The Obama Administration seems to think that no matter how much Iran’s leaders may want to acquire nuclear weapons, Washington has finally succeeded in raising the costs of their attempting to do this so high that the only rational choice Tehran now has is to give up the attempt.  This is because the economic costs that these sanctions impose on them increasingly threaten the survivability of Iran’s Islamic revolutionary regime.  And surely the rulers of Iran would prefer giving up their nuclear ambitions to falling from power.

Rationality, though, has a way of appearing differently in different places.  I last visited Iran in May 2005, before Ahmadinejad was first elected president.  Even then, I was told that Iranians had noticed something about American foreign policy:  the U.S. invaded Afghanistan and Iraq which were countries that did not possess nuclear weapons, but the U.S. has not invaded North Korea—a country that does possess them.  The lesson they drew from this was that America was likely to behave far more circumspectly toward a nuclear Iran than to a non-nuclear one.

But surely, I argued, there was far more at stake for Iran than whether the U.S. behaved circumspectly toward it.  I pointed toward the then recent example of the Libyan-American rapprochement in 2003 in which Libya gave up its nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction programs in return for close collaboration with the U.S.  The Iranian scholars and journalists I met with all laughed derisively at this, saying that Tehran would never kowtow to the U.S. like Qaddafi had done.  Besides, one of them asked, what was to prevent America from turning against Qaddafi once he had given up his nuclear program?

In 2011, this is exactly what the U.S. did.  While the U.S. did not cause the uprising against Libya, actions taken by the Obama Administration and several U.S. allies prevented Qaddafi from quickly crushing his opponents and greatly helped the latter bring down his regime. 

This, of course, was a good thing for the Obama Administration to have done.  The lesson that Tehran undoubtedly drew from this experience, however, was that giving up its nuclear ambitions at America’s behest will not stop the U.S. from acting to bring down the Islamic regime later should the opportunity ever arise.

Just as the Obama Administration wants it to, Tehran understands that the U.S. will continue trying to weaken it for pursuing its nuclear program.  But the unintended consequence of Obama’s successful policy toward Libya is that Tehran also believes the U.S. will continue trying to weaken it even if it gives up its nuclear program.  So what incentive, then, does Tehran have to cooperate with America and others on the nuclear issue?

The Obama Administration is so dedicated to increasing sanctions against Iran for not giving up its nuclear program that it might not be able to acknowledge even to itself how what happened this past year in Libya might make Tehran even more fearful of cooperating with the U.S. than defying it.  President Obama’s success in inflicting genuinely painful economic sanctions against Iran, then, may result not in Tehran renouncing nuclear weapons, but seeking to acquire them all the more quickly.

If this is indeed the lesson that Tehran has drawn from what happened to Qaddafi, then the lesson that Washington needs to learn is:  in formulating a policy designed to affect how an opponent calculates the costs and benefits of continuing actions that the U.S. does not like, American foreign policymakers must also understand how that opponent sees the costs as well as the benefits of complying with the U.S. vs. continuing to defy it.

In what was then a rare public appearance for him, Prince Turki Al-Faisal bin Abd Al-Aziz Al-Saud, Director of General Intelligence in Saudi Arabia from 1977 to 2001, spoke to a large audience at Georgetown University’s Center for Contemporary Arab Studies on Sunday, February 3, 2002.  Prince Turki, who was an undergraduate at Georgetown in the mid-1960s, is a son of the late King Faisal (assassinated in 1975).  Prince Turki made his remarks at a time when Saudi-American relations appear under stress, and amidst persistent criticism that it was Saudi support for the Taliban and failure to take action against Osama bin Laden in the mid-1990s which led to the tragedy of September 11.

Osama bin Laden, Prince Turki noted, inherited money from his construction magnate father.  Like a number of other young Saudis during the 1980s, bin Laden went to Afghanistan to help the mujahideen fight against the Soviet forces occupying that country.  Also like most of those young Saudis, Prince Turki insisted, bin Laden was not a fighter, but played more of a supporting role instead.

Prince Turki said that he did have contact with bin Laden during these years—mainly at receptions.  At the time, bin Laden seemed like a pleasant but shy individual who did not talk much.  Bin Laden remained in Afghanistan following the completion of the Soviet withdrawal in early 1989, but returned to Saudi Arabia the following year after becoming disillusioned with the mujahideen for fighting with one another.

Back home, bin Laden appeared to be searching for a new cause.  One that he sought support for, Prince Turki noted, was the liberation of Marxist South Yemen, which bordered the Kingdom.  Prince Turki turned him down, as did other senior princes.  (Marxist South Yemen would disappear in May 1990 when it merged with the more powerful and populous non-Marxist North Yemen.)

The Iraqi invasion of Kuwait later that year provided bin Laden with another cause.  He argued against allowing American forces into the Kingdom, claiming that he and other Arabs who had served in Afghanistan could defeat the Iraqis.  As is well known, the Saudi government turned down his offer (which was hardly credible) and invited American as well as other foreign armed forces onto Saudi territory.

It was at this point, Prince Turki said, that bin Laden turned against the Saudi government.  He left the Kingdom, going first to Afghanistan, but leaving there relatively soon thereafter for Sudan.  During the early 1990s, the revolutionary regime in Sudan actively pursued anti-Western and anti-Saudi aims, and so welcomed bin Laden.  By 1996, though, Sudan sought to improve its relations with the Kingdom and offered to return bin Laden to it.

It has been reportedly recently in the Western press that the Saudi government turned down this offer from Sudan, thus allowing bin Laden to go to Afghanistan and plot a series of attacks against the U.S.  According to Prince Turki, however, the Sudanese offer was made only on the condition that the Saudis promise not to put bin Laden on trial.  Riyadh refused to do this, and so the Sudanese let him go to Afghanistan in 1996, where he linked up with the Taliban shortly before their capture of Kabul.

Saudi Arabia not only recognized the Taliban as the government soon thereafter, but provided it with aid as well.  The Kingdom did so, Prince Turki stated, for three reasons:  1) the Taliban did indeed rule most of the country; 2) it established a degree of peace where there had previously been fighting and chaos; and 3) the Saudis hoped to influence the new government.

The presence of bin Laden in Afghanistan, Prince Turki reported, was one of the subjects that he and other Saudi officials talked about with the new government.  The Taliban promised that they would not allow bin Laden to work against Saudi or American interests from Afghanistan.  In 1997, however, bin Laden gave an interview to a Western reporter in which he threatened to attack both countries.  Saudi officials immediately complained to the Taliban about this, reminding them of their promise.  The Taliban assured Riyadh that they would not allow bin Laden to make any further threatening statements or actions.  In 1998, however, bin Laden granted another interview to a Western journalist in which he again threatened both Saudi Arabia and the United States.

In June 1998, Prince Turki went to Kandahar to discuss the extradition of bin Laden with Taliban leader, Mullah Omar.  According to Prince Turki, Omar was willing to negotiate on this.  Riyadh received word from the Taliban the following month that his extradition was in the works, but it did not occur.  (What occurred instead was the bombing of the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in August—apparently the work of bin Laden.)

Prince Turki returned to Kandahar in September.  This time, however, Mullah Omar described bin Laden as a pious Muslim, accused the Saudi government of acting on behalf of the United States in seeking his extradition, and insulted the Saudi royal family.  Prince Turki then broke off the meeting, telling Mullah Omar that he would regret this.  Riyadh cut off its financial assistance to the Taliban and expelled the Taliban’s ambassador from Riyadh.  However, Riyadh did not break off diplomatic relations completely, he said, because it hoped to revive some sort of dialogue with the Taliban.  But this never occurred.

At the end of his talk, Prince Turki described how he had visited Ground Zero in New York on Thursday, January 31, 2002.  Becoming emotional, he said that he felt the grief of all those who had lost relatives in the World Trade Center, and that he knew how intense the grief they felt was because he had experienced it himself after the assassination of his father, the King.  He stated that Saudi Arabia had suffered too, and that the Saudi people felt America’s pain.  Whatever their differences, both countries must work together to combat terrorism.

Revised version published by Eurasianet.org, February 13, 2002, under the title, “Former Saudi Intelligence Official Defends Country’s Dealings with the Taliban.”  This Eurasianet article, though, appears to have been subsequently pulled from the Eurasianet.org website.

I attended the “Gulf and the Globe” forum co-sponsored by the Saudi Foreign Ministry’s Institute of Diplomatic Studies and the Gulf Research Center that took place in Riyadh on December 4-5, 2011.  Here is a selection from the notes I took during the conference (or more accurately, those that I can manage to decipher from my execrable handwriting) as well as my own parenthetical comments:

The tone of the forum was set during the opening session by Dr. Abdulaziz Sager, chairman and founder of the Gulf Research Center, who made the following points:  Iran is interfering in the internal affairs of the Gulf Cooperation Council states (Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, and Oman); Iran is becoming a nuclear threat; American power in the region is declining due to the contradictions in U.S. policy due to its failure to resolve the Israeli/Palestinian, Iraqi, and Afghan conflicts; the global economic crisis complicates the challenge faced by the GCC; in response to the Arab Spring, the GCC is undergoing a wave of reform (in order, I presume, to forestall it); the GCC must secure its internal front by dealing with poverty and unemployment; the GCC will not permit external interference in its internal affairs; America, the EU, and NATO must adopt clear policies; and India and China must become more involved.

Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al Faisal was supposed to give the keynote address, but since he was not there, it was given for him by Prince Turki bin Mohammed bin Saud Al Kabir (Undersecretary of Foreign Affairs for Multilateral Relations).  He noted that the Arab Spring had given rise to instability.  The GCC must protect the states within it as well as their territorial integrity, but must also respond to legitimate demands.  While the Kingdom values international and regional cooperation, Iran behaves in a manner that disregards these.  Iran interferes in the internal affairs of other nations and poses a nuclear threat.  Iran can acquire atomic energy, but should do so in accordance with international norms.  Saudi Arabia, by contrast, seeks a WMD free zone in the Middle East.  Prince Turki also criticized Israel both for its nuclear weapons policy as well as its policy toward the Palestinians.  Prince Turki praised the GCC for its development orientation and cooperation with the international community.  He also praised GCC diplomacy for helping bring about the recent agreement between Yemeni President Saleh and his opponents to bring about a peaceful political transition in Yemen.  All Yemenis, the Prince noted, welcomed this (which, of course, is not quite true).  The GCC, he stated, was neither expansionist nor interfered in the internal affairs of others, but would act to protect itself.  He noted that the GCC was experiencing economic growth despite the global recession.  He foresees 8% annual economic growth for the GCC.

After these opening addresses, Session 1 was on the role of the GCC states in changing in the changing international landscape.  The two announced speakers were the UAE Foreign Minister (Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahayan) and the GCC Secretary General (Abdul Latif Rashid Al-Zayani), but neither of them showed up.  Speaking for the former was UAE Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Anwar Gargash.  He began by praising the joint GCC response to the “problems” in Bahrain (where both Saudi and UAE troops intervened to crush the Arab Spring movement there), and called for GCC coordination to continue.  He praised the EU for the level of internal coordination that it has developed, and noted the importance of this model for the GCC.  (I couldn’t help but wonder if this wasn’t a subtle call for Saudi Arabia—by far the most powerful country within the GCC—to consult more with the smaller members.)  He further noted that the ongoing Arab revolutions can result in a change in Arab foreign policies, including toward the Israeli-Palestinian issue, terrorism, Iran, and the West—but all this was still vague.  He described the GCC as a moderate bloc, and that development and stability were the main GCC interests.  Egyptian foreign policy, he predicted, would change—and that Syrian policy probably would too (suggesting, to me anyway, that he expects the Assad regime might fall).  The future Egyptian-Iranian relationship will be especially significant (especially, I inferred, if they became friendly).  The GCC must take a broader view, and not just a regional one.  He recommended a GCC opening to China, India, Japan, and other Asian countries.  Asia is already playing an important role in many issues of concern to the GCC.  The GCC needs to coordinate with Japan, South Korea, China, and Australia as well as build relations with other Asian states—in order, I inferred, to compensate for the impending decline of American power.

Speaking in place of the GCC Secretary General was Assistant Secretary General Saad bin Abdurahman Al-Ammar.  He began by observing that the GCC was playing a vital role in international change, and was reacting wisely to change.  The GCC has dealt with many crises since its inception thirty years ago.  Just this year, the GCC aided Bahrain and Oman to “get rid of difficulties” there.  (While it is well known that Bahrain experienced unrest this past year, there has been much less publicity about the situation in Oman.  Al-Ammar was one of several speakers both to refer to problems in Oman, but also not to elaborate on them.)  The GCC approved the solution to the Libyan problem and helped to resolve the Yemeni situation (which, of course, remains unsettled).  GCC involvement in these issues, he asserted, is accepted by many parties.  He also stated that the GCC has acted transparently in them.

Session 2 was on regional security dynamics.  Happily, the two advertised speakers were present.  The first of these was Prince Moqren bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, Chief of Saudi Arabia’s General Intelligence organization.  Prince Moqren began by noting that the GCC has oil which the rest of the world needs.  He also noted that the world economy affects the GCC.  The GCC also faces security problems, including the Arab Spring.  “We’d ask for God’s help,” if this spring came to the Gulf, he said.  And what, he asked rhetorically, will the Arab Summer be like after the Arab Spring?  Without security, he observed, there can be no development.  The GCC was undertaking reform efforts, and there is good coordination within the GCC.  He noted that a new GCC early warning system had just been agreed to (but did not describe how this worked).  He expressed special concern about the Iranian nuclear file.  While Iran can develop peaceful nuclear power, it is not clear that Tehran is just interested in electricity production.  He expressed fear about a regional nuclear arms race in the region and the effect of this on development.  He noted the tendency of expensive weapons systems to rapidly turn into junk.  He ended his remarks by calling on Iran to allow for International Atomic Energy (IAEA) inspections so that these problems could be avoided.

The second speaker in this session was Naser Al Ani, Chief of Staff for Iraq’s Presidency Council.  (Unlike Iraq’s Shi’a Prime Minister Maleki, Iraq’s Presidency Council is not especially powerful.  According to one knowledgeable conference participant, Al Ani is a Sunni Arab.)  Al Ani seemed to take a more positive view of the Arab Spring than previous speakers.  With the West in a serious financial crisis, he saw the GCC as in a better position to help guide it in a positive direction as well as help defuse international and regional conflicts.  The GCC could also act to secure the flow of energy and boost investment in the region.  Problems the region faced included nuclear proliferation, the Israeli-Palestinian stalemate (which he described as underlying many problems in the region), and the security problems posed by the aftermath of the Arab Spring.  He also noted that global power shifts were occurring, with the rise of China, India, Latin America, and Turkey—all with booming economies.  Since energy is a world priority, Iraq must be helped to restore its oil production.  Iraq especially needed help from its Arab brothers.  The Saddam Hussein system, he claimed, can never happen again.  There is a new system now, and Iraq will play a constructive role in the region.  Iraq, though, will need GCC help in deterring interference from regional and international forces (he didn’t specifically mention Iran, but it was clear this was what he meant).  U.S. forces were about to leave Iraq, so Iraqi forces must be ready.  While they are very good, help is needed.  He ended by calling for “distinctive relations” between Iraq and Saudi Arabia.

In the Q&A for this session, Prince Moqren noted that since Russia was a good friend of Iran’s, Russia should persuade Iran to cooperate on the nuclear issue.  He also noted that “the best defense is offense,” but did not elaborate on what he meant by this.  In response to a question from an Egyptian professor, Prince Moqren expressed concern about Israeli nuclear weapons.  It was clear from his remarks, though, that he was far more worried about a potential Iranian nuclear capability than the actual Israeli one.  In response to a question about whether he was worried about the electoral victory of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, Prince Moqren responded that Saudi Arabia will respect internal choices made by the Egyptian people.  Asked about the possibility of political change in Saudi Arabia, Prince Moqren noted that the Koran is the source of Saudi law, that there is justice in the Kingdom, and that the King himself receives Saudi citizens.  The Saudi leadership is not isolated from them (unlike, he seemed to imply, the situation in other Arab countries).  In response to a question as to why Saudi Arabia and Oman were not cooperating with NATO as much as the other four GCC states, the Prince replied that the Chief of General Intelligence could not be expected to reveal everything he knew, but that there was quiet cooperation taking place.  He expressed hope that the GCC transition plan for Yemen would be implemented, but admitted that it was not clear whether it would be.  He ended by noting that the U.S. presence in Iraq did not eliminate terrorism or instability there.  Instead, the U.S. presence justified interference by others.  Without the U.S. presence there, by contrast, intervention by others would be less legitimate.

Session 3 was entitled, “Global Power Shifts and the Role of Traditional Powers.”  From the tone of the previous speakers, “traditional powers” was meant as a synonym for “declining powers.”  Discussed in this session were the United States, Europe, and Russia.  The Russians, of course, very much think of their country as a rising power.  The conference organizers apparently thought otherwise.  The first speaker—Marina Ottaway of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, DC—noted that even many Americans saw the U.S. as being in decline, but this is not the first time that things haven’t gone America’s way in the Middle East.  She also noted that America is still indispensible to Gulf security, and would remain so as long as there was a potential Iranian nuclear threat.

The second speaker in this session was Vitaly Naumkin, Director of the Russian Academy of Science’s Oriental Institute.  He stated that while the Middle East as a whole is no longer a priority for Russian foreign policy, the Arabian Peninsula is.  He differentiated between the Russian and Western approaches to the Arab Spring.  Russia has sought dialogue with the Syrian government, while the West has not.  Moscow, he observed, was acting responsibly (thus implying that the West was not).  The third speaker, Nicola De Santis (head of NATO’s Mediterranean Dialogue) made clear that NATO did not have—or seek—a direct role in the affairs of the Gulf. 

In the Q&A for this session, Naumkin observed that “Russia does not care for” the idea of “leading from behind” as President Obama described his administration as having successfully done in Libya.  By contrast, Naumkin argued, Russian foreign policy is “straightforward.”  (This led to a lot of raised eyebrows since, as anyone familiar with it well knows, Russian foreign policy is often much less than straightforward.)  He also pushed back against the idea that Russia is a declining power, noting that its being a permanent member of the UN Security Council makes it important for achieving the goal of a WMD free zone in the Middle East.  He noted that Russia is important for the GCC, and vice versa.  But in my view, if the conference organizers hoped to show in this session that the “traditional powers” were no longer as important as they used to be for the Gulf, they appeared to achieve this goal.

The second day of the conference began with Session 4 on “Global Power Shifts and the Role of Rising Powers.”  The speakers on it were Shivshankar Menon (India’s National Security Advisor), Bilahari Kauskikan (Permanent Secretary, Singapore Ministry of Foreign Affairs), Ambassador Sun Shuzhong (Chinese Foreign Ministry), and Bulant Aras (Chairman, Center for Strategic Research, Turkey).  If some in the audience expected the representatives of the “rising powers”—especially China and India—to replace the departing “traditional powers” in the Gulf, they were sorely disappointed.  Indeed, Shiv Menon even raised doubts in his speech about whether they even were rising powers when he said, “Many of these so called emerging countries are…better described as rapidly developing countries rather than as rising powers.”  Singaporean diplomat B. Kauskikan noted that while there was imperative to accept it, American leadership is irreplaceable.  He also said that the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) were more regional powers than global ones.  The Chinese ambassador gave a speech describing how China is on the path of peaceful development, is working for a harmonious world, and is cooperating with the GCC—and saying very little else.  The Turkish scholar noted how the declining role of the hegemon (i.e., the U.S.) in the Middle East meant that regional actors (i.e., Turkey) were now more important there.  But except for Turkey’s positive view of the Arab Spring and negative view of the Assad regime in Syria, he didn’t discuss the specifics of how Turkey or any other regional power—either singly or in concert—would replace the U.S. or keep order in the Middle East.

All the speakers assiduously avoided making any pronouncements (much less siding with the GCC) on Iranian-GCC differences.  In the one and only question that I was able to pose during the conference, I pointed out that none of the speakers had pronounced on Israeli-Palestinian differences either, and invited them to do so.  None of them did.  Although Turkey’s relations with it have deteriorated recently, China, India, and Singapore all have close, cooperative relations with Israel that they are not going to give up in order to please the Arabs.  Furthermore:  the speakers on this panel made clear that the rising Asian powers are not yet ready to replace the traditional Western powers in the Gulf.

Session 5 was on “Outlining Future Prospects in Global Energy.”  One of the speakers was supposed to have been Ali Ibrahim Al-Naimi, the Saudi Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources.  He too, however, did not make it to the conference.  And that’s about all I can say about this session since jet lag had caught up with me by then.  There were two speakers.  They presented a lot of detailed facts and figures.  The subject is an important one.  But I just couldn’t focus on what they were saying.  Sorry!

I was wide awake, though, for the sixth and final session (“Outlook and Future Perspectives”) when Prince Turki Al Faisal dropped something of a bombshell.  Prince Turki was Chief of General Intelligence for many years, served briefly as Saudi Ambassador first to the U.K. and then to the U.S., and is now the Chairman of the King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies in Riyadh.  Apparently having anticipated that the “traditional powers” are going to be less involved in the Gulf and that the “rising powers” are neither willing nor able to replace them yet, Prince Turki proposed two—rather dramatic—initiatives for the GCC to better safeguard its interests, especially vis-à-vis Iran.

One of these was to raise the possibility that Saudi Arabia and the GCC might acquire WMD:  “We are committed to the Middle East Zone Free of Weapons of Mass Destructions, but if our efforts and the efforts of the world community fail to bring about the dismantling of the Israeli arsenals of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons and the prevention of Iran acquiring the same by failing to construct such a Zone, then why shouldn’t we at least, and as a duty towards our nations and our peoples, study, seriously, all of the available options, including acquiring WMDs so that future generations will not blame us for neglecting any courses of action that will keep looming dangers away from us?”

His other initiative was an even more dramatic call for a unified Arabian Peninsula with an elected Majlis Al-Shura “for a unified country,” unified armed forces and armaments industry, unified currency, etc., etc.

These two proposals gave rise to considerable discussion both during this final session and afterward.  Some thought that this was the first time that a senior prince called for the Saudi acquisition of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction (during the Q&A, Prince Turki reminded us to remember that he had only called for this to be considered).  The Prince responded affirmatively to a question about whether Yemen would be part of this new, unified Arabian Peninsula.  I wanted to ask him whether the unified Arabian Peninsula was to have a unified executive branch, whether this would be elected, and whether the elected Majlis would have powers similar to a Western democratic legislature, but did not get called upon.  Right as the session was ending, a very agitated woman from Pakistan complained bitterly about how America has treated her country and seemed to demand that Saudi Arabia do something about it.  Someone speculated afterward that what she was really upset about was that while the rising powers session had speakers from India, China, Turkey, and even Singapore, there was no speaker from Pakistan on it or any other panel—thus implying that the conference organizers did not consider Pakistan to be as important as India, China, Turkey, or even Singapore.  (Prince Turki left the room without responding to her.)

Just after this session, someone I spoke with from one of the smaller GCC countries was highly critical of Prince Turki’s two proposals.  He said that the people in the smaller Gulf states were simply not ready for the dangers associated with possessing nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction.  And Prince Turki’s proposal for a unified Arabian Peninsula appeared to be a revival of Saudi expansionist efforts in the 19^th and 20^th century to bring the small coastal states of the Arabian Peninsula under Saudi rule.  And according to him, the smaller Gulf states were not so afraid of Iran or internal opposition that they would willingly sacrifice their independence to a union that the Saudis would dominate.

If Prince Turki’s two proposals could be achieved, a unified Arabian Peninsula with its enormous petroleum wealth that also possessed nuclear weapons would definitely be a “rising power” in its own right.  Implementing his vision, though, may require more internal reform than the conservative Gulf monarchies are willing to undertake, especially if this leads to increased democratization in which their power and influence diminish.  Nor do the supposedly “rising states” of Asia appear willing or able at present to take over the role of protecting the Arab Gulf states from Iranian and other threats that the U.S. has undertaken since the departure of the British from the region in the late 1960s-early 1970s.  Indeed, they seem to want the U.S. to continue protecting the Gulf—and their ability to buy its oil and gas—for them.  For better or for worse, the U.S. and the GCC appear to be stuck with each other in an increasingly complicated and changing world.  Instead of trying to find alternatives that do not exist (or, at least, don’t exist yet), perhaps the next Gulf Forum should focus on how to improve the all too difficult, “can’t live with you or without you” U.S.-GCC relationship.  And hopefully, they’ll invite me back for that!

In February 2007, the Oman Daily Observer criticized an article about Oman that I had published back in 2004. The fact that this happened, I fear, bodes quite ill for the country. Not because the Observer criticized my article, but because it made any mention of it at all.

This requires some explaining.

Oman is located at the eastern end of the Arabian Peninsula; it borders Yemen, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates, as well as the Straits of Hormuz through which tankers carrying oil from the Gulf must pass. Since 1970, Oman has been ruled by Sultan Qaboos Bin Said (as the Daily Observer spells his name), who has overseen the country’s rapid economic development. Oman has also been a close ally of the United States.

However, while largely benevolent, the sultan’s rule has been autocratic. The government-controlled Omani media (including the Daily Observer) only refers to the sultan in laudatory terms. No criticism of the ruler ever appears in it. No opposition to him is tolerated either.

Western press coverage of Oman has been remarkably positive. Yet while Oman is certainly doing better than most countries in the region, it does have some serious problems. Not discussing them, in my view, does not mean they do not exist. So, in 2004, I published an article that did discuss them entitled, “Assessing the Political Stability of Oman.” It appeared in Middle East Review of International Affairs, (MERIA) – an online academic journal published in Israel.

The article noted that Oman is facing not only important economic problems (a growing population combined with shrinking petroleum reserves), but political ones as well, including the aging of Sultan Qaboos, an unclear succession (Qaboos has not produced an heir and refuses to name one), lack of administrative experience in other members of the royal family (since Qaboos has never allowed any of them to acquire it), sectarian differences, signs of resentment toward the sultan, a history of rebellion in the past, and sporadic opposition activity in recent years.

The Oman Daily Observer piece in which my article was mentioned (“Meet-the-People Tours,” February 24, 2007) did not discuss any of this. Instead, it noted the historical roots of Sultan Qaboos’ annual tours outside the capital to meet and talk with Omani citizens. In the last paragraph of this article, the author (Viju James) noted that my MERIA article described these tours as “tightly stage-managed events.” Referring to me, his next sentence stated, “He based his findings solely on the opinion of two people and made no effort to probe either history or records of the tours.” This point was backed up by two photos of individual Omanis speaking with Sultan Qaboos and another one of a large crowd of Omani men, apparently gathering to see him.

Again, it is not surprising that the Oman Daily Observer did not approve of my article. What is surprising, though, is that it printed my full name, the full title of the journal it appeared in, and the year it was published. Typing all three of these elements into Google will yield a link to the full text of the article, where the reader will then find much more serious criticisms of Sultan Qaboos’ rule than what Viju James referred to in the Oman Daily Observer.

Why would the Omani media, which simply does not criticize Sultan Qaboos, direct its readers’ attention to an article such as mine that does? Surely it would have been better to avoid any mention of my article at all. Readers who don’t know about it are far less likely to seek it out than those who do. Why the Oman Daily Observer referred to my article in sufficient detail to make it easy to find, then, is really quite puzzling.

 I can only think of one plausible explanation: the Oman Daily Observer gave such a detailed reference to my article not because it wanted Omanis to go find it, but because my article is already so well known in Oman that referring to it does not serve to introduce it to many – perhaps not to any – new readers. Indeed, referring to it openly may have been judged by the Omani government as the best way to try to refute it.

If this explanation is indeed accurate, this is a bad sign for the Omani government. For if my little article is sufficiently well known inside Oman for the Omani government to take the trouble to try to discredit it, this suggests that the criticisms expressed in it are familiar to Omanis. I, of course, simply do not know how well my article is known inside Oman. I suspect, though, that the Omani government is far better informed about this.

Originally published by the Middle East Times (metimes.com), October 9, 2007.

Where I live in Northern Virginia, I often drive by a Lukoil gasoline station on my way to the local shopping center.  Such a sight would have been unimaginable twenty, or even fifteen, years ago.  For me, this Lukoil station is the most visible symbol of how Russia’s economic transformation has affected my life.  And it is reassuring to know that if oil supplies from the Middle East are interrupted, Russia is a country that America can buy oil from.

But oil (in the form of gasoline) is just about the only thing I can buy fromRussia here in America.  While there is no shortage of products I can buy from China, South Korea, and many other countries, I do not see any Russian products in my local shopping center.  The one exception is that in the state-owned liquor stores (yes, we still have those here inVirginia), I can find vodka fromRussia—as well as from a lot of other countries.

What this illustrates, I believe, is that Russia faces a choice:  Will it use its earnings from petroleum exports to invest in other sectors of the Russian economy so that they too can produce goods and services that Americans and other foreigners will be willing to buy?  Or will Russia, like all too many other petroleum rich states, be satisfied to live off its oil and gas revenues, and thereby avoid the hard work of competing with others to produce goods and services that can sell in the world market?

Russia certainly has the human potential to make the first choice.  To begin with, it has a well-educated work force.  And while Russian workers do not consider it an advantage, the lower wages prevailing inRussia compared to the West give Russian business a comparative advantage over higher wage Western states on an important component cost of producing anything.

In addition, Russia now has a lot of managerial talent with experience both in Russia and abroad.  There are also a large number of Western ex-pats who have worked in Russia for a long time with similar experience.  Both of these groups can help Russian business compete effectively in the West.

Russia, then, undoubtedly could sell manufactured goods and services to foreign consumers and businesses.  And doing so would have an enormously positive impact onRussiasince this would create far more jobs than the petroleum sector can.  Indeed, this would allow Russia to enter the ranks of the “tiger” economies such as those in Asia and elsewhere.  But for Russia to do this will require not just investment, but a sensitivity to ever changing market demands as well as the nimbleness necessary to meet them.

Doing this would enable Russia to join the ranks of China, India, South Korea, Brazil, and many others that successfully export their products to the West.  If Russia is to do this, however, it will be accomplished by its businessmen (and women), not by its government.  Bureaucrats—whether in Russia or anywhere else—are not entrepreneurs.  Whereas businessmen take calculated risks, bureaucrats are risk averse.  Whereas businessmen must be attuned to what markets want in order to succeed, bureaucrats are far more attuned to political and organizational interests.  Bureaucrats, though, can make a singularly important contribution to the success of their country’s businessmen:  they can create the conditions necessary for them to succeed, and then stay out of their way.

It clearly benefits Russia as a whole if on the way to my shopping center I stop at the Lukoil station to buy gas.  But it would benefit Russia even more if after doing so, I go to the shopping center and buy a Russian scarf for my wife, a Russian DVD for my daughter, and Russian software for my computer (in addition, of course, to that bottle of Russian vodka for me).  I—and other consumers—would do this not out of any particular sympathy for Russia, but because these products were of high quality and reasonably priced.  Nor is there anything wrong with this, since the ability of Russian business to supply such goods is the best guarantee that it can profit from doing so.  Our being nervous about China, after all, has not prevented us from buying its high quality, reasonably priced products.

I have no doubt that Russian business has the entrepreneurial and managerial talent as well as the capital necessary to export all manner of goods and services besides petroleum to the world market.  The real question is whether Russian business is willing to undertake the constant adaptation to the world market’s ever changing demands that will be necessary for it do so successfully.

Originally published in Russian as “Benzin i vodka: Vzgliad iz SShA,” Top-Manager (St. Petersburg), May 2006, pp. 136-7.

I visited the Kingdom in May 2001 and had long conversations about the future of Saudi Arabia with several individuals.  All of them were men.  All of them were highly educated.  All of them insisted on anonymity.  Each of them also insisted that his view was not representative of Saudi public opinion anyway.  Ironically, though, their views were remarkably similar to one another’s.  But whether representative or not of society as a whole, or just of highly educated men, their views were interesting, intelligent, and very much worth considering—especially in light of the crisis that has developed since September 11.

What’s Wrong?

I asked each person I interviewed to assess the Kingdom’s economic and political prospects.  In general, they were quite pessimistic.  They described the Kingdom as suffering from several serious problems—none of which are being resolved and all of which are growing worse.  First and foremost of these is unemployment.  In the Kingdom, male unemployment rate is estimated to be as high as 25-30%.         This problem appears set to grow worse due to the population boom that the Kingdom is experiencing.  It appears that the Saudi population is increasing at about 3% a year, though the exact figure is uncertain.  What is clear is that Saudi high schools and universities are graduating large numbers of young people for whom there are no “suitable” jobs.

My interlocutors also noted that Saudi women have become increasingly dissatisfied.  Educated young Saudi women want to work.  The country’s economic contraction is impelling them to work.  But there are few jobs available to Saudi women due to the Kingdom’s well-known restrictions on women, and gender segregation in the workplace.  Indeed, the only professions in which large numbers of Saudi women have found work are nursing and teaching.  But since most educated Saudi women reside in the Kingdom’s major cities, jobs in these two fields have become increasingly difficult to come by in them.  Job openings for women in these two fields, then, are now mainly available farther and farther away from the main cities.  And since women are not allowed to drive in the Kingdom, they have to be chauffeured to and from work either by a driver (who must be paid) or by their husbands.  Even with a driver, the men I spoke to complain that women who work far from Riyadh spend so much time away from home that men must devote more and more of their time (including work time) to household tasks.  In short, the increasing desire of educated Saudi women to work combined with the restrictions that Saudi society places on women have resulted in making life increasingly difficult for both men and women in the Kingdom.

While the Saudi men I spoke to all favor lifting the restrictions on women, they all insisted that they are very much in the minority.  Most Saudi men, they said, do not want to allow Saudi women to freely enter the work force both out of religious conviction and, perhaps more tellingly, the fear that increased Saudi female employment would come at the cost of increased Saudi male unemployment.

One of the negative consequences arising from widespread unemployment and low expectations for employment among young Saudis has been increased drug use and the crime associated with it.  Nor has the harsh nature of Saudi criminal punishment proven to be a deterrent to this growing problem.

Another problem resulting from difficult times, some of my interlocutors noted, is the revival of tribal and regional identification.  The inability of the government to provide employment and other benefits combined with a sense that Riyadh favors one group (the Najdis) over all others has led people to rely increasingly on their tribal or regional kin.  While not threatening at present, some of my interlocutors fear the impact that the growth of this trend could have for the unity of the Kingdom.

Why Haven’t These Problems Been Solved?

Why has the Saudi government been unable to deal with these problems?  Because, I was told, it is corrupt, inefficient, and has the wrong priorities.

Everyone I spoke to claimed that corruption is pervasive throughout the Saudi government, especially its upper echelons.  Far more weapons than are needed are purchased for the Saudi armed forces so that powerful figures can obtain commissions from these deals.  Many officials have private companies on the side which sell goods and services (often in partnership with foreign firms) to their own ministries.  The entourages surrounding many of the senior princes routinely use their positions to benefit their own relatives and friends.  Bribery or connections are necessary to get almost anything done.

While corruption is hardly a new problem in the Kingdom, inefficiency in government is something that has become increasingly noticeable.  Several of my interlocutors attribute this to a vicious dynamic.  Although Saudi government ministries and agencies may have thousands of employees, those at the very top refuse to delegate decision-making, but guard it jealously to themselves.  What this means is that virtually all decisions, no matter how trivial, must either be made or approved at the very highest levels. The senior princes and their staffs are often up all through the night deciding matters that would be dealt with by mid-level bureaucrats in other countries.  The more time they have to spend reacting to immediate problems clearly leaves them with less time to develop strategies for dealing with the chronic, root problems which plague Saudi society—assuming they are actually interested in doing this.

But, according to most of my interlocutors, this is not the top priority for the Saudi leadership.  Instead of Saudi society’s problems, the top priority for the royal family is its own problems.  And these are very serious.

Despite its wealth, the Saudi government does not have the money to subsidize the swollen ranks of the royal family to the extent that it did in the heyday of high oil prices.  Furthermore, my interlocutors claim, many of the seven odd thousand princes have become so indebted trying to keep up the ostentatious lifestyle they believe themselves entitled to that they cannot pay their bills.  One source claimed that as many as 90% of the princes fall into this category.

While people in such circumstances would be forced into bankruptcy in other countries, he noted, the Saudi royal family protects its own from this indignity—as well as from the inconvenience of paying off creditors.  As a consequence, nobody who knows which royals don’t pay their bills will extend additional credit to them.  The situation has gotten so bad that Saudi businesses try to avoid accepting checks written by impecunious members of the royal family due to the high probability that they will bounce.

The royal family is reported to be focusing much of its attention on finding “suitable” positions for its younger members.  There is, however, a scarcity of the former and an abundance of the latter.  Both the armed forces and the government are so saturated with princes that vacancies for positions with any real authority are few and far between.  And giving them positions with no authority is one more unneeded drain on the government’s budget.

The solution to this dilemma the royal family has reached, I was told, is to cajole or pressure profitable Saudi businesses run by non-royals to hire these young princes.  The problem with this, the two Saudis I spoke to with close connections to the business world indicated, is that few of these young princes appear to have much talent for business. Despite this, Saudi businesses cannot really refuse when asked to hire them for fear that doing so will negatively affect their relations with what is usually their most important client—the Saudi government.  And since princes must clearly be paid princely salaries, no matter how little talent for business they may have, Saudi businesses which have hired them have consequently experienced declining profitability.  My friends indicated that this is a very serious and growing problem since there is a constant supply of young princes needing jobs, and because no Saudi business would dare try to get rid of a prince no matter how much of a liability he proves to be after being hired.

What Does the Future Hold?

The Saudi government’s growing corruption, inefficiency, and misplaced priorities have resulted in its being unable to prevent Saudi society’s problems from getting steadily worse.  The group I spoke to all fear that if things keep going the way they are, an increasingly paralyzed Saudi government will simply be unable to deal with more and more intractable problems, not the least of which is the inability to reform itself.

In addition, all this is coming about at the same time that Saudi society has become more connected to the rest of the world than it ever has before.  With access to relatively independent news sources such as Al-Jazeera and Sky TV—plus access to the internet—Saudi citizens now can readily compare the circumstances of their lives with those of people in other countries.  A strong sense of relative deprivation as well as resentment has consequently developed among younger Saudis over the restricted lifestyle they lead compared to people in both the West and even neighboring Middle Eastern countries, including Iran.

Everybody I spoke to expressed the belief that things cannot go on like this much longer.  To the extent that the government cannot deliver what people feel it owes them, then opposition is likely to arise.  This in itself would not necessarily amount to anything, but if the Saudi government cannot solve its other problems, will it be able to suppress opposition to it?  The main concern of the royal family vis-à-vis the Saudi armed forces, according to my interlocutors, has been to render it incapable of mounting a coup.  They have clearly succeeded at this.  But will they be able to get Saudi soldiers to fire upon their fellow citizens “if necessary,” especially if they share the same grievances?  It is when armies won’t do this, several noted, that the governments they are supposed to protect fall apart.

Some I spoke with said this was irrelevant since American armed forces would protect the Saudi monarchy against its internal opponents, just like it did against Saddam Hussein in 1990-91.  Others insisted that while the U.S. government could be expected to intervene militarily to defend the Kingdom from external attack, Congress and the American public would not permit American intervention to defend the Saudi monarchy against its internal opponents.  All agreed that if the U.S. did intervene, the monarchy would lose all legitimacy and would be weaker and more vulnerable than ever.  The monarchy would inevitably fall after this, though perhaps not quite as quickly if the U.S. refused to intervene in the face of rising domestic opposition.

And what would come afterward?  Most thought that it was likely to be something so virulently anti-Western, anti-democratic, and Islamic fundamentalist that it would make Ayatollah Khomeini himself look tame by comparison.  Indeed, the new regime might even try to spread its brand of Islamic revolution to Iran, as well as other neighboring countries.  Whether it tried this or not, it would certainly expel the Americans and destroy both the royal family and all those connected with them.  Like the Taliban, it would bring misery to the country for many, many years.  This is not a prospect that the group I spoke to was happy about at all.

Is There Any Hope?

Can this fate be avoided?  Nobody in the group thought that democratization was the answer.  They insisted that their society was simply not ready for it.  If elections were held in the Kingdom, they believe that most Saudis would vote for authoritarian forces, probably of the Islamist variety, at this point in time.  Any external pressure on the Kingdom to democratize would only be seen as a plot to somehow increase American and Western domination over the country.  The Saudi royal family has no intention of allowing any sort of elections anyway.

A few even went so far as to say that the appointment of the majlis al-shura, touted by some in the West for being the beginning of democratization or even the embodiment of “desert democracy,” was actually intended by the Saudi royal family as a clever means of discrediting democracy.  In the view of all my interlocutors, most members of the majlis are distinguished only for being especially incompetent and inept.  Some believe that by appointing them, the royal family sought to inculcate the idea that non-royals cannot govern effectively, and so ordinary citizens need the royal family to protect them from one another.  None expect these appointed members of the majlis to push for democratization.

So if salvation through democratization is unlikely, then what does the future hold?  Some in the group have no hope at all.  They believe that the Saudi monarchy will fall, and that what comes after it will be far worse.  One even said that many people were preparing for this by sending as much money out of the country as they can while there is still the opportunity to do so.

Others, though, believe that there may be a way out of the mess that the country has gotten into:  Although the royal family as a whole is not held in high regard, some members of it are.  Some in the group felt that the then Crown Prince, Abdallah  (who is now King), is a reformer.  Others, though, think that while his heart may be in the right place, Abdallah will not be able to overcome the pervasive corruption that has become so firmly entrenched in the government—including, they all said, in his own entourage.  And even with the best will in the world, it will be extremely difficult for him to sack the incompetent and inept among his own brothers.

A decade later, the Saudi royal family remains firmly in charge of the Kingdom.  But the problems described above remain as well.

previously unpublished

Like virtually all Russians, Americans were shocked and outraged by the deaths of innocent children in the Beslan hostage tragedy just over one month ago. A troubling aspect, then, about Russian President Vladimir Putin’s reaction to the tragedy was his implied suggestion that the West in general and United States in particular, somehow bore a significant share of the blame for the deaths. As bizarre as this idea may seem to many Americans, I learned during a recent visit to Moscow that many Russians genuinely share Putin’s perspective of the Beslan crisis.

In early September, shortly after the Beslan crisis reached its bloody climax, I gave a lecture on Russian-American relations to upper division undergraduates at Moscow’s prestigious USA and Canada Institute (a part of the Russian Academy of Sciences). In the Q&A session that followed my remarks, students expressed the following views:

President Putin was right to ridicule the West for maintaining a double standard, in which it urged Moscow to engage the Chechen rebels, while adopting a hard-line stance towards Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda. The Chechen rebels and al Qaeda are one and the same. Just as any Western attempt to negotiate with al Qaeda would be futile, so would a Russian attempt to negotiate with the Chechens.

It is outrageous that the United States and other Western governments hold talks with Chechen opposition figures and refuse to extradite those indicted by Moscow back to Russia.

The inclusion of the three Baltic states in NATO and the American military presence in Georgia and Central Asia are aimed at preventing Russia from reasserting its influence in the former Soviet republics.

The American military presence in Central Asia was stimulating the rise of Islamic radicalism in the region.

The American willingness to use force unilaterally while advising Moscow not to do so shows that Washington sought to keep Russia weak.

I tried to challenge these perceptions. I argued that not all Chechens belonged to al Qaeda, and that Moscow should work with those who don’t in an effort to marginalize the most radical elements of the Chechen resistance. I pointed out that a State Department meeting with Chechen opposition figures was a far cry from American support for them, and that these meetings were aimed at promoting a peaceful settlement. I also argued that the American military presence in Central Asia was aimed at Islamic extremists, and not at Russia.

I went on to suggest that if Russia didn’t like the growing American/NATO presence in Georgia and the Baltics, the best way to halt it would be for Moscow to pursue friendly policies toward these small countries, instead of embracing policies that are perceived as threatening by its neighbors. And, if it is true (as I fear it is) that the growing American military presence in Central Asia is fueling the rise of Islamic extremism, I maintained that a growing Russian military presence in the region is likewise fueling the radicalization trend. Finally, I argued that it was not in the United States’ best strategic interests to push for a weak Russia. Washington preferred to see a stronger Russia, capable of working effectively to contain Islamic radicalism today, and potentially offering a balance to rising Chinese power in the future.

The Russian students didn’t buy any of my arguments. Their sense of injury about what they interpreted as American disregard for Russian interests had rendered them suspicious of anything American officials said, or did.

This is worrisome. If the attitudes of this group reflect those of Russians as a whole, they pose a significant obstacle to Russian-American cooperation. If anything, this group of elite students is probably more apt to be pro-American than the general population.

The negative views of the United States held by what seems to be a large majority of Russians appear to be deeply entrenched. I came away from my discussion with the students with the sense that American diplomacy needs to do a much better job of explaining US policies in the region. The Russian public must hear cogent explanations as to why American actions — including talking with Chechen opposition figures, and the stationing of troops in Central Asia — are not designed to undermine Moscow’s interests, but are aimed at combating a common enemy — Islamic extremism.

US diplomacy may well be critical to the United States’ struggle to contain Islamic radicalism, especially in Central Asia. As one young man, Nikita, said to me after the lecture: “It’s not just that we should be allies in this fight. We must be.”

Originally published by EurasiaNet.org, October 12, 2004.

“Freedom of religion does not really exist in America,” said Mansour.

We were sitting in an apartment in Sanaa, the Yemeni capital.  Mansour was known for being from a strongly religious family, and for being quite religious himself.

“Why do you say that?” I asked.

Mansour thought about this while.  “In America,” he said slowly, “it is illegal for a man to have more than one wife.”

“That is true,” I agreed.

“But Islam allows a man to have as many as four wives,” he pointed out.

“That is true,” I acknowledged.

“Since a Muslim man cannot have more than one wife in America, he does not enjoy freedom of religion there.  America discriminates against Muslims.”

I pointed out that in America, freedoms are curtailed when their exercise hurts others.  No man, Muslim or otherwise, was permitted to have more than one wife.  This was because it was disadvantageous and harmful for a woman to have to share a husband with one or more other women.

Mansour was visibly impatient as he listened to this explanation.  “But men and women are adults.  If a woman agrees to marry a man who already has a wife, why should the government interfere?”

“But what about a woman who already is married to a man?” I asked.  “Does she willingly agree that her husband take another wife?”

“Well, no,” he admitted.  “She usually cries, and screams that she will go back to her parents.  But in the end, she usually…accepts.”

Mansour then went on to relate how, although he only had one wife, his father had had four and some of his brothers had more than one.  Problems among the women could arise when a new wife entered the household, but eventually things settled down.

“And sometimes,” he added, “it is the first wife who will arrange for her husband to marry a second one.  If, for example, she can’t have children and she doesn’t want him to divorce her, she will arrange for one of her sisters or cousins to marry him.  It’s also beneficial for her because she is already on good terms with the new wife.”

A general discussion then ensued about the advantages and disadvantages of having more than one wife.  One man observed that while a single wife was insufficient, four was too many to deal with.  Two, he thought, was ideal.  Some disagreed with this, but there was a general consensus among the Yemeni men present that a man should have the right to choose the number of wives which suited him.

“If a man should have the freedom to choose up to four wives, shouldn’t a woman have the freedom to choose up to four husbands?” I asked.

The question seemed logical enough to me, but it had the effect of completely halting the conversation.  The men in the room all stared at me, apparently in shock.

Mansour finally broke the silence.  In a voice that indicated he was explaining something so basic that it should not have to be explained at all, he said, “But our religion does not allow.

previously unpublished

Cairo (1982)

One reason why I had wanted to visit Egypt was to do some research there on Yemen.  Although it is well known that Egypt has fought four wars with Israel (in 1948, 1956, 1967, and 1973), Egypt also fought a less well known war in North Yemen.

The history of this war is bizarre.  In September 1962, the Egyptian leader Nasser sent thousands of his soldiers to North Yemen to help a Nasserist “republican” revolution which had overthrown the country’s king.  Nasser seemed to hope that the ouster of the Yemeni monarchy would quickly be followed by the demise of the Saudis and the other royal families of the Arabian Peninsula.  Instead, the overthrown Yemeni king was able to rally many of the tribes to his cause and put the Yemeni republicans and their Egyptian allies on the defensive.

Even with Soviet military assistance, the Egyptians had to fight hard just to keep the major cities in republican hands.  Nasser himself grew disillusioned with the adventure, and at one point in the mid-1960s described Yemen as “Egypt’s Vietnam.”

In the wake of Israel’s rapid defeat of Egypt, Jordan, and Syria in June 1967, Nasser decided he could not afford the Yemeni adventure any longer, and so withdrew his troops.  The Yemeni republican cause appeared to be doomed.  But then an odd thing happened.  As soon as their Egyptian protectors left, the Yemeni republicans grew stronger.  They beat back several royalist offensives.  The royalist coalition fell apart, and in 1970 the war came to an end.  Apparently, a lot of the tribes supporting the royalist cause didn’t so much object to the new Yemeni republican government but to the large Egyptian military presence which had come with it.

There is more open discussion of foreign policy issues in Egypt than in most other Arab countries.  Egyptian scholars and journalists have written extensively about the various Arab-Israeli wars.  And while the Egyptian government has not opened its archives generally, several high level Egyptian officials have had access to them or have revealed information about high-level decision-making to an extent that rarely occurs in the Arab world.  Mohammed Heikal’s several books on Egyptian foreign relations, based on his own personal access to Nasser and other high-level officials, are especially well known.

But while Egyptians have written much about their wars with Israel and their relations with the superpowers, I could find very little Egyptian literature about Nasser’s intervention in Yemen.  Maybe this work just hadn’t been translated into English, I thought.  So while in Cairo, I hoped to interview Egyptian officials and scholars about Cairo’s complicated involvement in the Yemeni civil war.

I found that scholars and officials in Egypt were eager to talk about the various Arab-Israeli wars, about which they seemed to have memorized what had happened in enormous detail, and Egypt’s relations with both Moscow and Washington at great length.  But they seemed strangely reluctant to talk about Yemen.

Whenever I would bring the subject up, my Egyptian interlocutors would ignore me and talk about something else.  When I would press them about it, they would respond that they didn’t really know much about Yemen; it wasn’t their specialty.

I would ask, “Then who is a specialist on Yemen here in Egypt?”

Most people said they did not know.  Once, though, I was told, “Well, there is someone who wrote a dissertation on this subject at Cairo University.”

“How can I contact him?”

“It isn’t easy.  He doesn’t really have a job.  And he doesn’t have a phone at home.  But if I see him, I’ll tell him to contact you.”

I never heard from him.

I did, however, meet with Ismail Fahmy, the former Egyptian foreign minister.  I interviewed him at his elegant apartment in the exclusive Zamalyk section of Cairo.

Just as in every other interview, I could not get Fahmy to say anything about Yemen, though he was quite voluble about the Arab-Israeli conflict as well as the superpowers.  I finally grew exasperated and demanded to know why neither he nor anyone else would talk with me about Yemen.  Egyptian forces had fought there for five years.  Nasser had called it Egypt’s Vietnam.  Surely the experience in Yemen equaled the Arab-Israeli conflict as something significant for Egyptian foreign policy specialists to reflect upon.

Fahmy seemed a little taken aback by this outburst.  “Oh yes,” he said, “the Yemeni civil war is definitely worthwhile for us to think about.  The Yemenis defeated us, just like the Israelis did.  But the defeats were very different from each other.

“We feel no shame at being defeated by the Israelis,” he continued.  “Israel, after all, was strongly backed by America and the West.  The USSR did not help us nearly as much as America helped Israel.  We could hardly be expected to prevail against Israel.  Just having fought them at all when the odds were so heavily against us makes us feel heroic.

“But Yemen was different.  This was a nation of primitive tribesmen.  There was no American support for the royalists.  The Soviets gave lots of help to us.  We should have won that war, but we lost it.  And the fact that the republicans who were about to be defeated when we left then went on to win afterward just adds insult to injury.

“We thought it would be so simple when we first went there.  But it is a very complicated country.  We never understood it.

“Now do you see why we don’t like to talk about it?”

 Excerpt from Middle Eastern Sketches (1997).

It happened every time.  I would give a talk about Soviet foreign policy toward the Persian Gulf.  But no matter who was in the audience (diplomats, journalists, academics, or whatever), all they wanted to talk about was American policy toward the Arab-Israeli conflict.

The U.S. Information Agency (USIA) had sent me on a speaking tour to several Arabian Peninsula countries in February-March, 1988.  I visited Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, and North Yemen.

The message I attempted to convey was that the Soviets were trying very hard to increase their influence in the region, but they faced many obstacles.

Many of the American officials I met in the region weren’t so sure about the second part of my message.  At the time, it seemed like the Soviets were encountering no obstacles at all.  Moscow had recently signed an agreement with Kuwait to protect some of its oil shipping; this was the first time the USSR had been asked to play an active role in the defense of any of the conservative Gulf monarchies traditionally allied to the West.  Moscow had also expanded its ties with Iran, Saudi Arabia and other states while retaining its alliances with Iraq and South Yemen.  In addition, Gorbachev had launched diplomatic initiatives to resolve the Iraq-Iran war and the Arab-Israeli conflict which were being taken seriously by the countries of the region.  In short, the USSR under Gorbachev seemed to be improving its ties with all states in the region at the same time that America’s relations with them had deteriorated badly in the wake of the Iran-contra scandal.

But whether or not Moscow was successful in its efforts to increase its influence in the region, the question itself was an interesting one–or at least I thought so along with the Reagan-era officials in Washington and our posts abroad who sponsored my trip.  But the Arab audiences I spoke with–including officials of highly conservative, anti-Soviet governments such as Saudi Arabia–apparently thought otherwise.

I spoke to a variety of groups:  foreign ministry officials, newspaper editors, university professors, and audiences invited to hear me speak at various U.S. embassies or consulates.  On each occasion, the moment I finished my talk on the Soviets and the Gulf, people in the audience would begin asking questions or making speeches about America and the Arab/Israeli situation.

After this had happened several times, I once said to the audience, “The question of American policy toward the Arab/Israeli conflict is highly important.  But so is the question of Soviet policy toward this area.  Don’t you have any questions about that?”  Except on one occasion, no one ever did.  I was mystified.

The one occasion when someone did respond to my question was in North Yemen–the last Arabian Peninsula country on my lecture tour.  It was at an informal meeting in someone’s house.  Several Yemeni politicians and professors were present.

Once again, I had given my talk on the Soviets and the Gulf and afterward had been bombarded with questions and statements about American policy toward Israel.  Once again, I asked them whether they were completely uninterested in Soviet policy toward the region.

One of the Yemeni politicians responded, “You Americans are worried about the spread of Soviet influence, but we Arabs are not.  We know their weapons do not work.  We know they offer nothing in terms of economic assistance.  We know that their ideology and culture are unattractive to us.

“You Americans think the Soviets have great influence in the Arab world.  The Soviets themselves think they do.  But we Arabs know they don’t.

“So, to answer your question, we aren’t much interested in Soviet policy in this region.  I know you have spent years studying this question, but quite frankly you have wasted your time.  One day, you will see.”

At the time, I thought what this Yemeni politician said was utter nonsense.  So did the American embassy officials accompanying me.  But his prediction came true not long after he made it.

Revised version published as “Russia and the Arabs: Lesson from the Past,” Middle East Times (metimes.com), January 9, 2008.