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 INTERVIEW
WITH THOMAS LIPPMAN
Friday, April 29, 2005
SUSRIS:
Thank you for joining us today to talk about
the meeting between President Bush and Crown
Prince Abdullah at the Western White House in
Crawford, as well as other aspects of the Saudi
leader's US visit.
What
is your assessment of the summit?
 Mr.
Thomas Lippman: As with any meeting of this
nature we don't know what was said other than what
has been officially released. We do know they
talked for a long time and there may have been
things discussed in side meetings. Secretary Rice
was there. Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal was
there. The Saudi Commerce Minister was there.
There were a lot of things that could have been
said that we don't know about. There were
certainly enough people in the respective parties.
According to the Dallas Morning News, Abdullah's
entourage filled five airplanes. So a lot of
things could have been said that we don't know
about. But let's start with what we do know.
Based
on what I saw in Texas and in the joint
statement
this event was more important for atmospherics
than it was for substance. I say that because the
joint statement was more interesting for what it
didn't contain than for what it did in a lot of
ways.
 Yet
it was clear from Abdullah's personal performance
and from the way he was received at the ranch that
a lot of the clouds that hung over the
relationship the last time he was here have
largely dissipated. That was partly because of the
9/11 commission report, and partly because the
Americans now believe that the Saudis have cracked
down on domestic terrorism and incitement. Also
the American side understands that the oil price
increase is not Saudi Arabia's fault.
On
the personal performance side there was the fact
that Crown Prince Abdullah was willing to go into
the diner in Crawford and chat up the locals. I
was told that he did the same thing on the way
from Crawford to Dallas, visiting a 7/11 store.
Then at the business council dinner in Dallas the
Crown Prince stood in a reception line and shook
hands with about 600 people and made very gracious
remarks.
He
wasn't here as someone who was under suspicion or
was nursing a grudge or anything
like that. It seemed that a lot of the bad things
that were going on three years ago are not going
on now. Also, it's not 2004 any more. Nobody's
watching Fahrenheit 9/11 now, and John F. Kerry is
not running for President on a platform of Saudi
bashing.
So
things are much better.
SUSRIS:
What were some of the things you referred to
as not being contained in the joint statement?
Lippman:
One was the fact that the US Commission on
International Religious Freedom has been making a
lot of noise demanding the White House take
action, as required by law, to impose some sort of
sanction on Saudi Arabia on the religious freedom
issue. The deadline for the President to do that
expired on March 15 and nothing has happened.
I don't know what the White House response to that
will be. I certainly wouldn't have expected them
to do anything while the Crown Prince was in the
country.
Another
item missing from the joint statement, one that
the Americans wanted from the Crown Prince, that
they didn't get, was an immediate increase in
Saudi Arabia's cash contribution to the
Palestinian Authority. The Americans feel, I
think, that Mahmoud Abbas needs to be able to
deliver some visible benefits and some jobs in the
Palestinian territory or he risks losing the
Parliamentary elections to Hamas this spring.
SUSRIS:
What about things that weren't missing?
Lippman:
A joint
statement
is often drafted before the meeting actually takes
place. But there were some interesting things in
this one. There was the statement that the Kingdom
of Saudi Arabia recognizes the principle of
freedom and that the kingdom appreciates the
United States' historic role in working to end
colonialism and imperialism and promoting the
right of self-determination.
 I
read that as a message from Crown Prince Abdullah
to the people of Saudi Arabia and the rest of the
Muslim world saying that contrary to what Osama
Bin Laden tells you the United States is not an
imperialist power. It is an anti-imperialist power
that has worked for their benefit.
I
also thought it was important that the Kingdom
specifically signed on to the two state solution
to Palestine.
"The
United States and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
desire a just, negotiated settlement wherein two
democratic states, Israel and Palestine live side
by side in peace and security."
That
essentially means the game is over as far as the
Kingdom is concerned. The question whether Israel
has the right to exist from the Saudi perspective
is now over.
I
think that's important. It was also interesting
that in the joint statement the US went out of its
way to endorse Crown Prince Abdullah's plan, the
so-called Abdullah Peace Plan, although it did not
specifically include that as part of the roadmap
process.
SUSRIS:
How would you characterize the summit's outcome in
other areas, such as energy supplies and Saudi
Arabia's accession to the World Trade Organization?
Lippman:
The news that Saudi Arabia is going to expand,
to increase capital investment to expand its oil
production capacity -- that had been determined
previously and fully discussed by [Oil Minister]
Ali Naimi the week before.
As
for the WTO accession, the target date at the end
of 2005 for Saudi Arabia to get into the WTO was
already on the books. US trade officials briefed
Congress about that last week. There is a big
international trade meeting in Hong Kong in
December and that is the target time for Saudi
Arabia to sign the accession agreement.
I
think on balance this was one of those meetings
where the two societies are very different but
both leaders, Bush and Abdullah, were willing to
take some political heat at home to stand up for a
relationship that they believe in. You know, there
is a certain liability for Abdullah to stand up in
front of the world television cameras and say that
the United States is Saudi Arabia's friend. And I
salute Crown Prince Abdullah for doing that.
SUSRIS:
Among the outward signs of amity between the
leaders was the hand-holding when President Bush
greeted Crown Prince Abdullah at the start of the
meeting. That seemed to get most of the buzz from
the media.
Lippman:
I have to say -- if you read the transcript
of Adel al-Jubeir's meeting
with the press afterwards - it was a pretty sorry
performance by the news media. All they asked
about was the price of gasoline. If they were
prepared they would have known the answers in
advance. And the only thing they have reported on
since the meeting is the handholding. Anybody who
has ever spent three minutes reading Middle
East 101 would know about that. There has been
very little media analysis of this event.
SUSRIS:
Let's talk a little about the focus on
gasoline prices that seemed to shape the media
coverage and political commentary on the summit.
Last night Senator Dick Durbin was being
interviewed on MSNBC before President Bush's press
conference. On the topic of gasoline supplies
Durbin said Bush should have taken Abdullah into
some dark corner of the ranch, sat him down and
told him we weren't going to take it anymore. How
should people interpret those characterizations?
Lippman:
The President could have done any number of things
in the meeting and it wouldn't make a difference
in the price of gasoline.
On
the question of refining, [Oil Minister] Ali
Naimi, speaking for the government of Saudi
Arabia, has been on the record for some time as
saying that Saudi Arabia is willing to finance and
construct a major new refinery in the United
States if someone will tell them where it can be
built.
SUSRIS:
In the post-meeting
press briefing Adel Al-Jubeir
had this to say about gasoline prices and American
refining capacity:
 "We
believe that the price of crude oil does not
reflect the fundamentals of supply and demand.
There is no shortage of crude oil in the world
today. What we see is a shortage of refining
capacity, as well as shortages in infrastructures,
and so forth, that drive the price of product up.
It will not make a difference if Saudi Arabia
ships an extra million or two million barrels of
crude oil to the United States; if you cannot
refine it, it will not turn into gasoline, and
that will not turn into lower prices."
It
doesn't seem as if anything has come of the Saudi
offer to build refineries in the United States or
any other initiatives for that matter. The last
refinery built was during the Ford Administration.
Yet the Saudis get the blame for high US gas
prices.
Lippman:
I think Naimi knew when he made the refinery
offer a year ago that there wasn't going to be any
site available. That gets us to the President's
interesting comments about using abandoned
military bases as refinery sites. I don't know how
people in the refining business will react but
something might actually result from it.
I
read in the paper the other day that the US is
importing a million barrels of gasoline a day.
Putting on one of my other reporter's hats from
the days when I was covering the energy business,
its infinitely more difficult and dangerous to
transport gasoline than to transport crude oil.
Who would want to work on a gasoline tanker?
You
know the Crown Prince made the announcement at the
business dinner that they were going to have the
producer-consumer oil conference in Riyadh in
December. This is a longstanding theme of Saudi
oil policy, as you well know. It was restated by
Adel al-Jubeir in his press briefing. It is the
philosophy that the producers and consumers are in
this together; it's not us versus them. I know a
lot of people in this country find it politically
convenient not to believe that, but that has been
Saudi policy for a long time.
SUSRIS:
What other elements of the summit
joint statement
did you find noteworthy?
Lippman:
A statement that raised more questions than it
answered was, "The United States and Saudi
Arabia continue to support efforts to prevent the
spread of nuclear weapons and the technology and
material needed to develop and build nuclear
weapons. Efforts to develop and acquire nuclear
weapons run contrary to efforts to promote peace
and stability in the region."
Notice
that no country is named. You might assume that
this is about Iran. On the other hand, by not
specifically naming Iran you accommodate the long
standing Saudi position that a nuclear free Middle
East means Israel too. I think the recent security
accommodation between Saudi Arabia and Iran would
probably mean the Saudis didn't want to
specifically limit this issue to Iran. This has
room for the formulation of a nuclear-free Middle
East. Again, I think the Saudis did pretty well
with the joint statement.
SUSRIS:
Some observers were calling it a new day for
US-Saudi ties, a milestone. Will there be any
changes in the trappings of the relationship.
Lippman:
It should be reflected in an up tick in the number
of Saudi students and military officers coming
here. There's more in the joint statement on this
issue, "The United States recognizes we must
exert greater efforts to overcome obstacles facing
Saudi businessmen and students." I was
talking to a senior media person from Saudi Arabia
who told me that the last time he came to the
United States it took him seven hours to get out
of the airport.
So,
I think the world is the same today as it was last
week but we now have a clear statement from both
countries that the worst is behind us and the
partnership is important and will continue. It
needs some bolstering and we are going to do that.
We share a lot of views as to what should go on in
the region.
By
the way, the United States recognized, in the summit
statement,
that in the process of expanding individual rights
and political participation in governmental
openness, each country has to do it in its own
way. That means we are not going to start
excluding the Saudis because women can't vote. We
are not going to beat up on the Saudis on this
issue. Again in the joint statement I think Saudi
Arabia did very well.
SUSRIS:
The joint statement also called for getting more
Americans to the Kingdom to work and study. How
will that be done?
Lippman:
There have been interesting developments on
that front even before Crawford. I have been told
that for the first time the Saudis have a system
of multiple entry visas for journalists, so
somebody like Neil MacFarqhar, the [New York]
Times correspondent in the region, can go there
more or less on demand. That's new. Second, the
Saudis appear to be setting up an organized
tourism program. That would expose the country to
people who are not going there to work. I don't
have any reason to think that all those tourists
are going to be Muslims because from what I have
seen the tours don't include Mecca and Medina.
The
opening of society seems to be increasing and the
idea that Americans would go there to study is an
intriguing one. The fact is that now the library
and archive materials of the King Abdulaziz
Foundation and the King Faisal Foundation are
being made accessible to external scholars. This
is an interesting development in parallel with the
broadening of Saudi Arabian contact with the
outside world. I think it is very encouraging.
SUSRIS:
We touched briefly on the question of Saudi
accession to the World Trade Organization.
Were the Saudis hoping for more on WTO from the
Crawford meeting?
Lippman:
My understanding of the state of play on the
WTO is that in order to get into it you have to
reach bilateral agreements on whatever issues come
up with any WTO member that wants a bilateral
agreement with you. In the case of Saudi Arabia,
149 member countries -- I believe was the number
-- wanted bilateral agreements with Saudi Arabia.
148 of them are done; the last one is with the
United States.
One
of the senior Saudi trade officials, Dr. Al-Alamy,
has been here negotiating and he gave this example
of the kind of thing that Saudi Arabia still has
to do. In the US when a regulatory agency is going
to implement a new regulation it is first
published in the federal register a couple of
weeks in advance and everybody gets to weigh in.
They don't have that kind of transparent
regulation system in Saudi Arabia. That's among
the issues they still have to work on.
His
boss, Mr. Yamani [Minister of Commerce and
Industry] was here the entire week before the
Crawford summit. They got to the point where the
acting US Trade Representative notified Congress
that there was light at the end of this tunnel.
They
expected to resolve all issues in time for Saudi
Arabia to come in by the end of the year. At that
point Senator Lincoln, a member of the Trade
Subcommittee of the Senate Finance Committee,
objected because she didn't want Saudi Arabia to
get into the WTO until they have resolved one of
the child custody cases.
I
don't think there was any reason to believe any
big announcement was due in Crawford and that
everyone understood there are some months of work
to go. However, at the business dinner in Dallas
Crown Prince Abdullah said, "We are
determined to create an environment that
encourages investment and investors. I urge you to
invest in the great Saudi market." He called
the partnership between the United States and
Saudi Arabia "a unique success story."
SUSRIS:
Do you have any last thoughts on the significance
of the summit?
Lippman:
Yes. It's still not entirely clear to me why
this particular meeting was held at this
particular time. It's a long way for an 81 year
old man to come to issue a statement that seems,
to me, could have been issued from anywhere.
The
other thing that was interesting, speaking of
things that didn't happen, was news while Abdullah
was in Paris that Saudi Arabia was buying 96
French fighter jets. You know there wasn't even a
hint or a suggestion that they might consider
seeking a bid on this deal from McDonnell Douglas.
SUSRIS:
The same thing could be said about the
announcement, about the same time, of a purchase
of commercial aircraft from Brazil's Embraer
aircraft company.
Lippman:
Right, why? The last big commercial jet
purchase was the huge purchase form Boeing about
ten years ago. But why? Maybe in the case of the
fighter deal they get a better arrangement from
the French. Maybe they just decided it would be
politically out of the question to try to get an
American company to bid on it and get the Pentagon
to sign off on the deal. I don't know, but I was
struck by that.
 SUSRIS:
There's always your theory that Saudi Arabia
wants friends on the UN Security Council who are
also nuclear powers. You said China fit the bill,
but France meets those conditions.
Lippman:
France fits that description too, absolutely. Some
observers tried to make something of the fact that
Abdullah spoke very effusively in praise for the
character and nobility of Jacques Chirac and
hasn't said similar words about Bush. But, in the
end, he came here, they had a cordial meeting and
they did issue a very positive joint statement. So
I don't make so much of that. There hasn't been
much analysis of that aspect of the Crawford
meeting. It's disappointing that the press didn't
take the time to ask those questions.
SUSRIS:
Well, we appreciate you taking the time to
explore these issues with us. As always you have
provided a rare insight into the mechanics of the
Saudi-US relationship. Thank you.
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