Editor's Note:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

One of my very most esteemed interlocutors in those days was a gentleman who had left public service at that time and gone into the private sector, thankfully briefly. Prince Turki al Faisal became a good friend and advisor in many ways during those very difficult years in which we were trying to both preserve the relationship and figure out how we jointly were going to approach the problems of the terrorist threat, the unknown situation within the Kingdom.

I certainly echo what Ford Fraker has said, that the Saudis, particularly after the bombings in Riyadh in May of 2003 and then later the attacks in Jeddah in 2004, stepped up their game in a dramatic way so that we really now have captured or killed virtually all the leadership of Al Qaeda in the Kingdom. Doesn�t mean there is not a threat. There is of course. But the vigilance that we have seen that has been dramatic and even while it is dramatically underreported in the press in the Western world.  When I had agreed to take the job as an Ambassador, which was I guess in the spring and summer in 2001, my dear law partner Jim Baker and I had a conversation. He said, �Bob, be sure that you don�t develop clientitis.� I think we as Ambassadors have all felt that warning from time to time. I think its one thing to develop a warm friendship and sense of kindred with the country in which you serve, but you�re still there to serve American interests.  One of the great pleasures now being a former Ambassador is that you can now visit the country as I do about six or seven times a year and feel warmly a part of the country, to some degree an honorary citizen in a way that you can�t do or can�t feel when you are serving in an official capacity.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I think we all would stand well to visit as often as we can, to encourage our Saudi friends to come here as often as they can. And the advice that I give to my American business clients is get your CEOs over there. You can�t expect to do business over there by telephone or by email. It�s a situation and a culture in which you need to be personally there. You need to show your interest, move your employees there, move their families there. 

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

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

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Arab-US Policymakers Conference (AUSPC 2008)

Transcription Services by Ryan & Associates

About Ambassador Robert Jordan

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Related Material:

• SUSRIS Exclusive: Focus on the Saudi-US Relationship - A Conversation with Robert Jordan - SUSRIS Interview - Nov 19, 2007
• Saudi Arabia's Accession to the WTO: Is a "Revolution" Brewing? - Robert Jordan: A Diplomat's View - SUSRIS IOI - Jan 22, 2006
• SUSRIS Exclusive: Crises and Opportunities in U.S.-Saudi Relations - Ambassador Robert Jordan - SUSRIS Interview - Dec 7, 2004
• SUSRIS Exclusive - Right Man, Right Place, Right Time�: King Abdullah�s First Year - A Conversation with Robert Jordan - SUSRIS Interview - Aug 28, 2006
• SUSRIS Exclusive - The Impact of Lebanon on US-Saudi Relations - A Conversation with Robert Jordan - SUSRIS Interview - Aug 16, 2008
• Robert Jordan's Crucible - Jim Landers - SUSRIS IOI - Sep 26, 2004