Myths
and Realities: Saudi
Arabia Re-examined
New
Republic Symposium on Public Policy
[Part 1 - Panelists' Presentations] |
|
Martin Peretz:
..Let me introduce the panel: Robert
Jordan, former U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia;
Adam Zagorin, who covers business and international
economics, presumably a lot about oil, from Time
Magazine; Jamie Gorelick, a member of the 9/11
Commission and a partner at Wilmer Cutler, and also a
former student of mine; and Faye Bowers, intelligence and
national security writer for The Christian Science
Monitor.
Ambassador Jordan, will you begin?
Robert Jordan: Any way you want. Can you hear me
from down here? I thought I'd just make this more
informal.
First, I'm really delighted to be here today. I have not
spent a lot of time talking to folks at The New
Republic, but I have admired the sincerity and the
zealousness with which they approach these topics, and I
think this is kind of a truly groundbreaking sort of
series here today.
You know, for generations, the United States' relationship
with the Saudis has been about oil and military
cooperation. It's been conducted at elite levels, and our
peoples have known very little about each other. I think
Saudis in many ways considered themselves almost adjunct
American citizens before 9/11. Thousands of them had
vacation homes in the United States. They've sent their
kids to school here. And, because they were no threat to
overstay their visas and take a job away from an American
worker, they had easy access to visas to come to the
United States.
September 11th changed all that. Because 15 of the 19
hijackers were Saudis, we began to ask uncomfortable
questions of the Saudis, and they didn't like being
treated as terrorists. We began to realize that what the
Saudis teach in their schools and preach in their mosques
is no longer an internal Saudi matter -- it's a matter of
our national security. Issues of human rights, democracy,
and countering the ideological support for terrorism took
on a new urgency.
The Saudis resented what they saw as a kind of
overreaction on our part to 9/11. They saw us as
excessively stereotyping all Arabs, especially Saudis, and
as being insensitive to Arab and Muslim suffering in the
Palestinian territories and then later in Afghanistan and
Iraq.
I think a significant milestone -- as Marty [Peretz]
alluded to -- in the relationship was the terrorist
attack on three Western housing compounds on May 12, 2003.
I was there at that time. Thirty-four people were killed,
including nine Americans. At that moment, I do believe
that the Saudi leadership realized that al Qaeda really is
intent in bringing them down first. This, I think, was
verified by the report of the 9/11 Commission. Let me
commend Jamie [Gorelick], by the way, as a representative
of the commission, for an outstanding job. I have great
respect for the work that they did and for the report they
have put out as well as the interim reports.
MR. .. : And, they might win that National Book
Award besides.
Robert
Jordan: I'm very impressed with the report.
And also, by the way, was very impressed with
the staff. I met with the staff at some length.
The professionalism and quality of the
questioning by the staff was also first class.
But, after the attack in May 2003, we saw
cooperation from the Saudis improving
dramatically. We established a Joint Terrorism
Center. We now have Americans and Saudis sitting
shoulder-to-shoulder in a secret location
viewing intelligence in real time. We have had a
number of successes in knocking out some of the
al Qaeda leadership as a consequence of this
renewed and improved effort. So, we're much
closer to being partners in the war on
terrorism. |
We
now have Americans
and Saudis sitting
shoulder-to-shoulder..
..We have had a number
of successes in knocking
out some of the al Qaeda
leadership as a
consequence..
..we're much closer to
being partners in the
war on terrorism.
|
But, I still
believe that there is a tremendous amount of work to be
done in fighting the battle against the ideological
support for terrorism that comes from radical imams and
teachers. The Saudis have been dealing with the problem,
but the inertia of a tribal society that is really,
frankly, seething with anger at the United States
handicaps our ability to promote true reform and democracy
as much as we would like. Now, the
Saudis are going to have to reform from within, and any
American kibitzing is going to have to be handled with the
utmost delicacy and generally in a more private and less
public way, or it will be the kiss of death.
But, we do have a common enemy right now -- Islamist
terrorism. This common threat gives us a great opportunity
for improvement in our relationship overtime.
So, I'll stop there and pass the torch.
Jamie Gorelick: I agree with everything that Bob
has said, and, of course, he's much more of an expert on
Saudi Arabia than I am. I'm here, I think, principally
because of the 9/11
Commission Report, but we did look at the
relationship, and we did write about the relationship. I
would just like to share a few observations with you.
First of all, for decades, the relationship has been a
central one for the United States, and the basic compact
forged by FDR and Abdul Aziz has been that we help protect
the Saudis, and they secure a supply of oil for our
partners and us. That is not a sustainable basis for a
relationship going forward we found. First of all, public
opinion in both countries is not in a good place. In this
country, we were fast to recognize that 15 of the 19
hijackers were Saudis.
| There
are few defenders of Saudi Arabia in the public
arena. That's not to say that there aren't
people who have high regard for the country, but
the public is not enamored of the Saudis, and
the same is true about us as Americans in Saudi
Arabia. We rate very poorly among the population
in Saudi Arabia -- and perhaps my three
co-panelists, who are more knowledgeable about
this, might want to address it. But, our
policies in Israel and Iraq and our perceived
hostility to Islam make it very difficult, I
think, for the royal family to move because they
have public opinion very much against us. So, we
have an interesting quandary. We have this
historical relationship, and we have mutual
antipathy among the populations. |
..we
have an interesting
quandary. We have this
historical relationship,
and we have mutual
antipathy among the
populations..
|
We were struck --
all 10 of us on the commission -- by former President
Clinton's remarks to us about Saudi Arabia. He recounted a
conversation that he had with Crown Prince Abdullah on the
margins of the World Economic Forum meeting where he said,
"You know, I have very high regard for the crown
prince. And, I said to him, you know, you should look at
where you want this -- where you want to be as a ruler of
your country in 10 years. Can you imagine yourself in the
place that you want to be on the current course that you
have set?" That was a rhetorical question because he
viewed the answer to that as obviously no. Therefore,
there is a need for reform to deal with both the violent
aspects of the culture within Saudi Arabia and externally
in the embodiment of al Qaeda, and also with the
discontent within the middle classes of people in Saudi
Arabia, who do not feel really invested in the system.
Our principal recommendation with regard to Saudi Arabia
is that we speak with candor with each other and that both
sets of governments speak with candor to their populations
and express why the relationship is important, what needs
to change, and to engage. Here we were very specific in
saying that public lambasting by the United States of the
Saudi government and vice versa is not helpful. It's
simply not helpful. Now, we can talk about specific things
that could be done, but the need for reform has always
fallen to the bottom of the bilateral talks, and I'm sure
that Bob [Jordan] can talk about this. There was always
something more pressing, whether it was basing or
something that we wanted the Saudis to do or pay for, and
reform just was number eight in the talking points. And,
you don't get to number eight, and nobody takes number
eight seriously.
We hope to do our part in clearing the air a little bit by
dealing with some of the myths. There is no getting around
the fact that 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudis, but
there is no evidence that the Saudi government had any
participation in or funded in any way the attacks of 9/11,
or for that matter al Qaeda, which is a notion that is
strongly believed within our country in numerous quarters.
However, there are many individuals within Saudi Arabia
who have funded al Qaeda and have been reliable funders of
al Qaeda, and they have funded the madrassahs, which spew
out people who have no skills and are filled with hate.
Both of these are big problems.
| Now,
as Bob said, after the attacks of 2003, the
Saudi government came face-to-face with, I
think, their own mortality. They really felt
threatened. Their attitude both in terms of
cooperation in the intelligence arena and
looking hard at what they might do changed, and
included within that were steps that they took
to try to clamp down on the funding of al Qaeda.
Now, they don't have the same kind of banking
system we have, so they have no ready regimes
for doing this. So it's harder than one might
think if one only thinks about our or other
Western financial systems. But, our [9/11
Commission] report called for the United States
to be a partner with the Saudis in moving it
toward reform and in changing the conversation
between the United States and Saudi Arabia from
just about oil and security. It has to go beyond
those two. |
..our
[9/11 Commission]
report called for the United
States to be a partner with
the Saudis in moving it
toward reform and in
changing the conversation
between the United States
and Saudi Arabia from just
about oil and security. It has
to go beyond those two.
|
I think I'll stop
there.
Adam Zagorin: I thought I would say a couple of
things about oil and then some of the structural
impediments to an improvement in the relationship, which I
think we're probably going to have to live with for quite
some time.
On the oil front, perhaps some people remember a book, the
latest expose of Mr. Woodward in which he asserted that
there was some kind of arrangement between the
administration, presumably brokered by the ambassador
here, Prince Bandar, with respect to the idea that the
Saudis would keep the oil price low and this would somehow
help the reelection of our current president. Whatever
reality that reporting may have had at the time -- various
people have denied it and so forth -- I think we can all
constitute, with a good deal of certainty, that the
relationship somehow didn't work out because the oil price
has not stayed low. Whether the predicate to that thought
impinges upon us, namely that and therefore the president
will not be reelected, I think is far from self-evident
either. But anyway, that reporting -- whatever
validity it may have had -- was certainly a major headline
when Mr. Woodward's book was published.
It's a perfect example of the kind of headline that people
around the United States can read and appreciate without
knowing anything in particular about Saudi Arabia because,
as has been pointed out by previous panelists, oil is the
thing that people think about. So then, they are invited
to entertain the possibility of this kind of collusion and
so forth, which for all I know may have occurred. I'm not
trying to pass a judgment as to whether there was some
sort of a deal or not. I feel pretty confident that the
price of oil is a lot higher right now than it was when
Mr. Woodward wrote that.
The point about Saudi Arabia's oil is that -- I forget
what the latest numbers are -- but Saudi Arabia is not the
top supplier of oil to the United States, and neither is
it the second -- maybe the third, fourth, I don't know.
[Editor's
Note: The Energy
Information Administration reported Saudi
Arabia as ranked number two behind Canada for US supplies
of crude plus refined products, and number one supplier of
crude to the United States for 2003. During 2003,
Saudi Arabia's share of U.S. crude oil imports was 17.8%
(up from 16.6% during 2002).]
But, the point
about Saudi Arabia is that since you have a global market
in petroleum, and since it's fungible, if you cut off a
major source of supply or indeed the largest possible
source of supply, in the case of Saudi Arabia, then prices
everywhere rise. Whether it's from Caracas being shipped
up here or whatever source it is, the price of oil is
going to go up. I don't know what the figures are with
respect to each of our individual allies -- or what used
to be called our allies -- but there's obviously a great
dependency globally on having a stable, secure supply of
oil, and just because the United States itself does takes
oil from many sources doesn't really undercut the
importance of Saudi Arabia in the market.
Now, the fact that prices have gone up recently, some
people have suggested that this means that OPEC is loosing
its grip or that they can't control anything. Other people
have suggested that they're quite happy to have the price
go up as long as they don't have to carry the blame for it
because they're racking it up on the cash register, so it
works for them.
I certainly think if you look at Saudi actions over the
course of this price increase that we've had recently, it
may be true that Saudi Arabia's role as the swing producer
in OPEC and as the lever and kind of arbiter of world oil
prices has been shown to be somewhat deficient during this
latest run up. On the other hand, the Saudis have taken
action to increase their supplies of oil. Therefore, one
has the potential proposition that things would be worse
had they not done so.
Finally, there are a lot of exogenous, non-Saudi factors
that are related to the price of oil -- like the price of
natural gas, and its role as a substitute for oil and
various production factors within the United States in
particular, and so forth and so on. So, it's a complex
picture. But obviously, if you've got a global market and
you've got a huge producer like Saudi Arabia, all of these
factors -- in one sense, one wants to take them into
account, but in another sense, the notion that Saudi
Arabia is not a hugely important interest of the United
States in the oil sector -- I mean, that still remains a
fact.
If they were
taken over by radical Islamic elements tomorrow, they'd
still have to sell their oil, of course. So, one could
posit to some degree that oil would be sold because the
needs of whatever successor government that there might be
-- and I certainly don't see any on the horizon -- would
include the need for oil receipts.
Now, on the structural side, we've got big visa
restrictions on this country, which are going to continue
forever. They're not specifically aimed at Saudi Arabia,
but there are many targets of these visa restrictions. I
don't see those going away. The military drawdown of the
United States in Saudi Arabia has been somewhat
significant in recent years. That has not prevented us
from using certain facilities at the Prince Sultan Air
Base and elsewhere in the Kingdom, but the presence of
foreigners generally and U.S. military in the country has
been drawn down. I don't see that changing. In fact, one
might think that it would. I think we'll have access to
the facilities probably when and if needed but the less
said about it, the better.
Exxon-Mobil and other U.S. companies recently did not get
some important contracts in Saudi Arabia. We aren't
selling them military stuff right now. That's very
visible. When Colin Powell, I believe, last visited the
Kingdom, there were some constitutional reform-type people
who -- responsible by some lights -- were not at liberty
during -- I think that they were invited into barred
spaces for a period surrounding his visit. We had a woman,
who Ambassador Jordan may know, because she worked for him
-- named Abercrombie Wynn Stanley, who tried to meet with
some people in Saudi Arabia, not Islamists, but people who
would like to see more reform and so forth. That was
criticized by the Interior Minister.
Now, we've got so many problems in this country, why are
we harping on all of this stuff in Saudi Arabia? I mean,
these things happen, but these are kind of structural
elements that I wanted to point to in the sense that I
think that they will be relatively durable. I don't see
any of these kinds of problems going away all that
quickly.
The last point is that the entire regime is bracketed by
the unresolved, and at the moment, unresolvable succession
issue. It's difficult for me to imagine that there would
be very dramatic steps in the Kingdom towards reform or
anything else, absent a resolution of the succession
issue. I don't see that happening all that quickly, and
even when it does happen because of, for example, the
death of a leading figure, which would then precipitate a
reshuffle of the responsible hierarchy, I see that process
as being slow and gradual as much else in the Kingdom has
been over the years. So, I guess we're in for a period of
more of the same where discipline and candid assessments
of our interests and that kind of thing will be required
to maintain the relationship on the best footing that can
be had under the circumstances.
| Faye
Bowers: Well, I think the other three
panelists have done a very good job of laying
out all the underlying issues of the U.S.-Saudi
relationship. I, as Marty mentioned, report on
national security issues, which is mainly the
United States' war on terror and certainly
looking at the Saudi aspects of that -- what
they do. I traveled to Saudi Arabia last
December to report and write a four-part series
on the effort Saudi Arabia is making alone both
in security and financial and other types of
reforms and what they're doing jointly with the
United States and other partners. I talked to a
broad array of people, from officials in various
levels of government to consular officers at
other embassies to a broad array of women, a
group of schoolchildren -- that was extremely
delightful -- and I even got invited by 12
conservative Wahhabis to [an informal discussion
session] one night. So, I had a really
interesting sort of overall picture of the
country presented to me. |
I
found reform was taking
place or at least a great
discussion of reform. Almost
everyone I talked to seemed
to be really excited about the
possibilities for the future.
|
Indeed, I found
reform was taking place or at least a great discussion of
reform. Almost everyone I talked to seemed to be really
excited about the possibilities for the future. They
seemed to have really bought into Saudi Arabia's efforts
to track down the terrorists and were on board with that.
I think the religious and educational reforms are another
story. That's something we would see in our country as
moving at a snail's pace. But to them, I think, it was
rather earthshaking.
So with that, I think we'll just let you get on to your
questions..
[The
question and answer segment is provided as part
two.]
Copyright �2004
by Federal News Service, Inc.
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