are increasing production capacity a little but in practice they are not exporting as much oil as all that. Don’t get me wrong; they are exporting a lot of oil. They are still the leading exporter, but they are using a lot of their oil for their own economic development. It is going into value-added production.

In the long run some in Saudi Arabia would like to transfer the mantle of being the largest exporter of crude oil to Iraq and Iran. That may be counterintuitive but they each have the ability to increase their production to around six million barrels per day and could together replace Saudi Arabia as the major crude producers. Such a shift would be part of Saudi Arabia’s drive to be a global leader in petrochemical production. They would be under less pressure from the world to produce more crude oil at any cost. In the long term it is much more important for their population and their economy not to be dependent on one commodity and not to be dependent on the vagaries of the world energy market.

In twenty years the world’s changing energy mix for transportation and so forth could mean a major decline in the use of crude oil. That would hurt those producers largely dependent on oil exports – Iraq and Iran – and not so much for Saudi Arabia. That is if they have moved, as they are doing now, to value-added production. It would hurt Iraq and Iran and would relegate them to third world country status. Meanwhile Saudi Arabia would become the Germany of the region.

SUSRIS: How would you assess the Kingdom’s progress in this area – the drive to diversify the economy?

Seznec: The Saudis have made great strides in diversifying its economy and they have been very successful. Consider some examples. The Petro Rabigh joint venture with Sumitomo is underway. They are moving forward with the Dow Chemical venture, the largest chemical project in the world, worth some $20 billion. There is the Maaden Ras Al Zawr diammonium phosphate, or DAP, fertilizer project north of Jubail in the Eastern Province. There’s the development of Sabic worldwide. These are among many examples of successes the Saudis are having in turning to value-added production.

The sale of chemicals from Saudi Arabia to the world today is probably in the neighborhood of $45 billion. That’s a lot of money. There were many years Saudi Arabia did not make that much money selling crude oil. That fact is often forgotten since the price of oil jumped to over $50 a barrel in recent years and the Saudis started making the kind of money they are making now.

So by 2015 as Petro Rabigh comes fully on stream, by 2018 as Dow Chemical comes fully on stream and all the new projects of Sabic are on stream you’ll see Saudi Arabia making in the area of $100 billion in the sale of chemicals. At that point they will not want to spend too much effort in increasing production of oil for export.

The Saudis will want to use what they have for themselves and let Iraq and Iran be the third world nations that are going to be dependent on oil going up and down.

SUSRIS: Let’s talk about the business component of the U.S.-Saudi relationship. We recently spoke with National US-Arab Chamber President David Hamod about American business participation in the Saudi “boom.” He said, “Saudi Arabia is still one of the best-kept secrets of the Middle East. Some American companies have lost ground to the competition, particularly from China, which has been expanding aggressively in this part of the world. But we see new-to-market U.S. companies coming to the Kingdom every day, and there are still many untapped opportunities for U.S. firms here.” What is your assessment of the health of the American business-to-business relationship in the Kingdom?

Seznec: It’s not as good as it should be. Indeed the prospects for business in Saudi Arabia are great but the opportunities are not as widely known as they should be. Nobody talks much about it.

The Kingdom is the most important market in the region. It’s one of the easiest to access because of the new WTO regulations; you don’t even need an agent anymore in Saudi Arabia. It’s now very easy to get visas, unlike the old days. U.S. companies are not taking sufficient advantage of the opportunities, and that’s because we tend to be quite insular here. We’re not as export oriented as the Europeans or the Chinese. However because of the financial crisis we’re going through that’s changing.

A lot of the medium sized companies have no choice but to look around and they see Saudi Arabia. It is frustrating that there’s not more business being done as there’s a beautiful market there for the U.S. In spite of the political issues and any tensions there might be over government policies the Saudis like to work with American companies. They really do. It’s more natural. The language is a lot easier. A lot of Saudis have been educated in the States. There’s a lot in common and business works very well there.

Hopefully we will see more business development especially of the middle-sized companies if they can make the effort. But it is expensive. That’s a problem for the middle-sized companies.

SUSRIS: What other observations do you have about the Pittsburgh G-20 Summit?

Seznec: I found the Summit “Leader’s Statement” very interesting. A lot of it isn’t the most exciting reading but if you drill down to page 13 of that statement there is a section called “Energy Security and Climate Change.” I could read the fingerprints of the Saudis in that section. It is a commitment by the G-20 to ensure market transparency and market stability in the energy business and I think that’s very important.

The Saudis feel strongly that a lot of the instability in the oil market has been due to speculation, especially speculation in the hedge funds and the large banks in the United States. Of course a lot of these people have gone bust – a lot of the hedge funds have had to shut down so that has cut some of the speculation. But I think the Saudis really wanted to have that language in there.

Speculation, it doesn’t say it in those words, but speculation is one of the causes of instability in the oil markets. The language in the statement says the G-20 should make all efforts to limit this by publishing complete, accurate and timely data on oil production and the Saudis already have something called the JODI — The Joint Oil Data Initiative. It is based in Riyadh, and has been there for a number of years. It hasn’t really done much so far, but they do publish a very good database, which is very useful. It’s promoted by an organization called the International Energy Forum, which was previously known as the Dialogue between Producers and Consumers. The Saudis have been concerned that it has not received sufficient attention. But of course when the prices are high the producers don’t really care and when the prices are low the Europeans don’t want to talk about it.

I’m sure the Saudis were very happy to see that the Joint Oil Data Initiative was in the Summit statement, that it is now part of the G-20 and is viewed by everyone as such.

SUSRIS: Thank you again for your time in addressing the G-20 Summit and the business aspects of the relationship between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia.

Seznec: You are very welcome.

About Jean-François Seznec

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 is focusing on the industrialization of the Gulf and in particular the growth of the petrochemical industry. He holds a MA from Columbia University [1973], a MA and his Ph.D. from Yale University [1994]. He has published and lectured extensively and is interviewed regularly on national TV, radio and newspapers, as well as by the foreign media.

Dr. Seznec has 25 years experience in international banking and finance of which ten years were spent in the Middle East, including six years in Bahrain as a banker. Dr. Seznec is a founding member and Managing Partner of the Lafayette Group LLC, a US based private investment company. He uses his knowledge of business in the Middle East and the United States to further his analysis of the Arab-Persian Gulf.

Editor’s Note:

Ambassador Adel Al Jubeir presented his credentials as Saudi Arabia’s top diplomat in the United States in February 2007 replacing Prince Turki Al Faisal who served two years in that post. He previously served as Foreign Affairs Advisor to then Crown Prince Abdullah starting in 2000 and was appointed Advisor at the Royal Court in August 2005 when Abdullah become King. Ambassador Al Jubeir has an extensive resume of challenging diplomatic posts (see below) including earlier service in Washington.

Today we are pleased to present for your consideration an interview Ambassador Jubeir gave to “US-Arab Tradeline,” a publication of the National U.S.-Arab Chamber of Commerce in which he focuses on the business relationship between the United States and Saudi Arabia. We thank the Chamber or permission to share this interview with you.

The IMF recently praised Saudi Arabia for the strength of its economy and its leadership role in stabilizing the world oil markets. What factors and/or changes in the government’s agenda account for this?

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia seeks to pursue balanced and sustainable economic policies that promote investment, growth and job creation. If the Kingdom’s development policies since the mid-1970s are examined, it is clear they have been practical, rational and effective in bringing about economic development.

The first and second five-year plans focused specifically on infrastructure development; the Kingdom needed airports, roads, hospitals, desalination plants, electrical plants, etc. Subsequent plans focused on developing industries and human resources. SABIC and other companies are now examples of the Kingdom’s attempts to build industries that can use its energy resources as feedstock, providing it with a natural advantage to compete in the global market place.

With regard to energy, since the Kingdom possesses the world’s largest proven oil reserves and is the largest exporter of oil, it has a responsibility to manage its energy policy in a manner that serves both producers and consumers by maintaining capacity and working to ensure stable prices. Saudi Arabia believes that high prices affect the global economy negatively by slowing down economic growth, and hurt producers in the long-run by slowing demand growth for oil. Low prices, on the other hand, hurt producing nations by reducing their income and, in the long-run, hurt consuming nations by encouraging consumption. Saudi Arabia’s history of managing its economic affairs, including energy, clearly shows a consistent and rational approach.

In 2004, Saudi Arabia announced the 10×10 program, which will make Saudi Arabia one of the world’s 10 most competitive countries by 2010. How close is the Kingdom to this goal?

The Kingdom is very close. In fact, Saudi Arabia has been rated as the 13th most economically competitive country in the world according to the International Finance Corporation – World Bank annual ” Doing Business” report issued this month.

The World Bank has named Saudi Arabia a “systematic reformer” and ranked it number one in the Arab World in ease of doing business. What factors have led to this “ease,” and has this had an impact on U.S. direct investment in the Kingdom, especially regarding small to medium businesses?

Rational, sustainable and long-term policies. The Kingdom’s leadership is committed to developing the country and providing its citizens with a high standard of living, a social safety net, and economic opportunity. It is also committed to free trade.

Saudi Arabia recognizes the importance of global trade and the need to be competitive. As such, there is a clear focus on revitalizing every aspect of the Saudi economy – including regulation which makes the Kingdom a friendly place to invest and do business, and efforts to provide Saudi citizens with the ability to compete in the global market place. Over the past decade, new laws were introduced, the court system was restructured, taxation was eased on foreign investors, and investments were made in infrastructure, among other steps. The changes were comprehensive in nature, or what the World Bank referred to as “systemic.”

Saudi Arabia and the United States have very strong and unique historic ties dating back to the 1930s. Are most Americans aware of this relationship? How has this relationship changed in the aftermath of 9/11?

I believe most Americans are aware of the importance of the bilateral relationship. But more can be done to educate them further. With regard to 9-11, it was a painful moment for us when it was discovered that most of the hijackers came from Saudi Arabia. We believe that Osama Bin Laden intentionally selected Saudis for this heinous crime to give the operation a Saudi face and to create doubts in the minds of Americans about the Kingdom. Would American attitudes towards the Kingdom at the time be the same if most hijackers were not Saudi? I doubt it.

After 9-11, the relationship – at the popular level – suffered, while at the official level both governments recognized Bin Laden’s objective and committed to maintaining and strengthening the bilateral relationship. We both are the main targets for Al-Qaeda and we both work closely together to defeat it. And – God willing – we will.

When we look at the relationship today, our nations have very strong ties. In 2005, the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz and President George Bush established the Strategic Dialogue between our two nations to institutionalize the relationship. The Kingdom also initiated the “Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques Scholarship Program” to send Saudi students abroad for higher education. As a result, the number of Saudi students in the U.S. increased from a few thousand in 2005 to almost 20,000 today.

In other areas we see progress as well. Investments by American companies in the Kingdom are at record levels, as are Saudi investments in the U.S. So is the two-way traffic of travel by our citizens. For example, last year, more than 60,000 visas were issued to American citizens.

The number of Saudi military officers training in the U.S. has also increased substantially over the past few years, as have the number of joint exercises. Our countries also maintain several joint task forces to combat terrorism and terror finance.

Today, our countries face mutual challenges in the region, in the global economy and in the fight against terrorism, and their relationship has grown stronger as a consequence of their close cooperation.

Saudi Arabia has been a member of the World Trade Organization since 2005. Has this had an impact on its international standing?

Absolutely. We have seen foreign investment in the Kingdom increase substantially and we have seen markets open up for Saudi companies and products.

The Kingdom is building four economic cities across the country and launching KAUST in September. What opportunities does this open up to foreign investors?

The economic cities provide opportunities for infrastructure development and investment in industries and services.

KAUST will herald, God willing, a new era in higher education and scientific research in the Kingdom and in the world. The university is a scientific institution that is independent and international in outlook. It will have faculty, staff and students from around the globe. It has signed agreements with a number of distinguished international universities and research centers to collaborate on research projects and exchange knowledge. It will use science to improve life.

What are the best sectors for U.S. firms interested in Saudi Arabia?

The Kingdom believes in free trade and encourages investment by foreigners. It has the largest economy in the region, and is a member of the G-20. And it is one of the world’s top places to invest. There are opportunities in virtually every area – construction, power generation, energy, petrochemicals, manufacturing, finance, insurance, and services, to name a few.

What are your priorities as the Saudi Ambassador to the United States?

To work on further enhancing the strong and historic ties between our two nations in all areas, without exception, and to look after the welfare of our citizens, whether they are students, medical patients, businessmen or tourists.

This interview originally appeared in the Fall 2009 edition of “US-Arab Tradeline,” a publication of the National US-Arab Chamber of Commerce.

Ambassador Adel A. Al-Jubeir

His Excellency Adel A. Al-Jubeir was appointed by the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz as Ambassador to the United States on January 29, 2007. Ambassador Al-Jubeir presented his credentials to President George W. Bush at the White House on February 27, 2007.

Mr. Al-Jubeir was born February 1, 1962 in Majma’ah (Riyadh Province), Saudi Arabia, and attended schools in the Kingdom, Germany, Yemen, Lebanon, and the U.S. He obtained a B.A. summa cum laude in political science and economics from the University of North Texas in 1982, and an M.A. in international relations from Georgetown University in 1984.

In 1987 Mr. Al-Jubeir was appointed into the Saudi Diplomatic Service and posted to the Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia in Washington, DC, where he served as Special Assistant to the Ambassador. In 1990-91, he was part of the Saudi team that established the Joint Information Bureau at Dhahran during Operation Desert Shield/Desert Storm. He was a member of the GCC delegation to the Madrid Peace Conference in October 1991, and a member of the Saudi delegation to the Multilateral Arms Control Talks in Washington, DC in 1992. In December 1992 he was dispatched with the Saudi Armed Forces to Somalia as part of Operation Restore Hope.

Mr. Al-Jubeir was appointed Director of the Saudi Information and Congressional Affairs Office in Washington in 2000, and was named Foreign Affairs Advisor in the Crown Prince’s Court in the fall of 2000. In August 2005, the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz appointed Mr. Al-Jubeir to the position of Advisor at the Royal Court.

Mr. Al-Jubeir was Visiting Diplomatic Fellow at the Council of Foreign Relations in New York, 1994-95. He has lectured at universities and academic institutions in the U.S. and appeared frequently in the media. In 2006, he received an Honorary Doctorate in Humane Letters from the University of North Texas.

Mr. Al-Jubeir is fluent in Arabic, English, and German.

Source: Saudi Embassy, Washington

Editor’s Note:

On June 4, 2009 the White House announced James B. Smith as nominee to follow Ford Fraker as U.S. Ambassador to Saudi Arabia. Smith, a retired U.S. Air Force brigadier general, was sworn in on September 16, 2009. Today we are pleased to present for your consideration an interview Ambassador Smith gave to “US-Arab Tradeline,” a publication of the National U.S.-Arab Chamber of Commerce in which he focuses on his new role as a key steward of the relationship between the United States and Saudi Arabia. We thank the Chamber for permission to share this interview with you.

As the new ambassador to Saudi Arabia, what are the first items on your agenda?

President Obama articulated a new beginning in his Cairo speech. As his representative in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, my agenda is to open the door to the possibilities in that speech. The relationship between the United States and Saudi Arabia is one of the most important in the world. Given the unique and dynamic nature of world events, it is incumbent on both nations to continue building on this important relationship. Business and trade constitute a central element of this relationship, and as Ambassador, I will actively promote trade and investment between Saudi Arabia and the United States. We will facilitate travel, cultural exchanges, and other delegations to both countries. We look forward to the inauguration of the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology this month, and I firmly believe that exchanges in science and technology can be a positive, meaningful basis for building our relationship. We must continue to cooperate closely on a wide range of regional security challenges, and close cooperation aimed at confronting violent extremism must be further strengthened. Harkening back to the President’s comments, my first task will be to listen, to engage with business and government leaders and to hear from people who bring new approaches to improving commerce and good relations between our countries.

What is your impression of the current U.S.-Saudi relationship? Have the historic ties between the two countries, dating back to the 1930’s, helped buffer the lingering impact of 9/11?

The relationship between Saudi Arabia and the United States has never been stronger; it has also never been more multi-faceted or important. The United States values greatly the cooperation we have had with Saudi Arabia on a wide range of issues. As I said in my remarks during confirmation, my experience in Saudi Arabia as a military officer and business executive has left me with a great respect for Saudi Arabia, its culture, and the vitality of our relationship. Over the coming months and years, we should have many opportunities to build on that friendship. The historic ties between our countries have been a source of strength for the bilateral relationship, and our shared goals will propel us forward together.

In 2008, trade agreements between Saudi Arabia and the U.S. resulted in a 14% growth in bilateral trade. How active a role will the U.S. Embassy play in continuing to strengthen trade relations between the two countries?

The U.S. Embassy has and will continue to play an active role in promoting bilateral commercial ties. We want to do more business with the Kingdom. Over the next 12 months, the U.S. Commercial Service at the Embassy has planned more than 12 trade missions from Saudi Arabia to the U.S. We are also working on organizing trade missions from the U.S. to the Kingdom. I expect our trade promotion activity will see a significant increase in coming months.

I also see this as a great opportunity to promote the efforts of women entrepreneurs in Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia is fortunate to have such outstanding businessmen and businesswomen, making a positive contribution to the future prosperity of the Kingdom. President Obama and his administration strongly support the Kingdom’s efforts to increase opportunities for women in business and other professions. My wife, Janet, who is a university professor, and I will do all we can to enhance the prospects for the next generation of entrepreneurs, both men and women.

The King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) opened this September. Many American universities, research institutes and companies – Babson College, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, Stanford University, Boeing and Dow Chemical, to name a few, are partnering with KAUST. Will KAUST also open new doors for SMEs in Saudi Arabia?

The Inauguration of KAUST marks an important milestone for King Abdullah. The King has said that one of the aims of KAUST is to “promote the economic development and social prosperity of the people of the Kingdom and of the world.” Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are one of the main foundations of economic growth and development. Commerce has played a central role in helping people achieve a better life throughout the Middle East. I am certain that SMEs will benefit from the new discoveries and innovation undertaken at KAUST.

In the aftermath of 9/11, when political and trade relations between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia were strained, many European and Asian companies stepped in. Can U.S. companies, in particular SMEs, regain their position, and if so, how?

Business opportunities continue to develop in Saudi Arabia – both for large and small companies – and U.S. firms continue to enjoy respectable market share in the Kingdom. However, just as in the United States, there is increasing competition from other countries. The U.S. Government offers a number of services to assist SMEs entering the Saudi market. For instance, with its network of offices across the United States, the U.S. Commercial Service of the U.S. Department of Commerce helps SMEs sell their products and services worldwide. (For more information, visit www. export.gov.)

What are the best sectors for U.S. exporters in Saudi Arabia?

Saudi Arabia offers opportunities for U.S. exporters in a wide range of sectors. Some of the most dynamic sectors include Oil and Gas Equipment and Services, Petrochemical, Security Equipment, Power Generation, Telecommunications and Information Technology, Medical Equipment, Architecture and Construction, Railroad Equipment and Services, Franchising, Automobiles & Parts & Services, Aviation (Civil and Defense), Pollution Control and Environmental Services, Mining, and Water Resources and Equipment. This list is not exhaustive, however. There are many export opportunities in other sectors, too.

Saudi Arabia is building four mega-economic cities across the Kingdom. What opportunities do these cities offer for foreign investment?

The Saudi leadership envisions the economic cities as engines for industrial growth, real estate development, sea port and dry port development, and educational advancement in the Kingdom. According to the Saudi Arabian General Investment Authority, these new cities will contribute $150 billion to the country’s GDP by the year 2020. In developing the cities, the government will play the role of regulator, facilitator and promoter with the private sector providing the capital, the land owners and the developers. The cities have the potential to offer diverse opportunities for foreign investors in sectors ranging from alternative energy to information technology and manufacturing.

Is there a feeling of confidence and growing entrepreneurship in the Saudi private sector?

During my last visit to Saudi Arabia in the summer of 2008, I was impressed with the growth of a new class of Saudi entrepreneurs. They are creative, aggressive, and motivated to succeed. This speaks well for Saudi Arabia’s ability to diversify its economy. Over the last decade, Saudi Arabia has made considerable progress toward expanding its economy in order to achieve sustainable growth, and the future looks bright. It has taken concrete steps to create an enabling business environment. According to the World Bank, in 2009, Saudi Arabia ranked among the top 25 worldwide in terms of the ease of doing business. The culture of entrepreneurship is on the upswing in the Kingdom.

The IMF recently praised Saudi Arabia for the strength of its economy, and The World Bank ranked the Kingdom number one in the Arab World for the ease of doing business. What factors have led to this success in the midst of a global economic crisis?

No country has been immune from the effects of the international financial crisis, though Saudi Arabia has been affected less than many other countries. I think Saudi Arabia deserves great credit for the financial discipline shown over the past decade; the reforms that the Kingdom’s economic leaders have implemented certainly contribute to its many successes. As the only Arab member of the G-20, Saudi Arabia has played an important role in supporting international efforts to stem the global financial crisis.

How will Saudi Arabia’s regional and global role change in the coming decade, and what impact will this change have on U.S.-Saudi relations?

It would be unwise for me to begin my tenure by predicting the future.. ..that’s a fool’s exercise. But it is obvious that Saudi Arabia will play a key leadership role in a myriad of regional issues. Most of the key global challenges facing the world and the United States will require consultation with the Saudi leadership. We have active dialogues on a wide range of key regional security challenges; indeed, on so many issues, we share common objectives. I accepted this assignment because of the importance the Administration places on the relationship between the United States and Saudi Arabia; I will do everything in my power to build on the very positive success of the last few years and to make the relationship even stronger.

About James Smith – U.S. Ambassador to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

James B. Smith was sworn in on September 16, 2009, as the U.S. Ambassador to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Prior to his appointment, Ambassador Smith had served in a variety of executive positions with Raytheon Company involving corporate strategic planning, aircraft manufacturing, and international business development.

Ambassador Smith was a distinguished graduate of the United States Air Force Academy’s Class of 1974 and received the Richard I. Bong award as the Outstanding Cadet in Military History. He received his Masters in History from Indiana University in 1975, and is also a distinguished graduate from the Naval War College, the Air Command and Staff College and the National War College.

Ambassador Smith spent a 28 year career in the United States Air Force. Trained as a fighter pilot, he logged over 4000 hours of flight time in F-15s and T-38s. He served around the world in a variety of operational assignments and flew combat missions from Dhahran AB during Operation Desert Storm. He commanded the 94th Fighter Squadron, the 325th Operations Group and the 18th Fighter Wing (Kadena AB, Okinawa). In addition, he served in a variety of staff assignments involving coalition partners, and served as Air Force Chair and Professor of Military Strategy at the National War College. During his final assignment at U.S. Joint Forces Command, he led Millennium Challenge, the largest transformation experiment in history. He was promoted to Brigadier General in October, 1998, and retired from the Air Force on October 1, 2002.

A native of Brooks, Georgia, Ambassador Smith lives in Salem, New Hampshire, with his wife Dr. Janet Breslin-Smith.

Source: U.S. State Department

Editor’s Note:

The launch of the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) in Thuwal, Saudi Arabia last month was witnessed by a host of distinguished visitors from around the world. On the list was David Hamod, President and CEO of the National U.S.-Arab Chamber of Commerce, who wrote in “U.S.-Arab Tradeline” – the Chamber’s quarterly newsletter – that “Saudi Arabia is looking ahead to a world that revolves around knowledge, not hydrocarbons.” He noted that, “For Saudis and Muslims all over the world, KAUST is intended to serve as a new House of Wisdom,” referring to the Bait al-Hikma, the intellectual center of the Islamic “Golden Age.” Hamod’s visit to the Kingdom included meetings with business people and officials as part of the NUSACC’s role as the “voice of American business in the Arab world.”

To get Mr. Hamod’s first hand impression of KAUST and his perspective on the business relationship between the United States and Saudi Arabia, we caught up with him by phone from Riyadh on October 9, 2009 for this SUSRIS exclusive interview.

Opportunities and Change in the Kingdom:
A Conversation with David Hamod

SUSRIS: Thank you for joining us today as you travel in Saudi Arabia. In “Tradeline” you said the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, or KAUST, represented a vital step in the transition of Saudi Arabia to a knowledge-based society. What are your impressions of KAUST? Is KAUST a game changer?

HAMOD: What struck me most about the KAUST launch was the huge amount of pride the Saudis take in this institution, as well as the speed with which they pulled this all together – building an important research university from scratch in less than 1,000 days. KAUST is a very ambitious undertaking, but with a $10 billion endowment and the full support of the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, King Abdullah, it represents a remarkable opportunity for the Kingdom.

Is this university a “game changer”? I think this institution, as a new “House of Wisdom,” has tremendous potential. The Saudis have worked to bring the best and the brightest from around the world to KAUST. They have purchased some of the most sophisticated equipment available. Now it’s a question of pulling it all together in a way that produces rewarding experiences for the scholars, as well as cutting edge research. What we hope for, from a business perspective, are new technologies that can be developed at KAUST and brought to the marketplace. [See David Hamod’s Op-ed on KAUST as a catalyst for business.]

KAUST, according to King Abdullah’s vision, will be a “beacon” for scholars from around the world. It’s an extraordinary opportunity for intellectual exchange and learning, and for people around the globe to gain a better understanding of Saudi Arabia.

SUSRIS: The boom in Saudi Arabia has been characterized as bigger than the “first boom.” How so? What does this mean for the US-Saudi trade relationship?

HAMOD: The big difference between the boom of the 1970s and the new boom is that there is now a new generation of Saudi business leaders who have been educated at some of the best schools in the world, who have traveled extensively, and who have brought thoughtful new ideas to the table regarding what the Saudi Arabia of the future might look like. That translates into strategic, long-range construction and infrastructure projects that are consistent with 20- or 30-year plans. This rationalized approach takes advantage of economies of scale and is connected to the comparative and competitive advantages that Saudi Arabia has to offer, particularly in terms of downstream petroleum projects.

There is also a recognition that the population is growing quickly and that Saudi Arabia needs to prepare for the future in terms of health care, education, housing, food security, and a host of other ways. It seems to me that the Saudi leadership, consistent with the vision of King Abdullah, is tackling these issues in a thoughtful way.

In terms of the trade relationship, we have seen fairly consistent growth over the years. U.S. exports to Saudi Arabia in 2008 were about $12.5 billion, and by our Chamber’s best estimates, despite the downturn, we anticipate U.S. exports will roughly triple to $38 billion by 2012.

That’s a reflection of the growing market in Saudi Arabia — not only for the United States, but also for other countries of the world. There is a clear trend in Saudi Arabia, and in other countries in the Arab world, to “look East” to Asia in the aftermath of 9/11. The tragedy of September 11th did not necessarily cause the Arab world to turn to India, China, and other Asian markets, but it certainly served as a catalyst to do so.

SUSRIS: Do you agree with some specialists who feel that American businesses are not taking full advantage of the opportunities from the current boom?

HAMOD: I believe that there are major changes underway here that can be attributed, in part, to the work that the Ministry of Finance and the Saudi Arabian General Investment Authority have done to make the Kingdom a more attractive destination for trade and investment. In 2005, the World Bank and IMF ranked Saudi Arabia number 67 in the world in ease of doing business. Today, the Kingdom is number one in the Middle East and number 13 in the world. That is a remarkable improvement by any standard.

I believe that Saudi Arabia is still one of the best-kept secrets of the Middle East. Some American companies have lost ground to the competition, particularly from Asian nations, which have been expanding aggressively in this part of the world. But we see new-to-market U.S. companies coming to the Kingdom on a regular basis, and there are still many untapped opportunities for U.S. firms here.

In this respect, our Chamber needs to bring more U.S. companies to Saudi Arabia so that they can see the opportunities here with their own eyes. Last year, I had the privilege to lead delegations to this region for U.S. companies managing in excess of $2 trillion, and the success and stability of economies in this part of the world are still generating considerable interest among U.S. companies.

Saudi Arabia is very well positioned in this economic downturn because the Kingdom has resources on hand at a time when cash is king. The historically high oil prices have come down, which has led to the postponement of some projects, but the vast majority of projects are still moving forward full speed ahead. Unlike some countries in the Middle East, Saudi Arabia is deficit spending in the short term to bring many of these important projects to fruition.

The downturn also creates opportunities for Saudi Arabia to invest outside the Kingdom, and the Arab world beckons. Recent years have seen unprecedented levels of intra-Arab investment within the region, and I expect this trend to pick up as we move beyond the economic slowdown.

SUSRIS: At the recent Pittsburgh G-20 Summit the members specified the Group, of which Saudi Arabia is a member, as the “premier forum” for international economic cooperation. What does it say for Saudi Arabia to be the only Middle Eastern country, the only Arab country and the only member of Opec to belong to the G-20?

HAMOD: I think Saudis are enormously proud that the Kingdom has been invited to sit at the table and, in my opinion, that invitation is long overdue. The countries of the Arab world, and particularly those of the GCC, have played an increasingly important role in “lubricating” the international economy in recent years — either directly or indirectly. It no longer makes sense for a handful of countries to try to guide the international economic order without valuable input from Saudi Arabia and the G-20.

SUSRIS: In the context of Saudi Arabia what do you think about the prospects of some governments moving away from the dollar as the global reserve currency?

HAMOD: I’ve heard rumors about decoupling oil from the dollar and, to the best of my knowledge, these are only rumors. The rumors grow strong when the dollar gets weak, and vice-versa. The fact is, it would be difficult to separate the dollar from oil. The only GCC country that has taken steps in that direction is Kuwait, which now uses a basket of currencies. However, there is no compelling evidence, to the best of my knowledge, that Kuwait has fared substantially better than its neighbors as a result of its break with the dollar.

SUSRIS: How would you assess the health of the relationship between the Kingdom and the United States?

HAMOD: The Saudi-U.S. relationship is longstanding and runs the gamut of mutual interests. King Abdullah’s visit to Texas [Crawford Western White House] when he was Crown Prince helped to reinforce those strong relations. We subsequently made a transition from one U.S. president to another, but there have been no disruptions, in part because King Abdullah has made a special effort to get to know each president at a personal level.

Relations are in very good shape these days as evidenced by Saudi Arabia’s support of the U.S. dollar, the constructive role that Saudi Arabia is playing in the peace process, the surge in Saudi students now studying in the United States, and the positive overall tenor of the relationship.

At one level, there are excellent trade and investment opportunities in Saudi Arabia for U.S. companies, which is how we, as Americans, tend to look at the relationship. But at another level, as a result of the economic downturn, there are some excellent bargains available in the United States to savvy Saudi investors.

As far as the new Administration is concerned, I think the Arab world as a whole has rolled out the welcome mat for President Obama. My impression is that many of the Arab countries are looking to President Obama to change the tone of the U.S.-Arab relationship, which includes restoring dignity and minimizing humiliations that the Arab world has suffered in recent years. Some of these humiliations, like torture at Abu Ghraib prison, have been devastating for America’s reputation around the world. Other indignities, like the demeaning process that Saudis have been through to secure visas to the United States, have resulted in many thousands of Saudis forgoing visits to America.

Historically, the United States has been the favorite destination of the Arab world. Arabs like to take their vacations in our country. They like to send their kids to school in America. If they need medical care, they prefer to come to the United States. And from a commercial perspective, they like the American way of doing business. A lot of this goodwill evaporated after 9/11, however, and we are doing our best to restore that trust.

The relationship between the United States and the Middle East has a very solid foundation, and people in the Arab world are looking to President Obama to build on that foundation.

SUSRIS: What have you heard in reaction to President Obama winning this year’s Nobel Peace Prize?

HAMOD: People here are hopeful that the Nobel Prize will serve as a “down payment” for bringing peace to Palestine.

SUSRIS: What would you tell Americans about Saudi Arabia given what you know about stereotypes of Arabs and the Kingdom, and about the changes and reforms being made?

HAMOD: The only way a group of people can evaluate another group of people is to travel and spend time with each other, face-to-face. Stereotyping of the Arab world has been a problem for a long time, in part because many so-called “experts” on the Middle East have never set foot in the Arab world.

The fact is, we have seen some extraordinary changes taking place in this part of the world during the past decade. These changes are happening not because the United States or any other country is trying to force the Arab world to change. To the contrary, these changes are predominately coming from within — naturally, organically.

As a result, we see significant economic expansion that is affecting the quality of life of every family in the Arab world. We have also seen the important role that the Internet can play in changing the dynamics of a society, including our own in the United States. So when you package all of this together — the changing technologies, economic expansion, improvements in the quality of life — it makes for a substantially different region than anything people might have anticipated even 15 years ago.

SUSRIS: What should we expect to see over the horizon in the business component of the relationship?

HAMOD: Historically, the U.S. companies that have been most involved in Saudi Arabia are very large businesses. The trend that Saudi Arabia would like to see, I think, is a growing emphasis on small and medium sized enterprises, or SMEs, and entrepreneurship. From the perspective of our chamber, which is predominantly made up of these SMEs, this suggests some remarkable business development opportunities in the years ahead.

SUSRIS: Thank you for taking time to share your insights on U.S.-Saudi relations from Riyadh. Safe travel home.

About David Hamod

David A. Hamod is President and CEO of the National U.S.-Arab Chamber of Commerce (NUSACC), a position he accepted in 2004. Since its inception over 40 years ago, NUSACC has been the preeminent organization for fostering trade and investment between the United States and the 22 countries of the Arab world.

Mr. Hamod has been a prominent and active member of the U.S. business community for more than two decades. In 1988, he founded Intercom International Consultants, a Washington-based consulting firm that has served as an advisor to numerous business groups, including more than 30 U.S. companies. As President of Intercom, Mr. Hamod served on the International Policy Committee of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce for more than a decade.

Prior to founding Intercom, Mr. Hamod worked for the Brookings Institution, International Business Machines (IBM) Corporation, Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC), and The New York Times, among others.

Source: NUSACC

About NUSACC

The National U.S.-Arab Chamber of Commerce (NUSACC), established 40 years ago, is America’s longest serving organization dedicated to U.S.-Arab business. NUSACC is widely regarded as the voice of American business in the Arab world and the premier portal to the United States for Arab commercial enterprises. With offices in New York, Houston, Los Angeles, and its headquarters in Washington DC, NUSACC is well positioned to fulfill its mission to “promote, support, and strengthen U.S.-Arab business and economic cooperation.” www.nusacc.org

Editor’s Note:

In “Revisiting Obama’s Riyadh Meeting,” on the Foreign Policy blog The Cable, Laura Rozen wrote on July 17 about the President’s meeting with King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia early last month. From Obama’s perspective the visit, according to sources cited by The Cable, did not “go well” in “persuading the King to be ready to show reciprocal gestures to Israel, which Washington has been pushing to halt settlements..” and that special assistant Dennis Ross said Obama was “upset [about the meeting] because he got nothing out of it.”

Administration officials, Rozen wrote, “pushed back hard” on the allegations “disputing every aspect of the accounts.” She also talked with former U.S. Ambassador Chas Freeman who offered that he was not surprised there may have been different expectations for the meeting, but that he “spoke to the king’s advisors on the topic not long after the meeting, and they thought it went extremely well.”

Meanwhile, The Cable reported on July 26, 2009 that President Obama recently sent letters to leaders of seven Arab countries, including Saudi Arabia, “seeking confidence building measures toward Israel which Washington has been pushing to agree to a freeze of Jewish settlements in the West Bank.”

To provide additional context to The Cable reports on the Obama visit and “reciprocal gestures,” SUSRIS talked with Ambassador Freeman about the President’s June 3, 2009 meeting with King Abdullah. In addition to the views he shared on U.S.-Saudi relations vis a vis the peace process he asserted that President Obama’s Middle East diplomatic efforts were being deliberately undermined in Washington — including among some in his Administration — with the goal of reducing American pressure on Israel over settlements in the Occupied Territories.

Ambassador Freeman shared his insights in this SUSRIS exclusive interview by phone from his office in Washington on July 22, 2009.

Gestures and Illusions: Assessing Obama’s Riyadh Visit
A Conversation with Chas Freeman

SUSRIS: Thank you for taking time to share your perspective on relations between American and Saudi leaders, particularly on the subject of Middle East peace. As you know The Cable recently reported on President Obama’s June meeting with King Abdullah that some sources characterized as a failure to win “reciprocal gestures” from Riyadh for Israeli. The President, according to the report, made the trip which was an add-on leg to previously planned overseas travel, with the hopes of persuading Saudi leaders to “take steps toward Israel.” What’s that all about?

Ambassador Charles W. Freeman, Jr.: Here’s the issue. In order to be disillusioned you have to have illusions. There’s a long history of Americans having illusions as to what Saudis and other Arabs might be prepared to do in different contexts.

There was, for example, the effort by Secretary of State Alexander Haig at the outset of the Reagan administration to persuade the Arabs, and Saudis in particular, that they should join in a grand coalition with Israel against the Soviet Union. Haig convinced himself that this was possible, and he was very disillusioned when it turned out, not to the surprise of anybody who actually knew the Arabs or the Saudis, that it was not.

More recently we have seen illusions about the Saudis and other Arabs in the form of the assertion that somehow there could be a grand coalition of so-called Sunni conservative powers and the Israelis against Iran in order to facilitate an Israeli strike on Iran. That, frankly, just doesn’t have much credibility.

Certainly there is concern on the part of the Saudis and other Arabs with Iran’s political prestige but this does not translate into a willingness to associate with Israel and it certainly doesn’t translate into a willingness to facilitate an Israeli military strike on a fellow Muslim country, even if it’s not Arab and even if the Arabs have their differences with it.

The biggest point of delusion, if you will, on the American side is that somehow or other if Israel could be persuaded to stop doing the self-destructive things that it has been doing – among them settlement building — that this should evoke an Arab, particularly a Saudi, gesture intended to make it worth Israel’s while. This is simply not reasonable from the perspective of the Arabs.

The fact that we, on the American side, could come up with such a notion says a great deal about our misunderstanding of the region and the dysfunctional biases of the people we have managing Middle East policy.

SUSRIS: Can you talk more about the idea of confidence building measures being expected?

Freeman: That is the point I tried to make in the brief response I had to what Laura Rozen reported at The Cable. The Saudis and others feel that they have been repeatedly subjected to blandishments from well-wishers of Israel. Some were sincere efforts toward peace in the Middle East; some were disingenuous. People have said if the Arabs do something nice for Israel this will somehow get you something in terms of an Israeli gesture — progress towards peace between Israelis and Palestinians.

In fact absolutely none of the gestures that have been made, including the very important one of the Arab League’s Beirut Declaration of 2002 — the so-called Arab Peace Initiative — has resulted in any positive response from the Israelis. They have been content to pocket whatever has been offered and to do nothing in return.

There is no predisposition whatsoever — in fact a lot of predisposition to the contrary — on the Arab side to pay for what Israel, in its own interest, ought to do. Moreover, the matter at issue is much less than Israel pulling settlements out of the Occupied Territories. The United States is now simply asking Israel to stop their expansion. While that would be a very useful first step in getting back into a dialogue or process that could lead to peace, in itself it doesn’t produce peace. It doesn’t undo the damage that Israel has done to the prospects for peace by building settlements all over the place.

It’s also quite apparent from Prime Minister Netanyahu’s comments, for example about Jerusalem, that the current Israeli government, and probably the majority of Israelis as well, do not accept the premises that the United States is putting forward.

In the case of the Saudis and Arabs, they have offered what they believe is a very reasonable quid pro quo for peace in the form of a bonus to Israel for reaching an agreement with the Palestinians. They believe that it is in Israel’s interest to do so. The Arabs are not prepared to make down payments, to bargain or to haggle over the details of what the Israeli and Palestinian peace is going to look like. That is something that Israel must do with its captive Palestinians, not the Arabs at large. I don’t expect this position to change.

The Saudis in particular and the Arabs in general have already put a very generous offer on the table in the form of the Beirut Declaration. It is an incentive, a major incentive in their view, for Israel to reach agreement with the Palestinians. The Arabs believe that Israel ought to want to reach such an agreement. Their reward to Israel for such a self-interested agreement would be the normalization of Israel’s relations with all the Arab countries including Saudi Arabia. This is a major gesture for the Saudis to have made. They neither asked for nor have they received any quid pro quo for it.

Nobody in the region outside Israel wants more “peace process;” they want an actual peace. So I think it’s a basic misreading of Arab sentiment and the Saudi position to presume that somehow there are trade-offs to be done in return for some sort of Israeli inching toward a return to a “peace process.” But the possibility of such a trade-off seems to be the basic assumption in the Administration’s policy. If that was the assumption of the president’s staff and they went to Riyadh only to discover that this assumption was emphatically not shared by the Saudis, and was in fact rejected, that entirely predictable outcome would account for the reported sense on the part of some that things didn’t go well. It is not, of course, that the United States cannot or should not ask help from the Saudis on peace in the Holy Land, it is that such requests have to be realistic. They have to take account of Saudi views if they are to have any chance of success.

The Saudis, for their part, in saying that things did go well, seem to have been referring to the fact that they were impressed by the President’s sincerity and seriousness of purpose on this issue. They appear to accept that this is a man who understands the issues and is trying to find a way to deal with them. However, until the United States persuades Israel to accept and begin implementing the framework of peace — the United Nations Security Council Resolutions, the “road map” and other agreements which call for Israel’s acceptance — until that moment I don’t think there’s any prospect of a quid pro quo from the Arabs.

So you have a difference of opinion. The American side is thinking that any gesture by Israel, of any kind, should be paid for with some gesture from the Arabs. You have the Arabs saying no, we’ve made it clear that we’re not paying anything until something concrete happens.

SUSRIS: How do you account for the variance between what the Administration thought it could achieve in Riyadh – if one were to accept the premise of “The Cable” report – and what the sentiment was in the Kingdom toward a reciprocal gesture.

Freeman: There are two broad issues. First, there’s the question that many people have asked, “Can the same old people produce a new policy?” What you have is an amazing amount of continuity on this issue from one Administration to another in terms of people who are dealing with it. Dennis Ross has emerged as a symbol of this for all concerned.

Second there is frankly an issue of objectivity and effectiveness. Can a group of people, virtually all of whom have close personal ties to Israel and much empathy for the Israeli point of view but no such experience, ties, or feeling for the Arab world, can they accurately predict or gauge the political requirements of the Arab sides to this dispute as they do for the Israeli side? The evidence over the past twenty years is no, they cannot. That is to my mind part of the reason for the failure of the second Camp David process. The Bush Administration didn’t even try until the very end and then it did so in a way that was almost farcically unrealistic.

We now seem to have another American diplomatic effort essentially focused on Israeli politics, and helping the Israelis make decisions that they ought to be able to make on their own, if they are really interested in achieving acceptance in the region. Acceptance is, of course, the issue. The State of Israel cannot presume that people in the region will accept or endorse its right to exist until they see that its existence is compatible with the cause of justice and consistent with their own interests.

Israel has certainly not recently been prepared to do anything to end that lack of acceptance by its neighbors. But Israel absolutely requires such acceptance to guarantee its existence as a state in the Middle East over the long term. So this is a major problem. It is pretty clear that the present government of Israel believes it doesn’t need political acceptance from its Arab neighbors because it has the drop on them — military superiority — and a continuing blank check from the United States. So, in its view, it doesn’t really have to compromise on the issue of a Palestinian state.

I would say the Netanyahu government has not just zero credibility on this in the region and more broadly in the international community, but it has actually less than zero credibility. That’s because almost everybody believes it is acting insincerely and in a deceptive fashion. So in this context to ask the Arabs to do something for Israel just seems quite unrealistic.

SUSRIS: What role can the Saudis and other Arab leaders play to make progress?

Freeman: It isn’t a quid pro quo for minor gestures by Israel. The real question is this. Are there measures that the Arabs can take that would be helpful in terms of rebuilding some capacity on the Palestinian side? The Palestinians are disunited. There is no longer an effective Palestinian national movement. Part of Palestine, Gaza, is ruled by an electorally endorsed movement which has, however, been rejected as an interlocutor by Israel. The other part of Palestine, the West Bank, is ruled by people with little or no credible political support, who lost an election, and who are increasingly seen as collaborators in the Israeli occupation.

The terms under which Israel seems to be willing to deal with the Arabs over whom it rules resemble those of a jailer dealing with prisoners more than they do a respectful dialogue between equal parties. This is a very bad context in which to ask others to come forward and do things helpful to Israel.

The question then is, what can one do to strengthen the hand of the prisoners — to follow that analogy — to give them both a reason to bargain more effectively and sincerely and to keep whatever bargains they strike with their jailer? And that is something that the Arabs might be asked to address to promote the prospect of peace.

In fact the Arabs, including Saudi Arabia, are afraid of Hamas — don’t like it — and they are not impressed by Fatah and are not convinced that there is now anyone with the ability to make a deal on behalf of Palestinians that they would seriously keep. If the Arabs really want peace, they will have to address these issues, not leave them to Israel or the United States.

I come back to the thought that if you’re going to persuade people to do things you want them to do, as we know and as we in fact do when we are dealing with the Israelis, you have to understand their hopes and fears and their attitudes and beliefs and convictions. And you have to craft something that deals with those political realities. We don’t seem to be capable of doing that with the Arab side. That’s reflected, as I said, in the fact that almost no one involved with this really has a strong set of ties to the Arabs or any empathy for their position.

The Obama Administration so far hasn’t changed that.

SUSRIS: Among the points made in The Cable report we’ve been discussing was an observation of David Markovsky, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. He called Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s major address on U.S. foreign policy this month a recalibration of the Administration’s approach and that Obama has expectations on both sides. What do you make of this position, as assessed by WINEP’s Markovsky, that was put forward subsequent to Obama’s hopes of a quid pro quo reportedly being rebuffed in Riyadh?

Freeman: I don’t know whether the King had a tirade or not, as was stated by a source in The Cable piece, but I think the Arab perception is that interaction between the sides in the Holy Land resembles a dialogue between a jail keeper and his inmates; it’s very one sided, and rather arbitrary and capricious on the Israeli side. On the Palestinian side it’s not unified or authoritative. If that’s the perception then it’s hardly surprising that a proposal that the Arabs should reciprocate some slight correction of misbehavior on the part of the jail keeper with a gesture of their own would draw an angry response.

SUSRIS: We talked with Georgetown Professor Jean-Francois Seznec before Obama’s June visit to Riyadh about the relationship between President and King. They had previously met at the G-20 meeting in April. He thought they showed good chemistry, that they have a similar philosophy in dealing with people – inclusiveness – and an understanding of other cultures and religions, that they have mutual respect. What are your impressions of the relationship between President Obama and King Abdullah?

Freeman: Well, I think it’s actually pretty good for the reasons you state.

Let me add something more about the reporting on the Riyadh meeting. Let’s not forget that this kind of story should be suspected to have a political motivation. It’s clearly in the interest of the supporters of the Netanyahu government, or the attitude that it embodies, to demonstrate that it’s not worth working with the Saudis. It’s misguided and possibly injurious to do so, in their view. So why bother?

That’s accompanied by the broader notion that there’s no reason to pay attention to Arab opinion because the Arabs are unhelpful or they have a bad attitude or whatever. So it seems to me very likely that all of this was a story line contrived for effect and that it was intended precisely to undermine the Administration’s effort to persuade Israel to address the issue of, the first step, of settlement expansion. What The Cable reported was in fact another aspect of the effort that was reflected in Ehud Olmert’s op-ed in the Washington Post – “stop bothering us with this issue.” [“How to Achieve a Lasting Peace - Stop Focusing on the Settlements”]

The issue is pretty central because if you accept the position of Prime Minister Netanyahu, who insists that Jerusalem is not on the table and that there’s no reason not to expand settlements elsewhere, then you clearly have nowhere to go in your diplomacy.

So I think this was part of a concerted effort to discredit the Obama diplomacy and I think it’s coming from people in his own Administration as well as from people associated with AIPAC, like WINEP.

I was really struck by something in “The Cable” posting. I had responded that it wasn’t surprising the Saudis — given that they had made an offer in the form of a bonus — were not prepared to haggle over the terms of the bonus when, in their view, there had been no step whatsoever to create the conditions in which the bonus would have to be awarded. An anonymous source was quoted as responding to this point by saying that we certainly don’t need to accept the Saudi position on that, we should just keep haggling. Of course we don’t have to accept the Saudi position but we cannot simply ignore it in formulating our own. It appears that we have a set of presumptions on which we are going to act regardless of whether they are realistic. That is, not surprisingly, a formula for accomplishing nothing.

The same people who dismiss the relevance of the Saudi position argue, in the case of Israel, that we have to start with Israeli positions and work backwards. There’s something to that but we don’t start with the Arab position and work backwards. This reflects the problem I was talking about, that is the lack of empathy, of real expertise on the Arab world or Saudi Arabia in particular, in official Washington. It reflects the essential one-sidedness of U.S. policy.

I don’t think the President is one-sided. At Cairo he expressed a balanced view and made it clear that he would like to do something that is really good for both Israel and the Arabs. I just don’t think he’s getting a lot of effective support for the tactics of dealing with the Arabs from his own subordinates.

SUSRIS: Any last thoughts on these issues.

Freeman: What I found of interest in The Cable piece was not so much the views that it reported, which I think, indeed, are held. It was the glimpse it gave of the more general effort to discredit Obama’s diplomacy on the Israeli-Palestinian issue and to cause the administration to end the pressure it has begun to put on Israel to address the longstanding issue of the settlements.

So I think the complaints about Saudi Arabia are part of a wider campaign and need to be seen in that context. To my mind, this is not really a bilateral issue between the United States and Saudi Arabia.

About The Honorable Chas W. Freeman, Jr.

Ambassador Freeman was Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs from 1993-94, earning the highest public service awards of the Department of Defense for his roles in designing a NATO-centered post-Cold War European security system and in reestablishing defense and military relations with China. He served as U. S. Ambassador to Saudi Arabia (during operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm). He was Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs during the historic U.S. mediation of Namibian independence from South Africa and Cuban troop withdrawal from Angola.

Chas Freeman served as Deputy Chief of Mission and Chargé d’Affaires in the American embassies at both Bangkok (1984-1986) and Beijing (1981-1984). He was Director for Chinese Affairs at the U.S. Department of State from 1979-1981. He was the principal American interpreter during the late President Nixon’s path-breaking visit to China in 1972. In addition to his Middle Eastern, African, East Asian and European diplomatic experience, he served in India.

Ambassador Freeman earned a certificate in Latin American studies from the National Autonomous University of Mexico, certificates in both the national and Taiwan dialects of Chinese from the former Foreign Service Institute field school in Taiwan, a BA magna cum laude from Yale University and a JD from the Harvard Law School. He is the recipient of numerous high honors and awards. He is the author of The Diplomat’s Dictionary (Revised Edition) and Arts of Power, both published by the United States Institute of Peace in 1997, and a sought-after speaker on a wide variety of foreign policy issues. Ambassador Freeman is Chairman of the Board of Projects International, Inc., a Washington-based business development firm that specializes in arranging international joint ventures, acquisitions, and other business operations for its American and foreign clients.

Current Affiliations

1995 – Present Chairman, Projects International, Inc.
1995 – Present Executive Committee, Atlantic Council of the United States
1995 – Present Board of Directors, American Academy of Diplomacy
2003 – Present Chairman, Committee for the Republic
2004 – Present International Advisory Board, China National Offshore Oil Company, Ltd.
2006 – Present Board of Overseers, Roger Williams University
2009 – Present Advisory Board, Center for Security Studies, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Editor’s Note:

As the post-presidential election strife and government crackdown in Iran continue through a second week we took a look at the reaction to and impact of the turmoil on Saudi and American interests in the Gulf. We turned to Dr. Jon Alterman, Director of the Middle East Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C. for his perspectives. Here for your consideration is the SUSRIS exclusive interview conducted by phone with Dr. Alterman on June 23, 2009. We invite your attention to the comprehensive bank of links covering US-Saudi-Iranian issues that follows the interview.

Quiet in the Kingdom, Reacting to Turmoil in Iran
A Conversation with Jon Alterman

SUSRIS: Thank you for taking time to share your thoughts on how the post-election developments in Iran might be seen through the lenses of Saudis and Americans who are focused on regional security challenges.

Let’s start with the Saudi and American approaches to Iran in recent years. Both have been nervous over Iranian expansion of influence, probably best characterized by Jordan’s King Adullah in 2004 as a “Shia crescent” over the region and bolstered during the summer of 2006 conflict between Israel and Hizballah in Lebanon. In the latter example the Kingdom labeled Hizballah’s backers – among them Iran – as embarking on “miscalculated adventures.”

Since then we have seen the Iranian nuclear program take center stage among the issues of concern to American and Saudi policymakers. At first Saudis expressed unease about the United States threats to use military means to inhibit development of an Iranian nuclear capability with potential consequences for America’s Gulf allies. Since Barack Obama was elected president – having campaigned on the promise to engage in dialogue with America’s adversaries – there have been reports that Gulf Arab leaders worried Washington would reach a deal with Tehran without regard to their interests.

How do you see this background shaping reactions to the current developments in Iran?

ALTERMAN: There’s an underlying difference in how Iran is perceived by Saudis and Americans. The Saudis, and many of their Arab allies in the Gulf, see Iran as a long-term threat, regardless of who’s in power in Tehran. This isn’t about the Islamic Republic. It’s about traditional Persian ambitions, as they see it, on the southern shores of the Gulf.

By contrast the United States continues to try to fix its relationship with Iran. The Americans have the sense that this is a solvable problem if the United States and its allies are only able to do the right thing. But many of Iran’s neighbors don’t see this as solvable — it’s a problem that needs to be managed. So between the Gulf Arab desire to manage the problem and the American impatience to solve it, there are sometimes tensions between the two sides.

SUSRIS: Are Saudis and others in the Arab Gulf thinking strategically and the Americans are not?

ALTERMAN: Well, Americans are thinking strategically too, but there’s an optimism that problems can be solved and put behind our country. I think a Gulf Arab conclusion is that the problems, the threats they face from Iran, aren’t about the Shah, they’re not about Ayatollah Khomenei, they’re not about Mohammad Khatami or Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. They’re about the traditional imperial ambition emanating from Tehran.

The view of many in the Gulf is that the United States may play a more prominent role in the Gulf or a less prominent role in the Gulf, but whatever happens, the Iranians will still be there.

SUSRIS: In the period since the Iranian presidential election on June 15 what are the issues you think have to be on the minds of the leadership in Riyadh as they look across the Gulf and see the situation unfolding?

ALTERMAN: Well as I said, there’s not a sense that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is the core of Gulf insecurity so the demise of Ahmadinejad wouldn’t resolve Saudi fears about Iranian ambitions. Certainly the prospect of instability in Iran is worrying. I don’t think there’s the concern about a contagion in Iranian politics, that people taking to the streets in Iran is going to create political instability in Saudi Arabia. The politics have been so different, are so different, and will be so different. It’s an apples and oranges comparison.

SUSRIS: Setting aside Iranian personalities what would be the view from Riyadh in terms of the instability as a plus or minus – questions about the stability of the regime in Tehran, divisions among the leadership?

ALTERMAN: It is more likely that you’ll see divisions in the Iranian clerical establishment rather than its collapse. I would imagine the situation will make the Saudis especially cautious to ensure that the establishment, the Saudi religious establishment, stays on the same page. But I think the Saudis are generally cautious about that anyway.

SUSRIS: Will it be more difficult from the Saudi perspective to be able to resolve some of the pressing issues, especially the nuclear issue, and to deal with Iran, to deal with a regime that now may not be as unified or one that is not speaking with one certain voice or has difficulties charting the path ahead?

ALTERMAN: I think at the end of the day, Iran will have a more unified leadership, and that end of the day is not going to be a year from now, it’s going to be several months from now. And I don’t see the nuclear issue coming to a head before that.

SUSRIS: How might Saudi Arabia see the internal disruptions in Iran influencing their domestic situation?

ALTERMAN: Iranian politics are just really different from Saudi politics, and they have been and will be. The way Iranians talk about politics is entirely different from the way the Saudis do. So I don’t think there’s any sort of imminent contagion effect or domino effect or anything else. Saudi Arabia has a distinctive culture. Iran has a distinctive culture. And they’re extraordinarily different.

SUSRIS: Why do you think there hasn’t been very much discussion of the events in Iran in Saudi media and elsewhere?

ALTERMAN: The Saudi press has often been cautious about things with very uncertain outcomes. I don’t think this is out of fear. Saudi Arabia’s capacity to shape the threats around it is less than Saudi Arabia often likes. And until they know which way things are going, on a whole range of questions, you’ll see the Saudi press will be extraordinarily quiet.

SUSRIS: What other consequences might there be, especially regarding the Sunni-Shia issue within the Kingdom?

ALTERMAN: It really depends on where the dust settles both in terms of the political leadership and the clerical leadership. The response to Ahmadinejad has often been to fear him, but try to draw him in. Whether Ahmadinejad would pursue the same strategy towards the Gulf and whether the Gulf States would pursue the same strategy towards him when all the dust settles is unclear.

Mousavi ran on a platform of reducing Iran’s tensions with the world. In the event you see a different leadership, Mousavi or somebody else – someone who’s determined to improve the relationship with its neighbors – it could mean a reduction in tensions, a reduction in the sort of threat of instability that many of the Gulf States feel. It requires a shift in the Iranian strategy. That is one potential outcome of what’s happening, but it’s not a certainty at all. And it doesn’t require a change in the Iranian leadership.

SUSRIS: Can you comment on some of the other regional challenges for Saudi Arabia and the United States posed by Iran, such as support to Hezbollah and Hamas?

ALTERMAN: It’s not clear whether the conflict will leave Ahmadinejad more isolated and determined, or whether he will feel more self-confident. All these things are still playing out. The key issue, it seems to me, is not what’s happening on the streets, but what’s happening in places like the Assembly of Experts – places where we have almost no insight. That’s the real threat. Not that there’s going to be, at least I don’t think, that there will be a revolution in Iran, but the clerical leadership could split in a significant way, which could result in changes to Iranian strategy.

SUSRIS: Any final thoughts on the implications of the situation in Iran on U.S. and Saudi relationships, and the regional challenges?

ALTERMAN: The Saudis must feel reassured that the United States has been more measured, has been more cautious, and has been more modest about its capacity to shape what’s happening on the ground. That’s often the way Saudis feel about global affairs, and I think that they feel they now have a U.S. government that thinks more in line with them.

They don’t want the United States to be impulsive, but they also don’t want the United States to be passive. In my conversations with Arabs in the Gulf I’ve found that they are happy with the tone of the Obama Administration, they just want to make sure that there’s some muscle behind it.

My sense is that for the most part, the Obama Administration, to them, has been playing this well, but there may come a time when they hope that the Administration will be more active.

SUSRIS: Thank you for sharing your perspective on these important events.

About Jon Alterman

Jon Alterman is director and senior fellow of the CSIS Middle East Program. Prior to joining CSIS, he served as a member of the Policy Planning Staff at the U.S. Department of State and as a special assistant to the assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs. He served as an expert adviser to the Iraq Study Group (also known as the Baker-Hamilton Commission) and is a professorial lecturer at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.

Before entering government, he was a scholar at the U.S. Institute of Peace and at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. From 1993 to 1997, Alterman was an award-winning teacher at Harvard University, where he received his Ph.D. in history. He also worked as a legislative aide to Senator Daniel P. Moynihan (D-NY), responsible for foreign policy and defense. Alterman has lectured in more than 20 countries on subjects related to the Middle East and U.S. policy toward the region.

He is the author or coauthor of three books on the Middle East and the editor of a fourth. In addition to his academic work, he is a frequent commentator in print, on radio, and on television. His opinion pieces have appeared in the Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, Asharq al-Awsat, and other major publications. He is a member of the editorial boards of the Middle East Journal and Transnational Broadcasting Studies and is a former International Affairs Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.

CSIS Profile – Jon B. Alterman

Editor’s Note:

President Barack Obama arrives today for his first official visit to Saudi Arabia with a very full plate of bilateral and regional issues to discuss with King Abdullah. To help us set the scene we talked with Jean-Francois Seznec, a Visiting Professor at Georgetown University. He has over 25 years experience in international finance and banking, including a decade in the Gulf. He regularly shares his expertise on Middle East affairs through numerous articles and television and radio appearances, and his earlier SUSRIS interviews. We are pleased that we were able to talk with Professor Seznec by phone from his Maryland home on May 31, 2009, to share his expertise with you and wish to thank him for his time.

President Obama’s Visit to the Kingdom – Setting the Scene:
A Conversation with Jean-Francois Seznec

SUSRIS: Thank you for taking time to share your insights today on the upcoming visit of President Obama to Saudi Arabia. Before we get to the issues that will likely be on the table what do you make of the fact that the Riyadh leg of the President’s six-day, four-nation trip was added on just last week?

Jean-Francois Seznec: The relationship between the United States and Saudi Arabia is very important and President Obama couldn’t visit the region without including the Kingdom on the itinerary. I am a little surprised that a visit to Saudi Arabia wasn’t announced until the last days before the trip. The Saudis are key to so many issues that Washington has to tackle.

I would say the top two issues for President Obama and King Abdullah are Iran and Middle East peace, not in any particular order, as well as any number of other regional problems.

Among the questions on Iran are whether to impose more sanctions on Iran if Iran decides not to grab the hand that’s being extended so to speak. The Americans probably wants to discuss the Saudis’ views on the possible outcomes of the Iranian elections. There’s a lot they want to work through here.

Of course there’s the recent visits of Prime Minister Netanyahu, King Abdullah of Jordan and the President of the Palestinian Authority to Washington. They would like to get full support and really understand what the Saudis position is on these issues.

SUSRIS: Let me ask you about the first part, the timing of the Riyadh visit. So you think it occurred to the U.S. side in the eleventh hour that for diplomatic purposes they had to stop first in Saudi Arabia before going to Egypt?

Seznec: Frankly, even though I’m a supporter of Obama and his Administration in general I’m not impressed with how they have handled the Saudis so far. They have not named an ambassador to Saudi Arabia yet and that’s a very major, a very important post for the United States. Saudi Arabia is going to play a key role in negotiations with Syria, the negotiations on Lebanon, the negotiations with Israel and the Palestinians and the negotiations with Iran.

So the fact that we have not put enough emphasis on Saudi Arabia shows. I think that they realized, “Whoops, we really must make an effort to show that we care and the President must go to Riyadh and not just Egypt.” So yes, I think it was a last minute decision suggesting that perhaps the Administration is not paying enough attention.

SUSRIS: Someone dropped the ball?

Seznec: Yep. They have. Why don’t we have an ambassador yet? It’s been more than four months since they took office.

SUSRIS: Ambassador Ford Fraker, appointed during the Bush Administration, stayed on the job until April but now he’s back in the private sector.

Seznec: Well, that’s right. I spoke with him not too long ago. He loved the job but you can’t blame him. It’s not his government, not his Administration. And he’s been there for a while. He’s done a great job. The Administration needs to put a professional diplomat there who is close to the President and who will be able to talk to the Saudis and they have not done that yet.

SUSRIS: Your top two picks for the visit agenda are on most people’s lists: the Middle East peace process and Iran. The Obama-Netanyahu meeting in Washington last month will certainly be important. What’s the likely conversation between President Obama and King Abdullah on how Washington sees the road ahead for Middle East peace and Saudi Arabia.

Seznec: I think the Saudis will congratulate Obama for putting a some pressure on Israel on the settlements. They will complain, however, that the pressure should be a lot heavier. At this point the United States has asked that the settlements be stopped. Hillary Clinton made a very strong statement to that effect. The President has made some strong statements but they have not put real pressure on Israel to act. They probably want the U.S. to demand an immediate stop to all settlements. And that may happen.

One of the issues I believe the Administration will push very hard is the question of Israeli possession of nuclear weapons because that’s linked to Iran as well. If I may jump a little ahead of your question, I think one of the key issues the Saudis want to push these days is the denuclearization of the region to include Iran as well as Israel. Even though they are very worried about Iran becoming a nuclear power they understand that the proliferation challenges will happen over and over again until Israel agrees to stop its nuclear activity.

I have heard from many Saudis that they want the U.S. push for Israel to open up its books, so to speak, to open up its nuclear program and little by little dismantle it. They say that’s the only way you can get Iran to stop developing as a nuclear power. I think the President will get an earful on that.

SUSRIS: Former Saudi Ambassador to the United States Prince Turki Al Faisal has brought up the question of Israel’s nuclear weapons program at a number of his speaking engagements in the States.

Seznec: Yes, Prince Turki knows exactly what is being said in Riyadh. He is one of the experts in these matters. I think we have to listen to him. I think he represents the views of the top leadership in Saudi Arabia today.

SUSRIS: Let’s refocus on Middle East peace. There are other components besides the settlements. The Arab Peace Initiative has been talked about more in the past six months than it had been in the previous six years.

Seznec: Yes, that’s right. Since that’s the brainchild of King Abdullah they are going to push it. As Prince Turki has mentioned is is the view in Saudi Arabia that we have to take advantage of this plan while it’s still on the table and it’s not going to be available forever. People could start losing patience because it is a fair plan –it goes back to the 1967 borders, recognizes Israel fully, etcetera, etcetera.

The Saudis will probably push very hard on the plan and I think they see that President Obama has been listening to the plan to a certain extent. They will congratulate him for listening but they will also push him pretty hard to have the Arab Peace Initiative implemented as soon as possible.

SUSRIS: New governments in Israel and the United States are settling in after a period of marking time in the peace process. Given the new players, how optimistic should we be that there will be progress? Is energy being added to the process because of the Iranian challenges? Could concern about Iran force progress — Saudi Arabia pushing the Palestinians and the United States pushing Israel?

Seznec: That certainly is the optimist’s view and I would hope that’s the case. But I’m not so sure that the Israelis will let themselves be pushed easily. They may start putting an enormous amount of pressure on Congress to get their way, so I’m not sure that pushing Israel is going to be successful. The Obama Administration is certainly putting more pressure on and will probably keep it up. Will it be successful? I don’t know.

SUSRIS: You already touched on Iran – one other major issue on the table for President Obama and King Abdullah. There have been discussions lately about the need for the U.S. to reassure the Saudis and others in the Gulf that the United States would not reach a deal with Iran at their expense.

Seznec: I don’t think the Saudis are too worried about that right now. They are not half as worried about Iran as we think they are. We like to think they are worried because we like to think of Saudi Arabia as 100 percent behind us on these issues.

Saudi Arabia sees Iran as having major economic problems. They see they cannot meet their budget. That even $70 oil is killing them. So while they don’t want to see Iran become like North Korea they are not so worried. Iran is not scaring the Saudis as much as we would like to think.

SUSRIS: Saudi Arabia has been concerned about expanding Iranian influence in the region and seemed to want the United States to do something about it, but on the other hand they didn’t want the U.S. to be too forceful about it.

Seznec: That’s right. They are worried that if force was used it would spill over. Everyone is worried that the Iranians would pull the strings among the Shia populations throughout the Gulf. That may or may not be true but everyone is worried about it. That’s the problem.

On the other hand, as I mentioned, I think the Saudis have the view that military action is not necessary that the economic pressure will be Iran’s undoing. They are hurting themselves nicely, thank you very much.

SUSRIS: President Obama during his meeting with Prime Minister Netanyahu last month, said that by the end of the year the United States would know whether or not Iran had rejected the hand that had been extended. There were no explicit timelines or actions discussed but actions beyond talking were implied. The reaction from Saudi Arabia to the discussions about Iran has been muted. What do you expect we will see from Riyadh after receiving information from President Obama – engagement or watchful waiting?

Seznec: I’m not sure they will be engaged. I think they will sit tight and wait and pray that we don’t do anything stupid in the near future. They will hope for another president in Iran, which may or may not happen, and that the economic situation collapses totally. That doesn’t mean there would be a change of regime but that would make life for the regime much more difficult.

So I think that’s the approach the Saudis will take. They don’t mind the U.S. putting pressure on Iran as long as that does not involve the Saudis directly. This way the Iranians continue to get hurt while the Saudis continue to develop. Every day that passes allows Saudi Arabia to be much more further ahead as far as wealth and their economy compared to Iran.

As far as the U.S. talking with Iran the economic situation is a key factor. Iran is really pretty desperate right now but it is playing as if it were rich and healthy and active. But in fact they are really on the brink of bankruptcy but are playing brinksmanship.

SUSRIS: Let’s tick down the list of other challenges for President Obama and King Abdullah to consider. Pakistan, Lebanon, Syria. Where should we start?

Seznec: One thing I’d like to know is what do the Saudis feel about Pakistan’s major attack on the Taleban. The Saudis at one point were trying to bring together the more moderate Taleban and the Pakistanis and Afghanis to create a modus vivendi in the region. That is not going to happen now that the Pakistanis have really declared war on the Taleban.

It would be interesting to know how this is viewed from the Saudi side. Do they support it or resent it. My gut feeling is that the Saudis supports the Pakistani military because there are so many links between the Saudi military and the Pakistani military but it’s hard to be sure of how that question would be answered.

On Syria we have to see what’s going to happen with the Hariri issue. That’s still not resolved. There are lots of rumors – that it was not the Syrians who did it that it was really the Iranians through Hizballah. That talk comes in at a convenient time before the elections in Lebanon. However, the Saudis would very much like to make up with Syria. It would be helpful to push Syria into negotiations with the Israelis — recovering the Golan Heights and everything else will follow suit, moving in the right direction.

SUSRIS: Other issues on the table?

Seznec: There’s an important financial issue of interest to the Obama Administration. I think the U.S. will ask the Saudis to maintain their $500 billion in reserves, in Treasury bills, and not switch them to other currencies or reinvest it in Saudi Arabia. We’re pretty desperate in funding our various activities – saving the banks, and whatnot in this country. So the Saudi reserves are of great importance to the U.S. right now. There might be some exchanges on that issue.

SUSRIS: The conventional wisdom last fall was that Saudi Arabians liked the Bush Administration and they would like to see the same party stay in power. They now have Obama to deal with. King Abdullah and President Obama, met at the G-20 meeting in April. The two men will meet again at the King’s farm outside Riyadh. What are the personal dynamics they might find appealing or curious about teach other? Any observations?

Seznec: It’s very interesting. This 85-year-old man and this young president have, in a way, the same philosophy about life. They are very inclusive in their approach to people. They know that if you do not include people and if you do not show an understanding of other cultures and other religions things can go very badly. I think they will respect that in each other.

The Saudis did not have that in Bush and I think the King sees Obama as a very profound man. I think they will like that very much. I think the relationship will be more than positive. It will be more like father to son, it seems to me.

SUSRIS: President Bush and King Abdullah appeared to get along judging from outward appearances at the two Crawford meetings and Bush’s two visits to the Kingdom last year. Do you think that was, on Bush’s part, superficial?

Seznec: I think it was also superficial on the King’s part. The King needed some things at that time. He needed the President’s support for WTO which was vital to the Saudis and he was willing to play the game. The King is very good at playing the diplomatic game of making people feel appreciated. I think with Obama he will be much more genuine.

SUSRIS: Cairo is the second stop for President Obama and there he will be delivering a major address to the Muslim world. What are your thoughts about Obama’s task?

Seznec. It will be very interesting to see how he presents his views. A likely theme is that, of course, we are all brothers. Every family has the same wishes for their children. We must learn to work together. We have to listen to each other. We must have respect for each other.

It will be very interesting to see how he presents this without apologizing, to present an American point of view which has so much good to offer and without being too demanding.

President Obama is very good at these kind of speeches. I hope it is translated well for the rest of the world. I am sure they will listen very intently on what he has to say.

I’m sure he will put some pressure on Israel in the speech to show that he understands the concerns of the Arab masses. I think it will be a very exciting speech to hear and it will be very interesting how many Arabs will really understand it, when it’s translated to the Arab people whether they will understand it the way we will.

SUSRIS: Thank you very much for sharing your perspective on this important visit.

About Jean-François Seznec

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 is focusing on the industrialization of the Gulf and in particular the growth of the petrochemical industry. He holds a MA from Columbia University [1973], a MA and his Ph.D. from Yale University [1994]. He has published and lectured extensively and is interviewed regularly on national TV, radio and newspapers, as well as by the foreign media.

Dr. Seznec has 25 years experience in international banking and finance of which ten years were spent in the Middle East, including six years in Bahrain as a banker. Dr. Seznec is a founding member and Managing Partner of the Lafayette Group LLC, a US based private investment company. He uses his knowledge of business in the Middle East and the United States to further his analysis of the Arab-Persian Gulf.