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The Saudi-American Alliance, Part Two

The Topic Before the House: The Saudi - American Alliance, part two. This Week on Think Tank.

Mr. Wattenberg: Welcome Sandra Mackey and Tom Lippman to part two of Think Tank’s discussion of Saudi Arabia. What does Saudi Arabia on one hand and the United States on the other hand want from this mutual relationship?
Ms. Mackey: The United States wants oil; the House of Saud wants protection. I mean, that’s in the basic simplest terms. And it’s been a relationship that has been very beneficial to both. I think one thing that...
Mr. Wattenberg: So one wants oil; one wants security basically, is that...
Ms. Mackey: Correct...
Mr. Wattenberg: And that’s a dangerous part of the world where you need security.
Ms. Mackey: Well, certainly the Saudis do because, you know, we’ve got to remember back in – in – when the oil boom was going on, there were only roughly seven million Saudis. I mean, you know, now the population’s much larger than that.
Mr. Wattenberg: Can the American and global war against Al Qaeda be seen as a part of a Saudi civil war?
Mr. Lippman: I would say not.
Mr. Wattenberg: You say not.
Mr. Lippman: I would say not, and here’s why I would say that, Ben. The – the violence of the past year-and-a-half that we were just talking about has not succeeded in becoming a rising movement in Saudi Arabia. It remains a marginal movement of marginal people. And in my opinion the reason for that is that the violent extremists have no political program and they haven’t gained any traction with the majority of the Saudi people who are basically peaceful and nonviolent people. And so there’s not enough of these people to generate a Civil War in Saudi Arabia. That’s my view.
Ms. Mackey: Oh, I would agree and I think the – where the Saud – the majority of the Saudis are caught is try, as I said previously that – to find some balance between tradition and modernization, between inside the kingdom and outside the kingdom. But also they are trying to find a political model that really works for the 21st century. That doesn’t mean that they are going to accept, nor would it be necessarily appropriate to their culture to move to, you know, a democracy in the western definition of the term. But they definitely need to move from a political system that really has its roots in the tribal configuration of Saudi Arabia, the relationship between the Sheik and his people to a system in which you do have transparency; you have the opportunity for, you know, a part of the economic pie. All of those issues that any country has got to deal with in having a government that is really legitimate.
Mr. Wattenberg: You talk about the economy. American corporations and American politicians are deeply involved in Saudi Arabia. Is that correct?
Mr. Lippman: Corporations yes but less than before. Politicians I’m not so sure. I’m not sure what you’re referring to. In my opinion, especially since 9/11, it’s been open season on Saudi Arabia among American politicians.
Mr. Wattenberg: Well I mean all the – So many of the people within the United States government who dealt with the Saudis on an official basis lobbied the U.S. Congress with great intensity. Is that – is that...?
Mr. Lippman: But to little affect.
Mr. Wattenberg: To little affect.
Mr. Lippman: I mean, look; there hasn’t been much to lobby the Congress about since the great military sales, right, of the – of - the days when Saudi Arabia was trying to get the White – the Congress to approve AWACs sales are long past and there haven’t been any other really anodyne political issues between these two countries for some time in my opinion.
Mr. Wattenberg: There was – in the Michael Moore film, there was a not at all subtle piece that indicates that in House of Bush, House of Saud, the book and that there is a particularly close relationship between the Bush family and the royal family of Saudi Arabia. Is that valid or invalid?
Ms. Mackey: Well, I reviewed that book by Craig Unger. I found it to be so poorly documented; the source is very suspect that I would really have a lot of hesitation about knowing what was accurate in that book and what wasn’t.
Mr. Lippman: Furthermore, what my reaction when I read that book was, “Texas oil guys are tight with the Saudis? Who woulda thunk it?”
Mr. Wattenberg: I mean...
Mr. Lippman: Cause that was – that was what – that was what he told you.
Mr. Wattenberg: Why is that – why doesn’t that make sense?
Mr. Lippman: It – it makes perfect sense. That’s what I’m saying.
Mr. Wattenberg: Oh, it does make sense.
Mr. Lippman: The book belabors the obvious for three hundred pages. Of course Texas oil guys are tight with the Saudis. They worked there; they invest in each other’s industries; they share the – the psychology of the oil patch. It makes perfect sense.
Mr. Wattenberg: Let’s talk for a moment about Iraq. America’s involved in this great expedition in Iraq, allegedly trying to set up a democratic Middle Eastern society. How does this relate to Saudi Arabia?
Mr. Lippman: Well, Ben, I - the Saudis of course were dead set against our going into Iraq as were so many other people for their own reasons. One of which, in my opinion, was...
Mr. Wattenberg: Yet in the first Gulf War there were Arab colleagues with the Americans, but not in the second one. Is that right?
Mr. Lippman: The – the two wars at which the United States undertook against Iraq were not comparable. In the first one there had been a clear-cut, unequivocal violation of international law and of Arab solidarity by the Iraqis when they invaded and claimed to annex Kuwait. And our allies, parts of the coalition that fought with us in that war included Egypt and Syria as well as Saudi Arabia.
The current war against Iraq is a completely different situation in which all the Arabs opposed our going in there. There was no comparable violation by the Iraqis, and the Saudis were put in the very uncomfortable situation of saying that they didn’t want to participate in a war but they also let us use their facilities because they didn’t want to alienate themselves from Uncle Sam. Alright. And yet from the Saudi perspective, for different reasons, almost any known outcome of the war in Iraq, whenever we see what it is, could be detrimental to Saudi interests for different reasons. Almost any known out – foreseeable outcome could be detrimental to Saudi interests. So they were strongly opposed to it and remain very anxious about what the future holds.
Mr. Wattenberg: You buy that?
Ms. Mackey: Yes, I do. And I think one of the things that Americans need to understand is how 1990 was a real pivotal year in the Saudi/American relationship and that was because the Saudis did feel obviously threatened by Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait. They were – you know, they did sound the bugle and actually the Americans approached them but it was – this idea that the Americans were on – over the horizon and if the Saudis really needed protection we would be there. So we had a – a – both of us had a real interest in that military buildup in Iraq. But the problem began to – to develop after the war was over and the United States kept many American troops stationed in Saudi Arabia. There was a definite American presence there and this was what really began to feed so much of the ideology of bin Laden and some of these militants in Saudi Arabia was that the House of Saud was allowing these western troops to really be in the shadow in Mecca and Medina. And there was probably too little attention paid by the United States to the political problems this was causing the House of Saud. We were thinking only in strategic terms about how we were going to enforce the sanctions against Saddam Hussein, which was a valid concern for the United States. But we pay – as I say, we paid attention to the polit – the military priorities to the United States and ignored the political problems that the House of Saud was – was experiencing. Consequently, that whole decade of the ‘90s really did fuel a lot of American anti – anti-Americanism and also opposition to the House of Saud.
Mr. Wattenberg: Well, there is also, as we know, a great deal of anti-Saudi Arabian feeling in the United States. They have attempted to do a public relations thrust in the U.S. Has that been successful? Are they doing it well? What do you think?
Mr. Lippman: Look, it’s not my business to give PR advice to the Saudis.
Mr. Wattenberg: No, but you’re...
Mr. Lippman: People get paid huge, obscene amounts of money to give PR advice to the Saudis.
Mr. Wattenberg: Well this is what I was talking about before, is that – is that there is a lot of money – money changing hands.
Mr. Lippman: Yes, but in my opinion the entire thrust of the Saudi effort in the United States has been misplaced. Running – running full page ads in the New York Times or Business Week...
Mr. Wattenberg: Or the New Republic for that...
Mr. Lippman: Or the New Republic, right, proclaiming what good friends we’ve been, in my opinion, is misplaced. If the Saudis want to be on better terms with the United States, they could do certain things to clean up their act at home, but also they could get involved in an active program of sending credible, photogenic, amiable, reasonable people around this country to meet with church groups, American Legion groups, whatever, university groups, in Birmingham and Dubuque and Buffalo. It’s the – instead what they do is they talk only at the level of elites which is the way they’re accustomed to dealing with the United States.
Mr. Wattenberg: This is the wrap that’s put on Prince Bandar, who is the Saudi Ambassador to the United Nations and he is up here, not down with the folks. Is that – is that right?
Ms. Mackey: Yes. I think that’s very true and the few times when the Saudis have mounted these, what we might call circus shows that travel across the country...
Mr. Wattenberg: The charm offensive.
Ms. Mackey: Yes. They have been quite successful because I think Americans get just astounded that there really are educated, articulate, business savvy Saudis and that a number of them are women.
Mr. Wattenberg: What do you think President Bush’s second term is going to mean to Saudi Arabia and the Middle East generally? What – I mean, he won. What’s – what’s changed; what might change?
Mr. Lippman: I don’t, in now, more than 25 years of writing and thinking about the Middle East and going there and even living there, I don’t recall a time when there were so many moving parts. To answer your question, I’d like to know the following: what’s going to be the outcome in Iraq, let’s say, two years from now. What’s really going to happen with Israel and Sharon and the pullout from Gaza?
Mr. Wattenberg: And the elections there.
Mr. Lippman: And the elections, right. What – what about this rapprochement with Libya? What does the political future hold for Egypt now that Mobarak is clearly entering the last few years of his very long tenure there? What’s going to happen to the pursuit of bin Laden and Al Qaeda and the relationship with Saudi Arabia? And if you look at the Saudi leadership if you think of Adbullah and Sultan as the kind of – Andropov and Chernenko of Saudi Arabia; who is Gorbachev and where is he going to take the country? There are so many uncertainties. What’s going to happen with Syria? That it’s really very difficult. The President, if he’s lucky, could run the table. And all these things could turn out well and we truly would have a new era in the Middle East. But I’m never optimistic about the Middle East. It doesn’t pay.
Ms. Mackey: Well I – I would add another question, is how is the Iranian weap – nuclear weapons issue going to play out? You know, how is the United States going to handle that because they’re, you know, certainly you have to be concerned about Iran having these weapons but, you know, you – you got realize that Iran has some legitimate security concerns. Maybe we need to talk to them about that, under, you know, try to understand that. The Iranians also they want to be a player in the Persian Gulf. They see themselves as being historically at the center of the Persian Gulf and they need that psychologically to, you know, to – to be acknowledged.
Mr. Wattenberg: The Iranians.
Ms. Mackey: The Iranians. In the – in the region. And I would hope the administration uses some – some savvy in dealing with the Iranian situation and not just threatening, you know, that we’re going to have a regime change and so forth. It’s a very difficult problem. It’s very touchy – it’s an extremely serious problem and it’s got to be handled right and it has to be handled on several levels and I hope the administration can nuance this and get us where we need to be.
Mr. Wattenberg: From a Saudi point of view, it’s a very dangerous neighborhood, isn’t it?
Mr. Lippman: Yes. It is. And it’ll be an even more dangerous neighborhood if Iran acquires nuclear weapons.
Mr. Wattenberg: I mean the weapons of mass destruction and so on and so forth.
Mr. Lippman: That’s correct. Charles Freeman, who was the U.S. Ambassador in Saudi Arabia at the time of Desert Storm and still has very close contacts there – he says that senior Saudi officials, well beyond the level that I have ever had contact with, have told him that in the event that Iran becomes an overt nuclear weapon state, the Saudis will feel compelled to try to acquire an offsetting capability of their own. And if that happens, all bets are off.
Mr. Wattenberg: Did they have the – did the Saudis have the technology that they could develop a...
Mr. Lippman: No, they’d have to buy it. They’d have to buy the hardware.
Ms. Mackey: I would say also it’s a very dangerous neighborhood politically. And I think Americans have to really pay attention to this because ever since 9/11 there’s been a lot of discussion in the United States, mostly on the, you know, the street level, that the United States needs to pull out it’s support of the House of Saud and that somehow we would therefore punish Saudi Arabia for this 15 hijackers of 9/11. The reality is that...
Mr. Wattenberg: Was it 15 of 19 or 16 of 19? I forget.
Ms. Mackey: I believe 15.
Mr. Lippman: I believe it was 15 of...
Mr. Wattenberg: Fifteen of 19 were Saudis.
Ms. Mackey: Were Saudis.
Mr. Wattenberg: Right. Right.
Ms. Mackey: That somehow, you know, we need to punish Saudi Arabia and we could do that by pulling back support for the House of Saud. We always have to think what comes next. We did not do a good job of that – with that in Iraq and you certainly need to think about Saudi Arabia because frankly the House of Saud is the only real glue holding the country together. That doesn’t mean they have, you know, they have problems; they’ve got to, as you say, clean up their act. There’s a lot of stuff that has to be done. But to simply suck the House of Saud out of Saudi Arabia and expect a political system that has legitimacy and can take over the country and you not have the tremendous amount of disorder is, you know, is really wishful thinking.
Mr. Wattenberg: The political scientist, Samuel Huntington, has described what’s going on in the world as a class of civilizations. Is that what’s going on between the Saudi – between the Saudis and the Americans? A clash of civilizations?
Ms. Mackey: I think there are elements in that but I think the – the deeper question is how do the Saudis, as I say, make the transition to the 21st century and how does the United States allow them to do that. Taking care of their own interest without the United States interpreting everything that the Saudis might do that the United States might not be totally in agreement with is not necessarily anti-American or pro-terrorism. That they have their political needs; we have our political deeds and it’s just very important that we try to reach a balance there of letting each country pursue those, but yet still retain the relationship.
Mr. Lippman: I think a clash of civilizations is what Osama bin Laden is trying to achieve.
Mr. Wattenberg: Is he succeeding?
Mr. Lippman: I certainly hope not. And it’s far from inevitable. Because I don’t believe that most Muslim people wish to enlist in a clash of civilizations against us.
Mr. Wattenberg: That the world is becoming, you think, I think, a more – a unitary place rather than a more split up place. Or somewhat more unitary.
Mr. Lippman: On many levels it is. On the – on the commercial and the communications level it is and it may be. I’m sure Sandra would agree that at some levels what’s happening in parts of the Muslim world is a kind of hunkering down against that homogenization of culture.
Ms. Mackey: Yes, I think one of the things that – that – and you see this in the United States. You see it more in – in Saudi Arabia, but this concern about losing your identity in this – this global world where you really, you know, used to we’d – we knew there was an other out there but we didn’t have to confront them on a daily basis and because of the economic changes; because of the communications and transportation changes, we’re more or less up in each other’s face on a daily basis. And we’re having problems working through that and so are the Saudis and the larger Islamic world.
Mr. Wattenberg: Alright. Let me ask one final question. Is the alliance between Saudi Arabia and the United States a gain or a loss, a plus or a minus for the United States?

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