by Kim Ghattas
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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 Ame
rican 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.
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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.22 “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.
Hillary had come armed with Egyptian poetry and her deputy chief of staff who had spent almost half her life in Saudi Arabia. Huma’s mother, Dr. Saleha Abedin, introduced the secretary on stage, and Hillary paid tribute to her aide to wild applause from the room. She spoke of the vitality and energy of the women lawyers and doctors she had met before the town hall, and she praised the king’s effort to advance the education of women.
“I, of course, believe that educating young women is not only morally right, but it is also the most important investment any society can make in order to further and advance the values and the interests of the people. The Egyptian poet Hafez Ibrahim said, ‘A mother is a school. Empower her and you empower a great nation.’”
If there were any bitter memories left over from the encounter with Hughes four years earlier, or any pent-up desire to pounce on another American leader who might be telling them that they should drive, Hillary defused them quickly. She praised what had already been achieved—no matter how little she may have thought it was—and combined it with a culturally sensitive but firm appeal for more, and the women felt at ease. Hillary had hoped to engage in a conversation about women’s rights, but somehow the students did not pick up on any of her cues, instead sticking to standard subjects like Iran, Israel, and her work as a secretary of state. One question in particular revealed the image many in the region still have of America.
“Everyone knows that everything is almost perfect and strong in the U.S., when it comes to politics and education system, economy. But why there is a big question mark on the health care system in the United States, although President Obama promised to change that. What have the government did so far?” asked one student in English.
A bit later, Hillary laughed when she was asked whether she would immigrate to Canada or Russia if Sarah Palin, the former governor of Alaska, became president of the United States. The rest of the world followed American politics closely, and these women were no exception. The more a country felt its fate was affected by the United States, the more detailed their knowledge was. Tribal leaders in Afghanistan and Palestinian police officers knew the names of American congressmen because they had blocked or approved aid bills that had a direct impact on their towns.
After the town hall wrapped up, Hillary was mobbed by women who wanted to take a picture with her. Huma provided a guiding hand to the protocol. Some of the women had full-face veils. Standing in a corner, away from the eyes of men, they lifted the black cloth to show their faces for a picture with the American secretary of state.
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Our five-day trip had come to an end. We arrived at the airport, drove onto the tarmac, and kept going past SAM, stopping only outside the VIP terminal. Clinton may have had a government plane at her disposal at all times, but America was a superpower on a budget. The four aging planes of SAM’s fleet rotated between missions and repairs. Congress would not approve the funds needed to upgrade the fleet, and every now and then, the planes broke down. This was one of those times. The fuel valve was kaput. General David Petraeus, the head of the U.S. Central Command leadership, was flying back to Washington from Riyadh that evening. He could swing by Jeddah first to pick up Clinton. Six hours later, the blue secretary of state seal was taken off SAM’s door and attached to the new plane. The Velcro wouldn’t stick at first, but after a few tries Clinton was on her way home.
The rest of us made our way back home on commercial flights, transiting through various European capitals, wandering aimlessly for hours in airports waiting for connecting flights to the United States until we finally made it home Wednesday in the early afternoon. One of the comments Clinton had made during that trip was still ringing in my ear: “We don’t have any magic wands that we can wave.”
Of course the United States didn’t have a magic wand, but there was something slightly disarming abou
t the candor of that remark by the secretary of state of the world’s superpower. American leaders rarely if ever spoke of the limits of American power, even if in fantastical terms. It was of a different nature still from Obama’s comment about his peace efforts. This wasn’t an admission of failure but an attempt to close the gap between the unrealistic expectations people had, even Americans themselves, especially Americans themselves, of American power and reality. So many countries still expected the United States to do their job for them, tell off their annoying neighbors, or give them pocket money. And then there were countries that thought they could do it all much better than America.
8
WHIRLING DERVISHES AND BRAZILIAN SAMBA
Ahmet Davutoğlu sat on a stage overlooking the packed conference room at the Washington office of the Council on Foreign Relations, one of the many think tanks that held regular events about international affairs. Turkey’s foreign minister was here to promote his country’s style of diplomacy in front of an audience eager to hear more about this fast-emerging power on the world stage. With more than three hundred think tanks and research centers operating in the city, I often felt that living in Washington, D.C., was like being on a big university campus with lecture halls where ideas were tested and debated in front of a live audience of experts. I could learn to my heart’s content if I wanted to, going from one event to another about subjects as diverse as the future of the American health care system or Islamic Finance in the Central Asia–Caucasus Region and everything in between.