The Secretary (21 page)

FDR complained that the king was not helping, and the king lost patience. There was
no resolution, but FDR promised in person and later in a letter that the “U.S. Government
would make no change in its basic policy in Palestine without full and prior consultation
with both Jews and Arabs.”
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Eight weeks later, FDR died and Harry Truman became president. Abdul Aziz felt the
promise he had received aboard the USS
Quincy
was made by America, not just by the man who was its president. After all, as the
absolute ruler of Saudi Arabia, Abdul Aziz’s word was law. He was furious to discover
that Truman did not feel bound by FDR’s letter and did not consult properly with the
Arabs before walking down the road toward recognition of Israel. Nevertheless, the
U.S.-Saudi relationship continued because the 1945 meeting was also the start of a
key agreement between the two countries that has continued, almost uninterrupted,
to this day: oil in return for security and arms.

*   *   *

I was stuck in the very back row of an armored car. The hum of the engine as the car
sped along on a straight road lulled me to sleep. On the bus, chatting with Saud al-Faisal,
Clinton looked out the window as the motorcade whizzed past camel markets and horse
farms. An hour into our drive, the vast expanse of light-brown gravel that is the
Saudi desert became dotted with more and more brown bushes. We were approaching the
oasis of Rawdat Khuraim, the king’s desert retreat. Shoots of green appeared, then
lone acacia trees, and then a cluster of palm trees and what looked like a small circus:
a six-top black tent surrounded by elevated semitrailers and other smaller tents.

The tents were air-conditioned and decorated with tribal rugs; inside one, we sampled
dates and cooled off while Hillary freshened up in one of the trailers with gold-plated
Grohe faucets. Then, her handbag in her left hand and Nina Behrens, her interpreter,
hurrying along one step behind her, she entered the main tent, which was in fact more
of a building with a tented top. Clinton walked down the eighty-two-foot-long carpet,
past a wall of thirty-two small television sets around one central massive screen,
toward the king. Tilting her head to the right, looking slightly demure, she smiled
affectionately at the old man with a jet-black goatee, wearing a traditional black
flowing robe, known as a
thobe
, and a white and red checkered headdress.

“It’s an honor, Your Majesty,” said Clinton.

The king held on to Clinton’s hand as he inquired about the health of her husband,
who had had heart stent surgery in New York the week before. Everybody sat down for
the pleasantries that precede any serious meetings. These were unusually long and
also, unusually, the journalists were allowed to stay for the duration. The king was
showing Clinton extraordinary hospitality by extending his welcome to her entire delegation.
Such generosity also meant that serious subjects, teasers for what was to come in
the closed meetings, were not even broached. Sitting on an overstuffed, faded turquoise
couch, Clinton was in her element, charming the king as she sipped strong arabica
coffee. She retold a joke that the Saudi foreign minister had just shared with her
on the bus and then started talking about camels.

“I want you to know, Your Majesty, that His Highness thinks camels are ugly,” Clinton
said with a grin, pointing to Prince Saud who sat next to her.

“I think His Highness was not being fair to camels,” the king replied. He mentioned
that he had fallen off a camel, and Clinton looked at him with alarm until he clarified
that it had happened decades ago.

Clinton had much she wanted to ask the king but, as she often did with her counterparts,
she took her time making a connection, before making any requests. She believed that
Americans did not always fully appreciate how their get-down-to-business approach
to meetings was experienced by others, especially in countries where every conversation
started with the same litany of inquiries about the health of family members, from
parents to distant relatives. Hillary believed that taking the time to know her counterparts
was not only a show of respect but also a smarter way to build relationships. In the
twenty-first century America could no longer walk into a room and make demands; it
had to build connections first. After twenty minutes, the camel diplomacy petered
out, and Clinton and the king rose from their chairs.

“Your Majesty, let me introduce you to my staff,” said Clinton. One by one, she introduced
Jeff, Jake, and Huma, whose mother had helped found a women’s college in Jeddah and
still lived there. In the back of the room, the king’s aides signaled to everyone
to get up and stand in line. When Clinton was done presenting the last person on her
team, she was suddenly faced with the traveling press standing sheepishly in line.
Clinton thanked the king for extending his hospitality to the media and began to introduce
each one of us by our full name and the media outlet we worked for. In her dark navy
suit and pearl necklace and perfectly blow-dried hair, the secretary looked amused
by the woman reporter who had donned a headscarf to meet the king. Then came the handful
of embassy staffers whom she had never met before, so Clinton’s much-vaunted memory
was of no help, but she offered a general introduction about the great work the staff
did at the embassy in Riyadh.

It was time for lunch. Slowly, the king walked out of the reception hall, with Clinton
at his side and a slight spring in his step, perhaps thanks to the black sports sneakers
that peeked out from below his dark
thobe
. The old monarch, a large, imposing man, suffered from back problems. Across the
foyer, a large banquet hall was set up for lunch. Along the side wall, a buffet table
was laden with mountains of food—pheasant, lobster, smoked salmon rolls, and three
kinds of lamb dishes. On the U-shaped table, more traditional Bedouin dishes awaited
us in gold-plated dish warmers. By each of our plates, we found scented Bulgari hand
fresheners. The king sat down, Clinton to his right at the head of the table. Suddenly,
in the empty space of the U, a huge television screen emerged from a cabinet on a
hydraulic lift, hiding Clinton and the king from the view of those sitting farther
down the table. Soccer-match commentary started blaring in the room, drowning out
all our voices. It was like sitting down for a dinner with your family on football
night. Clinton tried each of the lamb dishes while the king spoke to her through his
interpreter, the Saudi ambassador to Washington Adel al-Jubeir. More food and desserts
emerged from the kitchen. On our way out, servants stood by with bottles of French
cologne to spray on our hands.

The king, Clinton, and their close aides retreated to a small side room to talk business.
In the large sitting area, the journalists and members of the delegation who were
not part of the talks drank cup after cup of tea, courtesy of men with guns wearing
white or dark flowing robes.

Inside, the talks were going exceedingly well and stretched beyond the allotted hour
and a half. Hillary usually allowed conversations to run their course, and she was
certainly not going to wrap up a meeting with a king. The stalled peace efforts, support
for the Palestinian president Abbas, sanctions against Iran, the stability of Iraq—there
was a lot on the agenda. At some point, the king and his entourage started to fidget.

“Do you mind if I smoke,” he asked.

“Your Majesty,” Clinton said, “please do as you see fit.” But she couldn’t help pointing
out that smoking was not good for one’s health. Out came a cigarette lighter that
resembled a blowtorch.

The United States wanted to encourage Saudi Arabia, a Sunni country, to establish
a better rapport with the Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki, a Shiite in a country
that was roughly half Sunni. The U.S. troop withdrawal was looming on the horizon,
and Iran, a Shiite theocracy, was looking to fill the void. The Sunni-Shiite rivalry
dated back centuries and sectarian violence in Iraq had claimed thousands of lives
since the American invasion. The whole region was plagued by that tension. Sunni Arabs
were eternally in a competition, not only among themselves but also with Iran for
regional dominance. They often manipulated the United States into bolstering their
position with more arms and support, knowing well that America was scarred by its
own history with Iran and would do anything to curb the power of the mullahs in Tehran.
The United States wanted the Saudis to reach out to Maliki as a way of fending off
Tehran.

The translation was a laborious process that doubled the time required for every conversation.
Nina Behrens translated Clinton’s words into Arabic for the king. The king, an engaging
man with no formal education and a very earthy Arabic, had little time for Iraq’s
ruler.

“The king regrets to say that he has lost all confidence in Prime Minister Maliki,”
said his interpreter, the ambassador.

What the king had actually said was “Maliki is a big liar.” How often did curt, visceral
sentiments like these get lost in translation?

The king suggested the United States itself should be more forceful in reining in
Tehran. The Saudi monarch then appealed to Clinton to help with more U.S. student
visas for Saudis. It was an issue that mattered to him deeply and that he brought
up in almost every meeting with American officials. He deplored the fact that after
the attacks of 9/11 the number of Saudis in American universities had dwindled. He
insisted that the United States and Saudi Arabia had to maintain a strong relationship,
and he believed that the experience of Saudi students in America was essential to
that. His own ambassador had spent so much time in the United States, he said, that
he was practically an American. Finally, some four hours after their closed meeting
had started, Hillary emerged, smiling broadly. If ever a meeting had gone well, this
was it.

The caravan made its way through the desert back to the airport, which somehow, unusually,
had a small, fully kitted auditorium with interpreter booths and all. Clinton and
Saud al-Faisal gave a press conference in which questions about Iran dominated. Washington
was pushing for tougher sanctions on Tehran, and journalists asked whether Saudi Arabia
supported the move.

“Sanctions are a long-term solution. So we need immediate resolutions rather than
gradual resolution to this regard,” said Saud al-Faisal. Saudi diplomatic language
was so opaque it was almost comic. Had the Saudis just said they would not support
America’s push for a sanctions resolution at the United Nations? Or was that their
subtle way of asking the Americans to take more decisive action, like a military strike?
A reporter then asked whether the Saudis would offer more of their own oil supplies
to China to encourage them to stop importing crude oil from Iran. The answer sounded
like Chinese.

“I am sure the Chinese carry their responsibility as one of the five permanent members
of the United Nations very seriously, and they need no suggestion from Saudi Arabia
to do what they ought to do according to their responsibility.”

Was he saying that Saudi Arabia would not use oil as an incentive to pressure China
to back UN sanctions against Iran—the sanctions we weren’t sure they actually supported?
The statement could also be read as a veiled warning: if Beijing did not back UN sanctions,
as was expected from a “responsible world power,” it risked upsetting its top oil
supplier, Saudi Arabia. Iran was a key crude-oil provider for China, but it ranked
third.

When the press conference was over, the line officer grabbed Clinton’s personal earphones
from the lectern while she was escorted out by the minister. We all scurried behind
them, toward the plane. We flew an hour and a half south to the warmer and less conservative
Red Sea port city of Jeddah, where Clinton was going to hold a town hall at the Dar
Al-Hekma women’s college the following day. Huma was excited to see her mother and
would be spending the night at the family home.

*   *   *

Saudi Arabia, the birthplace of Islam, is a deeply religious country and has a patriarchal
society with a traditional Bedouin past. The culture and customs here are deeply foreign
to most Westerners, especially because of the way women are treated. While some Saudi
women are just as conservative as their husbands or fathers and don’t wish for change,
many others resent the segregation that rules everyday life and the restrictions they
face at every turn. Everything requires the permission of a male guardian, from traveling
to opening a business. Thousands of women work within the gaps in the restrictions
and are successful businesswomen, doctors, and lawyers. Women also apparently hold
half of the country’s bank assets. But they are not allowed to drive, and they have
to wear black cloaks at all times—the two most visible signs of the repression women
face in Saudi Arabia. Women’s rights in the kingdom are often reduced to the single
issue of the black cloak, a pet topic for Westerners.

In 2005, Karen Hughes, who was in charge of public diplomacy for the Bush administration,
also spoke at Dar Al-Hekma. When she told the audience that driving was an important
part of her freedom as an American woman, she was faced with defiance. “I don’t want
to drive because I have my own driver,” said one student.
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“Americans think that Arab women are not very happy,” another said.
23
“We are all pretty happy.”

Some of the country’s rules were fit for the Middle Ages, but women were not a uniform,
black, downtrodden mass. Women did also openly rebel occasionally and took to the
wheel in protest, but they bristled at being lectured to by outsiders. Change, they
told Hughes, would come, but it would come from them. In the wake of the Iraq War
debacle, American lectures about freedom were not welcome in the Arab world.