Saudi American Relations

SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 1, 2004 ITEM OF INTEREST

Saudi Arabia: Enemy or Friend?
35th in the Capitol Hill Conference Series on U.S. Middle East Policy
Conference Panel - Frank Anderson
Former Chief, Near East and South Asia Division, CIA

[Third in a series]

Editor's Note:

The Saudi-U.S. Relations Information Service would like to thank the Middle East Policy Council for permission to share this series with our readers. These presentations were made at the 35th Capitol Hill Conference on U.S. Middle East Policy on January 23, 2004. The conference was hosted by the Middle East Policy Council. This item provides the panel presentation of Mr. Frank Anderson, Former Chief, Near East and South Asia Division, CIA. Individual transcripts will be provided separately by email and posted on-line -- see links below.

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Middle East Policy Council
35th in the Capitol Hill Conference Series on U.S. Middle East Policy
Saudi Arabia: Enemy or Friend?

Transcript -- Frank Anderson , Former Chief, Near East and South Asia Division, CIA

CHAS. W. FREEMAN: I'd like now to invite Frank Anderson to come up and talk a little bit about the recent history of U.S.-Saudi interaction on these and related matters, with which you have great experience. And he never has any prepared text because he writes it out then force of habit from years in the CIA causes him to eat it so that no one can see it. (Laughter)

FRANK ANDERSON: Chas. spoke of recent history. The thing that struck me is how recent it all is. I've reached an interesting point in my life. I know that those who have as much grey hair as I do, and there are fewer and fewer in the room, have experienced the first time and how upsetting it is when you get a ticket from a cop that's younger than you, and then how upsetting it is when your doctor is younger than you, and for a few of us, how upsetting it is when the president of the United States is younger than you. But I am here to confess that I was born in 1942, which makes me not the oldest guy in the room but one of the oldest.

But nevertheless, those things that took place in my lifetime, as far as I'm concerned, are recent history. And one of the jolts when we, as comparatively an old nation, experience is when we realize how brand-new Saudi Arabia is. The Kingdom was born only a year before my father was born. The rulers of the Kingdom, right now, were around, alive and have memories of the period while it was still being consolidated. And it's a new place, and remarkable things have happened in a very short period of time. One of the things that has taken place over a remarkably short period of time is this American-Saudi relationship that has never, ever been one in which our interests, our cultures, our politics have really meshed. We've really been a little bit on different sides.

The Saudis at least have vacillated in the skill with which they've handled it, and it depends largely upon the personality of the Saudi ruler at any time. The beginnings of this relationship were under the founder of the Kingdom, Abul Aziz ibn Saud. Ibn Saud was a remarkable - I guess intuitive leader, and his intuition about the Americans is best described when he was asked, all right, why did you pick the Americans? They're the ones whom you've selected to be the developers of your oil fields. You gave them concessions. What's the deal? And he said, three things have led me to this, and it wasn't the oil. Saudi Arabia needs a great power partner. It needs to be in a security partnership -- a term used by Parker Hart, one of the early chiefs of mission in Saudi Arabia. We need a security partnership with a great power, and we've watched the Americans in Bahrain, and in Bahrain we found something: they were able to find oil when nobody else could. So the Americans are not just a great power but they're a competent great power. The Bahraini's are our brothers and we note that the Americans really treat them like equals. It's a stunt that the British never pulled off. And we note that. The third thing we note is that you are very far away. Saudi Arabia could have a strategic partnership that they had less fear of conquering them.

Actually, this discussion took place I think about nine years before I was born, but now it's come back to those things - as the time goes roaring through I'll try to get through 62 years of my life and Saudi Arabia's life and look at these differences.

First, real communication between Ibn Saud and President Roosevelt was interestingly - that I could find written about. The president sent a personal emissary, Harold Hoskins, speaker of Arabic, to meet with FDR in 1943, his purpose to see if Ibn Saud would meet with Chaim Weizman to discuss a mutually acceptable solution to this problem between Arabs and Jews. Ibn Saud sent back a letter that was a surprise to FDR: I won't meet with Chaim Weizmann because he tried to bribe me. (Laughter) I don't know if it was true, but what he said to Ibn Saud is that he offered me 20 million pounds, or a message was sent to me that I could have 20 million pounds if I would assist in the solution to the problem, and that moreover, it was said that you, FDR, would guarantee it. FDR sent back another message saying, well, no, I don't have that. And sitting with Hoskins, said, I think the closest thing that I can recall is that I did suggest to Weizman and to the Jewish Agency that they ought to invest in making it possible for the Arabs from whom they were purchasing land in Palestine to go and establish themselves elsewhere.

Now I've got five minutes to get through 49 years. First conflict between Ibn Saud and FDR, a totally different view on Palestine. When they met, FDR nevertheless, when Ibn Saud asked for friendship, said, I'll never do anything that will prove hostile to the Arabs, and I'll make no change in our basic policy on Palestine without full and prior consultation between both Jews and Arabs. In that context, Ibn Saud - and it wasn't just that, but Ibn Saud had earlier authorized overflights of U.S. forces, U.S. air forces, and the establishment of the Dhahran airbase, which became an issue between not just the two countries but Saudi Arabia and the rest of the area.

Roosevelt dies, Truman comes in. Truman calls together the chiefs of mission from Near East missions and says, I know we've made these promises about Palestine. Here's my problem. I have hundreds of thousands of very well financed, very interested constituents who are pushing me in one direction on Palestine, and frankly, gentlemen, I don't have any hundred thousands of Arab constituents. I'm going the other way.

Immediately thereafter - not immediately thereafter. The next Saudi message comes from Ibn Saud in a private audience in Riyadh with the minister, Chief Minister Childs, said, putting aside this painful question of Palestine with which we disagree, I have some problems and I'm looking for this partnership. I've been told that you've agreed with the British that I'm part of their sphere of influence. And how about a few arms to help us protect this trans-Arabian pipeline? The United States comes back and says, no, we're not at all interested in you being part of the British sphere of influence, but in being an independent country. And we'd like to help you with arms but we're a little concerned about any arms in the area because there happens to have been this little dispute going on in Palestine. Saudis stay on our side, are pushed aside.

An interesting thing that went - in this process is that we did commit ourselves to stand by, for serving the territorial integrity and independence of Saudi Arabia, from any threat. Well, the Saudis came to us and -- as Chas. has noted, the Buraymi Oasis is still not quite settled -- and the first issue in which they came to us and asked for defense of their territorial integrity was the Buraymi Oasis, threatened at the time by our partners, the United Kingdom. We worked very hard to explain that, now, we're ready to go to war on your behalf but not against the United Kingdom.

The relations between the two countries continued in this push. Saudis pushed for a U.S. partnership; U.S. reluctance. Low point, 1954. Faisal just called in the Americans and said, we no longer want technical assistance; we've decided not to trouble you any more. High point, after the 1956 Suez crisis the United States and Saudi Arabia quickly became close. The United States became a major supplier of military equipment and expertise to Saudi Arabia. Unfortunately, two things happened as this - no, the most important thing that happened as the two countries grew together in the 1950s was following King Abdul Aziz' death King Saud took over, who was corrupt, incompetent, mismanaged that relationship as well as he did any other, and the relationship went back down again.

The few years that King Faisal, when he was prime minister, before he was king, ran the country, there was an improvement in the relationship. Strained over Yemen, another issue in which the United States had a different agenda, there was a revolution in Yemen in 1962. The Saudis quickly entered into the fray on the side of some royalist forces, attempting a counterrevolution. The United States initially supported the Saudi position, was then forced to back off a little bit because of an attempt to have a balanced relationship with Abdel-Nasser. It cost too much in that we ended up keeping the relationship with Saudi Arabia together, but really having it being a serious issue to us until the 1967 war, which actually pulled the Egyptians out of there rather than ourselves.

Post-1967, a few good years, relatively good years, in which the Saudis in fact exploited the 1967 war to finish their problem with Abdel-Nasser, not just to get him out of Yemen but in fact to buy him off. And Faisal had turned to the United States and said, I have now accomplished the following, and that is, Abdel-Nasser owes me enough, or owes us enough that we can develop Saudi Arabia in a Saudi way without the pressure of Arab socialism or this nationalism. Disappointment on the United States' side; a great desire to use the '67 war as a crux on which to move forward to a solution of the Arab-Israeli issue. Saudi Arabia, frankly, went to the Khartoum conference that yielded, without their help - ah, there goes my numbers. I'm going nowhere on this. (Laughter.)

We've stayed on different sides. Afghanistan was one of our great points of cooperation. It worked on different sides. Both we and the Pakistanis pushed the Saudis to try and control a little more the private contributions to the mujahadeen. The Saudis in fact - I don't know how much they didn't want to; they frankly felt they couldn't. They finally went to the Pakistanis at one point and said, here's your choice: we can either cut it off or we can leave it go. The Pakistanis decided that cutting off wasn't fair.

I've disappointed everybody by only getting to Afghanistan, a place where they probably want to ask me questions. I'll deal with that in the question and answer period.

CHAS. W. FREEMAN: Thank you, Frank. Thank you very much. I think it is very useful to be reminded that on the other side in the Saudi leadership all of this is living memory. I can recall one instance, 1992 or thereabouts, where I had an instruction to persuade the minister of defense, Prince Sultan, of something. I thought it made a lot of sense and I prepared myself quite thoroughly to be as persuasive as I could be. I went in, and frankly I did a hell of a job. I persuaded myself, at least, and some of his staff. And he looked at me at the end of it and said, in effect, you know, Bob McNamara tried that on me in 1964, and I didn't buy it then and I don't buy it now.

I think it is useful to be reminded that what is ancient history to those of us who came late to Saudi Arabia is living memory for this current leadership, and I hope we can go on beyond Afghanistan in the question and answer, but I do thank you for giving us a sense of the texture of this relationship, which is very real.

You raised one question, which I will simply lay out for later discussion, by noting the centrality of the Israeli-Palestinian issue to the very beginning of U.S.-Saudi relations. You remind me that some Saudis now argue that the U.S. relationship has greatly diminished utility to Saudi Arabia because the U.S. demonstrably is no longer either willing or perhaps able to constrain Israel, and that one of the main points that the Saudis looked to in the U.S. relationship was that the U.S. would preclude Israeli aggression or other hostile activity against Saudi Arabia. Now there's a question about whether we can or would do that.

Click on a speaker's name to read a transcript of the paper that each presented at the 35th Capitol Hill Conference on U.S. Middle East Policy.

Speakers:

David Aufhauser
Former General Counsel, Department of the Treasury
Frank Anderson
Former Chief, Near East and South Asia Division, CIA
David E. Long
Retired U.S. Foreign Service Officer -- Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Morocco and Jordan
Nathaniel Kern
President, Foreign Reports, Inc.
Hussein Shobokshi
President, Shobokshi Development & Trading; Managing Director, Okaz Printing and Publishing

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Frank Anderson is senior vice president of Foreign Reports Inc., a Washington consulting firm that concentrates on international political and energy issues, especially in the Middle East region. From 1991 until the end of 1994, he was chief of the CIA's Near East and South Asia Division, having served previously as director of technical services, as chief of the Afghan task force and as chief of station in three Middle East posts.

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