Soccer Dad

Dissing bandar

According to the NY Times Prince Bandar is on the outs with his uncle the king.

No foreign diplomat has been closer or had more access to President Bush, his family and his administration than the magnetic and fabulously wealthy Prince Bandar bin Sultan of Saudi Arabia.

Prince Bandar has mentored Mr. Bush and his father through three wars and the broader campaign against terrorism, reliably delivering — sometimes in the Oval Office — his nation’s support for crucial Middle East initiatives dependent on the regional legitimacy the Saudis could bring, as well as timely warnings of Saudi regional priorities that might put it into apparent conflict with the United States. Even after his 22-year term as Saudi ambassador ended in 2005, he still seemed the insider’s insider. But now, current and former Bush administration officials are wondering if the longtime reliance on him has begun to outlive its usefulness.

Bush administration officials have been scratching their heads over steps taken by Prince Bandar’s uncle, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, that have surprised them by going against the American playbook, after receiving assurances to the contrary from Prince Bandar during secret trips he made to Washington.

The Saudis "mentored" President Bush and his father? How arrogant is that? The whole article reads like a release from Prince Bandar's personal press office. But for a fellow who's renowned as a wonderful diplomat, this is interesting.

Of course it is ultimately the king — and not the prince — who makes the final call on policy. More than a dozen associates of Prince Bandar, including personal friends and Saudi officials who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that if his counsel has led to the recent misunderstandings, it is due to his longtime penchant for leaving room in his dispatches for friends to hear what they want to hear. That approach, they said, is catching up to the prince as new tensions emerge between the United States and Saudi Arabia.

In other words, instead of being an honest broker, Prince Bandar is intentionally ambiguous so that he has some level of plausible deniability. Gee that sure makes him reliable.

The question is why is that an extremely liberal newspaper, goes to such lengths to cast a diplomat from a country lacking in religious freedom, press freedom, equal rights for women in such a positive light.

The reason of course is here

Prince Turki was never able to match the role of Prince Bandar, whom the president, vice president and other officials regularly consult on every major Middle East initiative — from the approach to Iran to the Israeli-Palestinian peace process to Iraq.

Because the approaches of the Saudis to the Israeli Palestinian peace process and Iraq is so similar to that of the NY Times, the Times overlooks inconvenienet of Saudi life.

After all if the Saudis favor pressuring Israel and were reticent about an American invasion of Iraq, they must be right.

(The Saudi commitment to the Palestinian-Israeli peace process has to be questioned as Susan Sachs reported in the wake of the failed Camp David summit in 2000

During the last few days, a number of Arab leaders like Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudia Arabia and President Mubarak have joined with Mr. Arafat's domestic opponents in Islamic militant movements to weigh in on the issue. They all but threatened Mr. Arafat with political excommunication if he accepted Prime Minister Ehud Barak's proposals for administrative control over parts of the city and access to -- but not sovereignty over -- the major Muslim sites.

The report is from the NY Times, and not often referred to by the paper subsequently.)

A few years ago, The American Thinker wrote The Saudi War on George W. Bush observing

President Bush has provoked this response by proclaiming his intention to encourage democracy and liberalism in the Middle East, liberate the Arab masses from despotic rule, bring peace and prosperity to the region, and halt the spread of militant Islamic terror groups. Unlike past Presidents who, in varying degrees, paid lip service to these ideals, President Bush has acted decisively on them. His politically perilous actions, such as his invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, his conditioning support for a Palestinian state on the cessation of terror, corruption, and dictatorship, and his active promotion and support for liberal groups in the Arab world, have aroused Saudi fears and provoked a quiet counterattack.

George W. Bush seriously disrupted the previous cozy relationship that Saudi Arabia historically enjoyed with the Bush family —— and with Washington power brokers, in general. The Saudis feel that their family's absolute rule over the kingdom may be endangered, and that their efforts to spread their virulent brand of Islam, Wahabbism, may be curtailed by the current Administration. The Saudi royals may well feel abandoned, and in their disillusionment have resolved to prevent a second term for George W. Bush.

While the precipitous rise in oil prices has not had the negative economic impact feared, the American Thinker argues that the current President Bush isn't nearly as popular with Saudis rulers as his father had been. The American Thinker sees that as a sign that President Bush is on the right path.

The New York Times, though, sees things somewhat differently.

But Saudi frustration has mounted over the past four years, as the situation in Iraq has deteriorated. King Abdullah was angry that the Bush administration ignored his advice against de-Baathification and the disbanding of the Iraqi military. He became more frustrated as America’s image in the Muslim world deteriorated, because Saudi Arabia is viewed as a close American ally.

Tensions between King Abdullah and top Bush officials escalated further when Mr. Bush announced a new energy initiative to reduce the nation’s dependence on foreign oil during his 2006 State of the Union address, and announced new initiatives in that direction this year.

I'm not so generous toward the Saudis. Their discomfort with Iraq war and the way it was handled, had less to do with strategy than with empowering the Shi'ites. And given the rise in the price of oil, it's hardly a surprise that the President would urge a reduction in the American demand for foreign oil. (Still given that the President's plan was hardly specific, it's hard to see what damage to Saudi Arabia would come from it.)

Nor do I think that Saudi Arabia is distancing itself from America because of a detorioration in America's image (as Tiger Hawk does). My thinking is more along the lines of the American Thinker. The Saudis oppose President Bush's foreign policy and American interests generally.

The anti-Americanism in the Middle East is less a function of American policy than of decidedly different world views clashing. 9/11 marked the most virulent demonstration of that clash, and the Bush administration has certainly had its share of foreign policy failures.

Later in the Times article we read of how Prince Bandar bought outgoing Secretary of State Colin Powell a car. Bandar has always functioned on the personal. Cultivating (or a cynic would say buying) American officials to serve as conduits for conveying Saudi interests to the heads of American government.

King Abdullah, operates at the national level. Given the divergence of views between the United States and Saudi Arabia it's not surprising that the Saudis are at odds with the Americans. (And it's not just with President Bush. When the Khobar Towers during the Clinton administration were bombed the Saudis were non-cooperative with the American investigation. Camp David, as mentioned above also was from the Clinton years.)

The article then probably tells us less about the nature of Saudi-American relations than it does about Prince Bandar's efforts to rehabilitate himself in American eyes.

via memeorandum.

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Posted by SoccerDad at April 30, 2007 6:09 AM | TrackBack