the times | Monday November 16 2020 1GT 5
Obama in his own wordstimes
was noncommittal, clearly wary
of potential controversy. The
conversation lightened during the
midday banquet the king hosted for
our delegation. It was a lavish affair,
like something out of a fairy tale, the
fifty-foot table laden with whole
roasted lambs and heaps of saffron
rice and all manner of traditional and
Western delicacies. Of the sixty or so
people eating, my scheduling director,
Alyssa Mastromonaco, and senior
advisor Valerie Jarrett were two of the
three women present. Alyssa seemed
cheery enough as she chatted with
Saudi officials across the table,
although she appeared to have some
trouble keeping the headscarf she was
wearing from falling into the soup
bowl. The king asked about my family,
and I described how Michelle and the
girls were adjusting to life in the White
House. He explained that he had
twelve wives himself — news reports
put the number closer to thirty —along with forty children and dozens
more grandchildren and great-
grandchildren. “I hope you don’t mind
me asking, Your Majesty,” I said, “but
how do you keep up with twelve
wives?” “Very badly,” he said, shaking
his head wearily. “One of them is
always jealous of the others. It’s more
complicated than Middle East politics.”
Later, Ben and Denis [McDonough]
came by the villa where I was staying
so we could talk about final edits to
the Cairo speech. Before settling in to
work, we noticed a large travel case
on the mantelpiece. I unsnapped the
latches and lifted the top. On one side
there was a large desert scene on a
marble base featuring miniature gold
figurines, as well as a glass clock
powered by changes in temperature.
On the other side, set in a velvet case,
was a necklace half the length of a
bicycle chain, encrusted with what
appeared to be hundreds of thousands
of dollars’ worth of rubies and
diamonds — along with a matching
ring and earrings. I looked up at Ben
and Denis. “A little something for the
missus,” Denis said. He explained that
others in the delegation had found
cases with expensive watches waiting
for them in their rooms. “Apparently,
nobody told the Saudis about our
prohibition on gifts.” Lifting the heavy
jewels, I wondered how many times
gifts like this had been discreetly left
for other leaders during official visits
to the kingdom — leaders whose
countries didn’t have rules against
taking gifts, or at least not ones that
were enforced. I thought again about
the Somali pirates I had ordered killed,
Muslims all, and the many young men
like them across the nearby borders of
Yemen and Iraq, and in Egypt, Jordan,
Afghanistan, and Pakistan, whose
earnings in a lifetime would probably
never touch the cost of that necklace
in my hands. Radicalize just 1 percent
of those young men and you had
yourself an army of half a million,
ready to die for eternal glory —
or maybe just a taste of something
better. I set the necklace down and
closed the case. “All right,” I said.
“Let’s work.”‘Your Majesty,’ I
said, ‘but how do
you keep up with
twelve wives?’
© Barack Obama
2020 Extracted from
A Promised Land, to
be published by Viking
tomorrow at £princes discovered the attractions of
French villas, London nightclubs, and
Vegas gaming rooms. I’ve wondered
sometimes whether there was a point
when the Saudi monarchy might have
reassessed its religious commitments,
acknowledging that Wahhabist
fundamentalism — like all forms
of religious absolutism — was
incompatible with modernity, and
used its wealth and authority to steer
Islam onto a gentler, more tolerant
course. Probably not. The old ways
were too deeply embedded, and as
tensions with fundamentalists grew
in the late 1970s, the royals may have
accurately concluded that religious
reform would lead inevitably to
uncomfortable political and economic
reform as well. Instead, in order to
avoid the kind of revolution that had
established an Islamic republic in
nearby Iran, the Saudi monarchy
struck a bargain with its most
hard-line clerics. In exchange for
legitimizing the House of Saud’s
absolute control over the nation’s
economy and government (and for
being willing to look the other way
when members of the royal family
succumbed to certain indiscretions),
the clerics and religious police were
granted authority to regulate daily
social interactions, determine what
was taught in schools, and mete out
punishments to those who violated
religious decrees — from public
floggings to the removal of handsbin Abd al-Wahhab. Abd al-
Wahhab’s followers claimed to
practice an uncorrupted version
of Islam, viewing Shiite and
Sufi Islam as heretical and
observing religious tenets that
were considered conservative
even by the standards of traditional
Arab culture: public segregation of the
sexes, avoidance of contact with
non-Muslims, and the rejection of
secular art, music, and other pastimes
that might distract from the faith.
Following the post-World War I
collapse of the Ottoman Empire,
Abdulaziz consolidated control over
rival Arab tribes and founded modern
Saudi Arabia in accordance with these
Wahhabist principles. His conquest of
Mecca — birthplace of the prophet
Muhammad and the destination for
all Muslim pilgrims seeking to fulfil
the Five Tenets of Islam — as well as
the holy city of Medina provided him
with a platform from which to exert
an outsized influence over Islamic
doctrine around the world. The
discovery of Saudi oil fields and
the untold wealth that came from
it extended that influence even
further. But it also exposed the
contradictions of trying to sustain
such ultraconservative practices in the
midst of a rapidly modernizing world.
Abdulaziz needed Western technology,
know-how, and distribution channels
to fully exploit the kingdom’s
newfound treasure and formed an
alliance with the United States to
obtain modern weapons and secure
the Saudi oil fields against rival states.
Members of the extended royal family
retained Western firms to invest their
vast holdings and sent their children
to Cambridge and Harvard to learn
modern business practices. Young
to actual crucifixions. Perhaps more
important, the royal family steered
billions of dollars to these same clerics
to build mosques and madrassas
across the Sunni world. As a result,
from Pakistan to Egypt to Mali to
Indonesia, fundamentalism grew
stronger, tolerance for different
Islamic practices grew weaker, drives
to impose Islamic governance grew
louder, and calls for a purging of
Western influences from Islamic
territory — through violence if
necessary — grew more frequent.
The Saudi monarchy could take
satisfaction in having averted an
Iranian-style revolution, both within
its borders and among its Gulf
partners (although maintaining
such order still required a repressive
internal security service and broad
media censorship). But it had done
so at the price of accelerating a
transnational fundamentalist
movement that despised Western
influences, remained suspicious of
Saudi dalliances with the United
States, and served as a petri dish for
the radicalization of many young
Muslims: men like Osama bin Laden,
the son of a prominent
Saudi businessman close
to the royal family, and the
fifteen Saudi nationals who,
along with four others,
planned and carried out
the September 11 attacks.“RANCH” TURNED
OUT to be something of a
misnomer. With its massive
grounds and multiple villas
fitted with gold-plated
plumbing, crystal
chandeliers, and plush
furnishings, King Abdullah’s
complex looked more like a
Four Seasons hotel plopped
in the middle of the desert.
The king himself — an
octogenarian with a jet-black
mustache and beard (male
vanity seemed to be a
common trait among world
leaders) — greeted me
warmly at the entrance to what
appeared to be the main residence.
With him was the Saudi ambassador
to the United States, Adel al-Jubeir, a
clean-shaven, U.S.-educated diplomat
whose impeccable English, ingratiating
manner, PR savvy, and deep
Washington connections had made
him the ideal point person for the
kingdom’s attempts at damage control
in the wake of 9/11. The king was in
an expansive mood that day, and with
al-Jubeir acting as translator, he fondly
recalled the 1945 meeting between his
father and FDR aboard the USS
Quincy, emphasized the great value he
placed on the U.S.-Saudi alliance, and
described the satisfaction he had felt
at seeing me elected president. He
approved of the idea of my upcoming
speech in Cairo, insisting that Islam
was a religion of peace and noting the
work he had personally done to
strengthen interfaith dialogues. He
assured me, too, that the kingdom
would coordinate with my economic
advisors to make sure oil prices didn’t
impede the post-crisis recovery. But
when it came to two of my specific
requests — that the kingdom and
other members of the Arab League
consider a gesture to Israel that might
help jump-start peace talks with
Palestinians and that our teams
discuss the possible transfer of
some Gitmo prisoners to Saudi
rehabilitation centres — the kingh tt ti f
nal
t
S
t
fi
a
p
th“
O
m
g
fi
p
c
fu
c
F
in
T
o
m
v
c
lePETE SOUZA/THE WHITE HOUSELeft: President Barack
Obama greets U.S.
troops at a mess hall at
Bagram Airfield in
Afghanistan, March 28,
- Above: President
Barack Obama, Vice
President Joe Biden, and
senior staff react in the
Roosevelt Room of the
White House as the House
passes the healthcare
reform bill, Mar. 21, 2010
President Barack
Obama and First
Lady Michelle Obama
talk with Queen
Elizabeth II and
Prince Philip, Duke of
Edinburgh, before they
depart Winfield House
in London, England,
May 25, 2011