Customer Reviews

The King's Messenger: Prince Bandar bin Sultan and America's Tangled Relationship With Saudi Arabia

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Ottaway did an excellent job in telling the readers, the 30 year old Saudi-US oil for security pact. In 1933, King Adbulaziz granted SOCAL (predecessor of Chevron) the right to prospect oil in the kingdom, and allowed the US to build the Dhahran air base to defend the kingdom. The purchases of the Airborne Warning and Control System, F-155, tanks, missles, etc gave US defense industries billions of dollars. At the same time, Saudis sold US millions barrels of oil, at the ongoing basis. Of course, Israel was not happy about this situation. Congress always fought against selling arms to the Saudis, from the lobby of American Israel Public Affairs Committee.

Enter Prince Bandar, the King's messenger. Serving five presidents: Carter, Regan, Senior Bush, Clinton and Bush W. He was able to make deals with US on behalf of the Saudi King Fahd and King Abdullah. He contacted stakeholders of McDonnell Douglas, maker of F-15: contractors, subcontractors, and labor unions. He got the union members, their cousins, related family members, to flood congress with telegrams, telephone calls in support of the sale.

How did he deal with the Israel request? American will sell F-165 fighter planes to Israel as part of the package. Israel was concerned that these weapons may be target for Israel. Bandar assured Israel, that these are only used to defend Saudi for possible Wahhabi or Iran conflict. Finally the vote was 55-44, favoring the sale. Carter was the big hero, with Bandar's help.

To play leverage, King sent Bandar to UK for the Tornado purchase. Thatcher relied: you have a deal, without asking any details. This al-Yamamah deal was worth $86 bn, covering 72 jets, 2 air bases, and service contracts. It was much easier making deal in UK than in US, where it takes months to US congress to agree for the sale.

Soviet Union and Afghanistan were at war. Dealing with Gorbachev, it was very interesting. Gorb said, "You give Afghanistan $200 million worth of arms to fight." Bandar said, "You are wrong, Mr. President. We are paying them $500 million. If you leave Afgan, we will pay you $1 bn." Soviet troops left, amazing!

During the Bush senior era, US sold more F-15, Strike Eagles, etc to Saudis. Bandar is very close to Colin Powell. As the oil price dropped, there was a cash flow payment problem for the Saudi. Bandar simply said, "No problem. Stretch the payment to 20 or 30 years. As the oil price comes up, you will get all the money".

In dealing with Gaddafi, Libya president, Bandar made a case that the 270 Pan Am crash families needed to be taken care of. Gaddafi wanted to get out of the terrorism business, and paid §2.7 bn to the 270 families. It was so easy.

Clinton and Bandar never clicked. As a result, US lost much business with the Saudi.

George W. Bush was so much into the Iraqi war, after 9/11. King Abdullah was only interested in resolving issues between Israel and Palestian Liberation Army (PLO). With Y. Arafat gone, Abbas was not able to fight off Hamas. Bush and Abdullah were never on the same page. Bandar tried everything to no avail. As more youth worshiped Bin Laden, it was difficult to contain the al-Qaeda activities in the kingdom.

As Bush departed from Abdullah, US dependence on Saudi oil decreased to seven percent. At the same time, Saudi got Lukoil, Sinopec, ENI, Repsol YPF to start drilling in the kingdom. China is the new customer for Saudi oil. The world is full of new international business (oil, weapon) players.

For the sales of weapon, and working in US for 30 years, Bandar got $50 bn or more? Then he is the riches person in the world. Forbes just missed him. But with endless oil money, who worries?

As a college professor teaching International Business, I recommend this book to everyone. It is well researched and written.

This is an excellent source for understanding the recent volatile changes in Saudi-U.S. relations and for insight into where the Saudi-U.S. alliance is headed. It provides cultural, historical and personality insights into recent events in succint detail. It also gives a biographical account of a fascinating person, Prince Bandar, a diplomat par excellence.

Anyone who is interested in how foreign policy is made, the push and pull of politics, the power of personality and the role of a single character, and mostly, the 'rootlessness' of policy, will find this book indispensable.