U.S.-Saudi Arabia - Sen Chuck Hagel - Conference

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ITEM OF INTEREST
May 8, 2009

U.S.-Saudi Relations in a World Without Equilibrium
Conference Transcripts -- Session 1
Senator Chuck Hagel

Editor's Note:

Last week a major forum addressing the state of and prospects for the relationship between the United States and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia was convened in Washington by the New America Foundation (NAF) and the Committee for International Trade (CIT) of the Saudi Chambers of Commerce and Industry. Distinguished speakers spent the day providing perspectives and insights on what the relationship should look like, how economics was shaping the national security picture vis a vis the relationship, the challenges for America in the region and how the perspective on these challenges look from the Saudi Arabian point of view.

Today we are pleased to provide the transcripts from the first session, "A Forward Projection of What the Saudi-U.S. Relationship Should Look Like and Needs to Achieve." Among the featured speakers was former U.S. Senator Chuck Hagel, Chairman of the Atlantic Council of the United States and Distinguished Professor in the Practice of National Governance, Georgetown University.

Separate emails will provide each panelist's remarks and the question and answer period transcript. Transcripts for the remaining panels and luncheon remarks will be provided over the next few days. You can find all of the conference materials and related links at a new SUSRIS Special Section. [ "U.S.-Saudi Relations in a World Without Equilibrium" - Conference Special Section ]

Video MP3

U.S.-Saudi Relations in a World Without Equilibrium
Conference Transcripts -- Session 1
Senator Chuck Hagel
Former United States Senator; Distinguished Professor in the Practice of National Governance, Georgetown University; Chairman, Atlantic Council of the United States

[Senator Hagel] Good morning. Thank you for attending and your continued attention and leadership to the great issues of our time. I also want to note those who are on the stage this morning and have been introduced. It's obvious that I am the weak link in the group this morning, but I acknowledge that. I wanted to thank them for their continued leadership at a very critical time in our world. And to so many of you in the audience who have devoted much of your lives to, not just the peace process in the Middle East, but to public service. We have a number of ambassadors here with us this morning: current ambassadors, former ambassadors, many former U.S. ambassadors, some former U.S. ambassadors to Saudi Arabia and other Middle Eastern countries. To each of you, we thank you for your continued service.

I was very proud and pleased that Steve asked me to be part of this, now that I am but a mere mortal. Once again, having no standing in life, no one pays attention. I'm not sure anybody ever did. We senators think they do, and we always had access to, if nothing else, the floor of the Senate. I don't get invited often to these important events, and I appreciated noting that I have a couple of jobs. I don't have one real job that is honest work what I am doing now. The association with Georgetown is particularly important for me, although terming my new job there as a distinguished professor, in the words of one of my brothers who is a real professor, a professor of law at the University of Dayton, he believes I have set back education in America by generations.

But he is two years younger, always been quite envious of the heights that I have achieved, and I have learned to live with it, as many of you had that issue with your families. But I am very proud to be associated with Georgetown, and of course the Atlantic Council and other organizations, institutions that I am involved with.

Last important point this morning before I share some thoughts on why we are gathered here today on a very important topic. I was rejoicing this morning. I know, as many of you who follow the NFL draft.. some of you think that is beneath your status, I know, to acknowledge that, but nonetheless, I know you do follow the NFL draft. We, in Nebraska, worked our way through and maneuvered around some rather difficult times over the last few years, the Cornhuskers, and we are proud now this morning that the Washington Redskins have drafted one of our players. So there is great joy in the heartland this morning. My phone was ringing off the hook. Bouquets, champagne was being popped in Beaver Crossing, Nebraska this morning at 3:00 a.m. for Cody Glenn. That was a particularly important thing to share with you all this morning. But I am still working my way through bad habits I picked up in the Senate - being completely superfluous at important times.

As Steve recited in his opening comments, we have many of the Obama administration key foreign policy figures in the Middle East and in that region today. If nothing else points us to the seriousness of that region, then that should. We have a new administration, in office less than 100 days, but yet, this one issue of the peace process, the larger framework of all the dynamics that fit within that arc, is now in play, like we have not seen in a long time. What I mean by that is let's just, as we must always do in any review or inventory of great challenges, is let's look at the facts.

It is my opinion, and I have said so over the years, is that I think the Middle East is more dangerous today than it was five years ago or eight years ago or 10 years ago. I think it is more combustible today. I think there is far less margin of error today, for the reasons that we all accept. If we, the United States, and our allies, and especially the nations that reside in that region of the world are to be successful in moving this issue to some higher ground, a higher ground to get to the objective of some resolution of this issue, then it is going to require a new frame of reference. It is going to require what I think President Obama has been doing in his foreign policy theme the last 100 days, and that is constructing a new diplomatic platform to deal with these 21st century challenges. 20th century infrastructure is not going to work. 20th century realities are not 21st century realities, and as we examine the world with some clarity and reverse the optics, as we must do, which we often do not do when we're dealing with other countries, we understand fully that we all, six and a half billion people on the face of the Earth today, live in a global community. That global community is underpinned by a global economy. It is fueled by energy.

And every challenge America has today is global; it's international. They are not, these challenges, somehow specific to or indigenous to us, whether it's environmental issues, energy issues, terrorism, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. Look at what dominates much of the news this morning: swine flu; the possibility of a global health pandemic. These are very clear indicators that no longer can we direct foreign policy or frame foreign policy, implement foreign policy, any policy, in narrow channels. It is going to require a higher platform of understanding that the world is completely interconnected. That is going to require a much wider lens view of our relationships.

I think, and I have said for many years, I think it's going to require a new twenty-first century set of alliances that are going to be required to bring the interests of nations together, the common interests; building on those common interests, not building on our differences, to build this new array of twenty-first century coalitions of common interests.

After World War II, that's what we did. That's what Marshall, Eisenhower and Truman, Acheson, Cole and Vandenberg, came together with our partners around the world and built these new coalitions of common interest, based on common interests. We didn't define those relationships on our specific differences. We have differences. We have differences with Saudi Arabia. We have differences with a lot of countries, but we need to be far wiser in how we come at these great issues today. As powerful as America is, we can't solve one of these issues alone. We can't get close to finding a resolution by ourselves. It is folly to believe that.

And the further we find ourselves, working ourselves into cul-de-sacs that we can't get out of because we have dissipated our resources, because we have wasted our influence and our focus, because we have not prioritized on the big issues, we must get the big issues and the big relationships right.

Saudi Arabia is a big relationship. It's an important relationship. Saudi Arabia's interests are wrapped around our interests, not just in the Middle East, but surely in South Asia. We all know in this room, there is no resolution or beginning of a resolution in Afghanistan without Pakistan. In fact, the epicenter of the greatest threats in the world today are in South Asia and Central Asia. They never were in Iraq. They are not in Iraq.

We must be very careful, this administration, that they do not get further bogged down in occupying countries. And I believe now that we are bogged down in two countries, and the President is going to have to make some more difficult decisions on Afghanistan and Pakistan, it further erodes our ability to maneuver diplomatically and militarily.

And it all comes back to this larger framework and platform of a new twenty-first century understanding of the realities of the world that we live in, and then how do we move this up onto a higher ground?

Two points to this and I will then be very interested in hearing what my colleagues have to say.

This is something that can't wait. There is an immediacy to this. There is an urgency to this and the longer that the President waits before he moves, specifically on a plan for the Middle East.. ..And I would suggest, as I have before, that the 2002 Beirut Declaration that was laid down by, then the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, now the King, was a spectacular starting point. Why we walked away from that is astounding. I know, and you know, we were planning an invasion of Iraq. But that was a remarkable document for many reasons.

Taba, 2001, needs to be reviewed, but the President needs to move on this quickly.

Second, we know from history that presidents and leaders of nations, and nations, become entangled and become drug down into the underbrush by the force of events. And if you don't get out ahead of this and on top of this and move quickly on these issues and these dynamics, then the force of events will essentially strangle leadership. And partly that's not just status quo, but it's other issues as well.

So, I would conclude with this comment: I think we have a remarkable opportunity here. It won't, this opportunity, be on the table for a long, unending time. There is a confluence in the world today of events, of crises, of dynamics, that make things possible, but it's going to take American leadership, direct presidential involvement, committed leadership working with our allies, asking our allies for more help, and asking our allies to participate in something definitive.

And it's a false choice to believe that somehow we have to take the side of Israel against the Arabs, or we take the side of the Arabs against Israel. That is a false choice. We've lived with that false choice too long and it has produced a very dangerous stalemate that we need to break and get above.

Well, with that, again, I thank our panel. I thank, certainly, the two founding organizations here and appreciate an opportunity to say hello and will be glad, when it's my time, to respond to questions.

Steve Clemons: Thank you, Senator. Thanks, very much.

[Visit the SUSRIS Special Section "U.S.-Saudi Relations in a World Without Equilibrium" for the transcripts from this and other panels and additional resources.]

Session One Video

Courtesy New America Foundation

Video MP3

Speaker Biography:

Senator Chuck Hagel
Former United States Senator
Distinguished Professor in the Practice of National Governance, Georgetown University
Chairman, Atlantic Council of the United States

The Honorable Chuck Hagel is a distinguished professor at Georgetown University and the University of Nebraska at Omaha. Hagel served two terms in the United States Senate (1997-2009) representing the State of Nebraska. Hagel was a senior member of the Senate Foreign Relations; Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs; and Intelligence Committees. Hagel is the author of the recently published "America: Our Next Chapter," a straight forward examination of the current state of our nation that provides substantial proposals for the challenges of the 21st century. Prior to his election to the U.S. Senate, Hagel was president of McCarthy & Company, an investment banking firm in Omaha, Nebraska. In the mid-1980s, Hagel co-founded VANGUARD Cellular Systems, Inc., a publicly traded corporation. He is a Vietnam combat veteran and former deputy administrator of the Veterans Administration.

AGENDA

Panel I: A Forward Projection of What the Saudi-U.S. Relationship Should Look Like and Needs to Achieve

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