1 00:00:09,830 --> 00:00:17,690 In the early hours of November 4th, 2017, Saudi Arabia changed forever. 2 00:00:17,690 --> 00:00:27,680 Across the country, princes, bureaucrats and businessmen who had long believed themselves above the law discovered that their immunity had evaporated. 3 00:00:27,680 --> 00:00:30,500 Charged with corruption, some were pulled from their beds, 4 00:00:30,500 --> 00:00:38,750 while others were summoned to non-existent meetings or detained as soon as their international flights touched down in the kingdom. 5 00:00:38,750 --> 00:00:45,770 Amongst them were Air Force generals, Navy admirals and three sons of former King Abdullah, 6 00:00:45,770 --> 00:00:49,790 including the commander of the Saudi Arabian National Guard. 7 00:00:49,790 --> 00:00:58,100 A former minister of finance and a governor of the central bank found themselves confined together with former ministers of commerce, 8 00:00:58,100 --> 00:01:04,300 planning and communications, along with three brothers of Osama bin Laden. 9 00:01:04,300 --> 00:01:10,970 Some three hundred prominent individuals were taken to Riyadh's Ritz Carlton Hotel, 10 00:01:10,970 --> 00:01:17,420 which was converted for the occasion into the world's first five star prison. 11 00:01:17,420 --> 00:01:26,260 These events marked the end of an order that had governed Saudi Arabia for 65 years. 12 00:01:26,260 --> 00:01:28,240 Welcome to Middle East Dederer book Talk. 13 00:01:28,240 --> 00:01:34,700 The Oxford podcast on new books about the Middle East is the sum of the books written by members of our community. 14 00:01:34,700 --> 00:01:42,500 Well, the books are community you're talking about. My name is Eugene Rogan and I teach the modern history of the Middle East. 15 00:01:42,500 --> 00:01:50,600 My guest is David Rundell. David came to Oxford in 1976 to read for the NFL in modern Middle Eastern studies. 16 00:01:50,600 --> 00:01:57,730 He was a student developer who Rani's and a direct contemporary of New York Times columnist Tom Friedman. 17 00:01:57,730 --> 00:02:04,870 After completing the MFL in 1978, David entered the U.S. Foreign Service in 1981. 18 00:02:04,870 --> 00:02:13,300 He was posted as a political officer to the US embassy in Riyadh, marking the beginning of a 30 year career in diplomacy. 19 00:02:13,300 --> 00:02:23,580 16 of those spent in Saudi Arabia alone. He retired in 2010 as chief of mission at the American Embassy in Riyadh. 20 00:02:23,580 --> 00:02:28,770 As America's most experienced Saudi hand friends and colleagues have long anticipated, 21 00:02:28,770 --> 00:02:36,990 his book on Saudi Arabia, Vision or Mirage, Saudi Arabia at the Crossroads. 22 00:02:36,990 --> 00:02:43,680 The book was published tonight in 2020 by Bloomsbury is I.B. Tourists Imprint to critical acclaim. 23 00:02:43,680 --> 00:02:46,860 The Wall Street Journal declared it a book of staggering breadth, 24 00:02:46,860 --> 00:02:56,620 the depth and The New York Times claimed Rundell covers the kingdom from top to bottom with vast wisdom, depth and understanding. 25 00:02:56,620 --> 00:03:03,340 Given the pace of change witnessed in the once conservative Saudi kingdom over the past five years, this is a timely book. 26 00:03:03,340 --> 00:03:07,320 David, welcome to Book Talk. Thank you very much. 27 00:03:07,320 --> 00:03:14,490 It is a real pleasure to be back at Oxford, although I have to say in many ways I never left. 28 00:03:14,490 --> 00:03:22,560 It's always with me and certainly in spirit and in the intellectual training that I received there. 29 00:03:22,560 --> 00:03:31,440 Well, we're delighted to have you back to the Middle East Seder community, where presumably your engagement with the Middle East really took off. 30 00:03:31,440 --> 00:03:38,520 Did you out to studies in any way prepare you, prepare you for the professional challenges that you faced once you got to the region? 31 00:03:38,520 --> 00:03:51,930 Most definitely they did. I often felt that my training was the key in many ways to my success, not only the Arabic which I had learnt, 32 00:03:51,930 --> 00:03:57,690 but the kind of Arabic that I had learnt and the history and politics that I'd also gathered. 33 00:03:57,690 --> 00:04:01,770 And I'll just be very quick about that. But, you know, I'll tell you a story. 34 00:04:01,770 --> 00:04:11,370 When I was I was walking into the hall, I was at Queens and I was going into hall one afternoon and did my moral tutor was with me. 35 00:04:11,370 --> 00:04:14,670 And he said, well, how are things going? And I said, well, things are going okay. 36 00:04:14,670 --> 00:04:18,750 But, you know, I want to join the foreign service, not want to go to the Middle East. 37 00:04:18,750 --> 00:04:24,780 And they're teaching me to read the Koran. And I want to say, you know, how do I get to a hotel? 38 00:04:24,780 --> 00:04:28,100 And he looked he was a very tall and I'm not very tall. 39 00:04:28,100 --> 00:04:36,450 I looked down at me contemptuously. He said, well, if that's what you wish to learn, you should have gone to a trade school. 40 00:04:36,450 --> 00:04:41,700 So I thought, yeah, I guess so. Well, eventually I did go to that trade school. 41 00:04:41,700 --> 00:04:47,880 Eventually I went to the Foreign Service Institute, which is the State Department's trade school for teaching Arabic. 42 00:04:47,880 --> 00:04:54,510 So I learnt to talk to people about climate change and how to read the newspaper. 43 00:04:54,510 --> 00:04:58,740 But those people never learnt to read the Koran. 44 00:04:58,740 --> 00:05:09,150 And that was I saw that repeatedly, that I was at a big advantage when talking to Saudis because I had read the Koran and I could quote parts of it. 45 00:05:09,150 --> 00:05:14,850 And my other friends were completely unable to do that because they had only been to the Foreign Service Institute. 46 00:05:14,850 --> 00:05:20,250 So, yes, it was a big help to me. Well, tell us something about the writing of your book. 47 00:05:20,250 --> 00:05:23,460 When did you actually start to write the book and what were your sources, 48 00:05:23,460 --> 00:05:30,100 what were you working from as you tried to convert so much life experience into the text we had before us? 49 00:05:30,100 --> 00:05:36,070 Well, I think there were a couple of. Sources. 50 00:05:36,070 --> 00:05:45,930 In a sense, you know, for the 30 years that I worked on Saudi Arabia and there were several years that I worked on it in Washington as well. 51 00:05:45,930 --> 00:05:50,430 I simply gathered information from my daily from my daily work. 52 00:05:50,430 --> 00:05:59,700 However, I did also take notes on things that I observed on my travels and in Saudi Arabia and these when I left, 53 00:05:59,700 --> 00:06:04,950 I probably had a thousand pages of notes. None of this was classified. 54 00:06:04,950 --> 00:06:06,360 None of this was secretive. 55 00:06:06,360 --> 00:06:14,730 This is just, you know, the Logemann tribe lives in this village and most of the people in that town belong to this bay or something, 56 00:06:14,730 --> 00:06:20,520 something along those lines, things that the average Saudi would know, but that the average Westerner did not. 57 00:06:20,520 --> 00:06:30,390 So I had that source. But I also had a couple of one time I had a dinner at my residence when I was chief of mission and. 58 00:06:30,390 --> 00:06:37,560 And two former bosses of my two former ambassadors, Walt Cutler and Richard Murphy, were both there that night and there they said, 59 00:06:37,560 --> 00:06:44,310 you know, you really have an obligation to write a book because you're the guy who knows most about this place. 60 00:06:44,310 --> 00:06:52,290 And it would be helpful to your colleagues. And I kind of didn't pay much attention for a while, but eventually I had that sort of resonated with me. 61 00:06:52,290 --> 00:06:56,520 So I did sit down and write the book primarily originally for my colleagues at the embassy. 62 00:06:56,520 --> 00:07:00,390 But Bloomsbury said, I'll tell you the story that I just said. 63 00:07:00,390 --> 00:07:04,110 You know, I would I told Bloomsbury, look, I'm writing this book for one person. 64 00:07:04,110 --> 00:07:09,690 That's the next ambassador in Saudi Arabia at the American embassy. And they said, that's great. 65 00:07:09,690 --> 00:07:15,650 What we would like to sell more than one book. So, yeah. 66 00:07:15,650 --> 00:07:21,630 So they they did help me and we made it a little bit less encyclopaedic and a little bit more readable. 67 00:07:21,630 --> 00:07:24,300 So that's kind of the story of how it was written. 68 00:07:24,300 --> 00:07:30,420 Well, as you note in your preface, when you were sent on your first posting to Saudi Arabia in 1981, 69 00:07:30,420 --> 00:07:38,670 America was still coming to terms with the 1979 Islamic revolution, the fall of the shore, and how America, quote unquote, 70 00:07:38,670 --> 00:07:43,230 lost Iran to avoid repeating that mistake in Saudi Arabia, 71 00:07:43,230 --> 00:07:49,500 your bosses in the U.S. embassy in Riyadh tasked you with spending 10 days of the month 72 00:07:49,500 --> 00:07:55,730 travelling small towns and back roads to take the pulse of the kingdom for two years. 73 00:07:55,730 --> 00:08:03,700 How did that experience shape your understanding of Saudi Arabia and the social contract between the rulers and their subjects? 74 00:08:03,700 --> 00:08:09,390 Well, it shaped my whole approach to Saudi Arabia, really for the rest of my career. 75 00:08:09,390 --> 00:08:13,510 It was a unique experience. I think one more person did it after I was done. 76 00:08:13,510 --> 00:08:20,170 But then they don't do that anymore. And so it was a it was a unique opportunity that I had. 77 00:08:20,170 --> 00:08:28,870 The first point was, in the short run, I became convinced that there was not going to be a revolution in sight in Saudi Arabia. 78 00:08:28,870 --> 00:08:33,880 And I came back and I rode along report about that, which many people dismissed the same, well, who is this kid? 79 00:08:33,880 --> 00:08:36,250 You know, he's just as his first job. And what does he know? 80 00:08:36,250 --> 00:08:40,960 And he's gonna tell us there's no revolution and then we're going to all be left looking dumb. 81 00:08:40,960 --> 00:08:46,750 So they didn't really want to believe me, but I was convinced that there would not be a revolution in Saudi Arabia for several reasons. 82 00:08:46,750 --> 00:08:53,590 And one of them you just alluded to, which was the relationship between the Saudi people and the monarchy, 83 00:08:53,590 --> 00:08:57,190 was distinctly different than that which existed in Iran. 84 00:08:57,190 --> 00:09:06,370 I'd just give you an example. In Iran, they had the what they called the white revolution, which was to say the Shah consolidated villages. 85 00:09:06,370 --> 00:09:12,220 He would say, look, your village is too far out in the middle of nowhere. I can't run power lines to you. 86 00:09:12,220 --> 00:09:19,240 I can't run water lines to you. So I'm going to forcibly reconsolidate you or consolidate you in a town. 87 00:09:19,240 --> 00:09:25,330 And I'm going to give you electricity and I'm going to have a clinic and I'm going to have a school and you'll all be happy. 88 00:09:25,330 --> 00:09:33,430 But in fact, that people were not happy because they had to move from their village. So the Saudis did that entirely differently. 89 00:09:33,430 --> 00:09:40,480 The Saudis said, you want to stay in your village. That's OK. We don't we can't bring you electricity, but we'll bring you a generator. 90 00:09:40,480 --> 00:09:45,610 We can't bring you a water line, but we'll have a water truck come there twice a week. 91 00:09:45,610 --> 00:09:49,060 We'll send a bus to get your kids so that they can go to school in the town. 92 00:09:49,060 --> 00:09:53,290 They were completely 180 degrees different than the way the shah did it. 93 00:09:53,290 --> 00:09:58,510 In other words, rather than force the people to do something that he thought was a good idea, like the Shah, 94 00:09:58,510 --> 00:10:03,940 the king of Saudi Arabia said, fine, we'll let you do let you stay with what's comfortable for you. 95 00:10:03,940 --> 00:10:11,350 So that was just one example of many that I saw about a sensitivity that the Saudis had. 96 00:10:11,350 --> 00:10:21,370 Schools were another one. You know that. Even until very recently, many Saudi schools were essentially one room schoolhouse is very small. 97 00:10:21,370 --> 00:10:23,650 And this doesn't make much sense. We got rid of those. 98 00:10:23,650 --> 00:10:29,530 And then in the United States one hundred years ago, we consolidated into school districts of this Saudi people. 99 00:10:29,530 --> 00:10:34,090 They every tribe wanted to have a school for themselves. And so they would keep these small schools. 100 00:10:34,090 --> 00:10:36,640 So they were very sensitive to that. 101 00:10:36,640 --> 00:10:42,130 Finally, the other thing that they did, which and again, this is a result of the fact that they had a lot of oil money was that. 102 00:10:42,130 --> 00:10:49,360 But they did distribute that money. There's a village that and I continued to visit many of these places over the next 30 years. 103 00:10:49,360 --> 00:10:53,950 And so there's a village south. The first time I went there, I said, what do you people need? 104 00:10:53,950 --> 00:10:57,130 And they said, oh, we need a paved road. That was in the 80s. 105 00:10:57,130 --> 00:11:00,730 I came back in the 90s, talked to pretty much the same people, said, well, what do you need? 106 00:11:00,730 --> 00:11:05,500 And they said, well, we got our road and now we need a clinic. And I swear this is true. 107 00:11:05,500 --> 00:11:11,590 I went back and saw them, you know, another 10 years later. And I said, So you've got your clinic, what do you need now? 108 00:11:11,590 --> 00:11:16,930 And they said, we need I'm not making this up. They said we need a community college. 109 00:11:16,930 --> 00:11:22,510 So these are people who went from not having a paved road to wanting to community college. 110 00:11:22,510 --> 00:11:32,950 So clearly, life was getting better for them. So I concluded that there probably was not going to be a revolution anytime in the near future. 111 00:11:32,950 --> 00:11:43,360 And I think that's been borne out, borne out by the fact that the Saudis did not support the al-Qaida insurrection that took place in 2003 to 2007, 112 00:11:43,360 --> 00:11:51,490 which they had a chance to violently overthrow their government and they did not support in any significant way the Arab Spring in 2011, 113 00:11:51,490 --> 00:11:54,970 which was, if you will, a more peaceful protest movement. 114 00:11:54,970 --> 00:12:03,070 So that's the macro picture are sort of the political picture, I think, in the personal relationship that I developed with Saudi Arabia. 115 00:12:03,070 --> 00:12:05,920 I got to like the place. I got to like the people. 116 00:12:05,920 --> 00:12:15,010 I got to improve my Arabic and I the hospitality of the Saudis was something that, you know, they're well-known for. 117 00:12:15,010 --> 00:12:21,070 I and I think I would tell you two, two little stories that. 118 00:12:21,070 --> 00:12:28,280 That illustrate things that I learnt about Saudi Arabia. One was about hospitality. 119 00:12:28,280 --> 00:12:31,730 I was having I stopped at a place with a guy called. 120 00:12:31,730 --> 00:12:37,700 He was the Amir of Wadi Glosser. And I stopped and saw him in the morning and I was just chatting with him, having coffee. 121 00:12:37,700 --> 00:12:43,310 And then I had to go on to another meeting in another town. And he said, we'll stay for lunch. 122 00:12:43,310 --> 00:12:47,680 And I said, well, I can't stay for lunch. I have to go on to this other meeting. 123 00:12:47,680 --> 00:12:52,070 And he was quite upset that I was leaving without having had lunch. 124 00:12:52,070 --> 00:12:54,110 And he said, OK, well, we'll go out. 125 00:12:54,110 --> 00:12:59,600 And he lived in sort of it looked like a mediaeval castle, really a sort of a courtyard in his little port that he'd had. 126 00:12:59,600 --> 00:13:03,230 And he said, just wait here for a minute. 127 00:13:03,230 --> 00:13:05,300 He said something which I didn't understand or didn't hear. 128 00:13:05,300 --> 00:13:13,400 And then a minute later, somebody comes back carrying a big sheet, a big sheet, and he says, 129 00:13:13,400 --> 00:13:19,550 no one will say that you left my house without being fed and you would take this sheep with you. 130 00:13:19,550 --> 00:13:24,590 So I had a jeep and they put this sheep in the back of my jeep. 131 00:13:24,590 --> 00:13:30,590 And off I went to my next meeting where when I arrived there, I thought, oh, this is great. 132 00:13:30,590 --> 00:13:37,190 They're going to say, why do you have this sheep in your car? And if oh, you got it from the Ameera of what you do also. 133 00:13:37,190 --> 00:13:41,630 Well, if he gave you one, we'll have to give you two. So you'll have to have a flock by the time you get home. 134 00:13:41,630 --> 00:13:44,930 So I said I said, what am I going to tell these people? 135 00:13:44,930 --> 00:13:50,330 So I said, well, you know, we in the American embassy, we'd like to be prepared. 136 00:13:50,330 --> 00:13:53,660 And so I always carry water. I always carry a spare fan belt. 137 00:13:53,660 --> 00:13:57,980 I always have a spare tire. And I usually carry a spare sheep as well. 138 00:13:57,980 --> 00:14:04,670 And they said, wow, you guys are really on the ball. That's impressive. You know, even we didn't think of that, you know, going sheep. 139 00:14:04,670 --> 00:14:12,810 So. So they took my sheep in their flock. And, you know, I wasn't I didn't get back to Riyadh for several days. 140 00:14:12,810 --> 00:14:19,420 So I repeated this episode several times. So anyway, that that was a story about the hospitality. 141 00:14:19,420 --> 00:14:30,550 But I think on a more serious note. The first time I went down the Hejaz Railway, which I think a lot of people wanted to do, 142 00:14:30,550 --> 00:14:34,030 you know, you want to see the wrecks of the trains that Lawrence had blown up. 143 00:14:34,030 --> 00:14:42,150 What? This is in the middle of nowhere. This is in the desert. And. In those days, it was and probably still is to some extent, a ferret. 144 00:14:42,150 --> 00:14:50,700 It's not dangerous. But there's a potential for for being robbed, if you will, and not an event you don't want to go there alone. 145 00:14:50,700 --> 00:15:00,680 And so I I had a the Saudis sent a couple of Bedouin with me in particular, one to be my guide. 146 00:15:00,680 --> 00:15:10,270 And he was he was well armed. And we stopped one night and we were camped out. 147 00:15:10,270 --> 00:15:15,860 And I woke up at four o'clock in the morning to hear this voice. And it was just the two of us. 148 00:15:15,860 --> 00:15:19,840 And it was four o'clock in the morning. And I hear this noise. 149 00:15:19,840 --> 00:15:25,210 What's going on? And I look over and this guy is praying. And I was pretty new to Saudi Arabia. 150 00:15:25,210 --> 00:15:31,180 And I thought, why is this guy getting up at 4:00 in the morning to do this? You know, it's no social pressure on him to do this. 151 00:15:31,180 --> 00:15:35,830 I mean, the only person here is me, and I'm asleep. So what's going on? 152 00:15:35,830 --> 00:15:39,640 And then it kind of dawned on me that this was not some kind of social pressure. 153 00:15:39,640 --> 00:15:43,390 This is something that he took very seriously himself. 154 00:15:43,390 --> 00:15:51,280 And that religion was very much alive in Saudi Arabia, perhaps more so than it was in the United States or Britain at that time. 155 00:15:51,280 --> 00:15:57,820 So I think those are two little vignettes that help to give you some idea of how I began to understand Saudi Arabia. 156 00:15:57,820 --> 00:16:00,040 It's just such a privilege, exposure to the country. 157 00:16:00,040 --> 00:16:07,600 And it's the kind of exposure that diplomats today because of security concerns or other restrictions simply don't get put. 158 00:16:07,600 --> 00:16:14,530 The spare sheep of diplomacy is the best antidote I've heard in your introduction. 159 00:16:14,530 --> 00:16:23,170 You say the first question to ask about Saudi Arabia is not when will its government collapse, but why is it still here? 160 00:16:23,170 --> 00:16:28,330 You develop at length the history of the emergence of three distinct Saudi states and the principles 161 00:16:28,330 --> 00:16:33,370 that guided the modern kingdom of Saudi Arabia for king of the disease down to the present. 162 00:16:33,370 --> 00:16:40,210 How do you account for the survival of the Saudi state against all the challenges of the 20th century imperialism, 163 00:16:40,210 --> 00:16:47,460 secular nationalism, the rise of political Islam and both its Shiite and Sunni variations. 164 00:16:47,460 --> 00:16:54,280 This is something that I developed over. Really a whole career to try and answer that very question. 165 00:16:54,280 --> 00:17:02,860 And in the end, I believe that there are four legs that Saudi stability principally stands upon. 166 00:17:02,860 --> 00:17:13,060 The first is the. His dark legitimacy that the LSD family has because they created the country, 167 00:17:13,060 --> 00:17:23,740 the they unified what were a collection of small city states and wandering tribes and so much in the sense that Bismarck 168 00:17:23,740 --> 00:17:31,360 unified Germany or cavorts unified Italy created something that didn't exist before the Saudi family did that. 169 00:17:31,360 --> 00:17:41,710 And that gives them some legitimacy, quite a bit of legitimacy. The second thing that they did was they managed a system of succession, which again, 170 00:17:41,710 --> 00:17:46,510 was somewhat unusual, certainly in the Arabian Peninsula, one of their rival families. 171 00:17:46,510 --> 00:17:58,480 You know, the Al-Rashid had murdered the last eight emirs of of their dynasty and exiled themselves, had had problems with that in the past. 172 00:17:58,480 --> 00:18:06,400 So they can. They created a method that peacefully and quickly transferred power. 173 00:18:06,400 --> 00:18:12,010 And that, again, was unusual in many of the Middle Eastern states and that also provide legitimacy. 174 00:18:12,010 --> 00:18:22,810 The third leg of their stool, if you will, or table of stability was elite cohesion and balancing stakeholders. 175 00:18:22,810 --> 00:18:30,370 There are stakeholder groups in Saudi Arabia. Each of them has an elite that is recognised. 176 00:18:30,370 --> 00:18:39,170 Some are more formal than others. And the monarchy has a symbiotic relationship with them in that the. 177 00:18:39,170 --> 00:18:47,660 Elite bring their followers to support the monarchy and the monarchy supports those elite so that they remain the leaders of their community. 178 00:18:47,660 --> 00:18:56,720 So this is a relationship that has functioned effectively for a long time with the tribes, with the religious establishment, with the merchant class, 179 00:18:56,720 --> 00:19:01,220 with the new modern technocratic class, and amongst the royal family itself, 180 00:19:01,220 --> 00:19:09,920 which I view as basically a hereditary political party and in a one party state. 181 00:19:09,920 --> 00:19:15,710 Then the final issue was, what did they provide the average person, the average individual? 182 00:19:15,710 --> 00:19:22,540 And here again, they have provided by Middle Eastern standards, a competent government for a long time. 183 00:19:22,540 --> 00:19:33,230 And what does that mean? Number one, that means security. Saudi Arabia has not had civil wars, invasions, revolutions, coups, 184 00:19:33,230 --> 00:19:40,580 all of these things which plague many Middle Eastern countries have really not happened to any great extent in Saudi Arabia. 185 00:19:40,580 --> 00:19:46,790 So they provided security. They provided economic development, which we've talked a bit about. 186 00:19:46,790 --> 00:19:53,390 And they have. And again, economic development, I should point out, is not automatic. 187 00:19:53,390 --> 00:19:58,390 It's not just because you have oil that you're going to have economic development. 188 00:19:58,390 --> 00:20:03,770 That's I think is is it's a gross some underestimation of what they actually achieved. 189 00:20:03,770 --> 00:20:08,600 You look at Venezuela. You look at Libya. I mean, Libya is hardly even a country anymore. 190 00:20:08,600 --> 00:20:13,160 You look at what happened in Iran or Iraq or Nigeria. 191 00:20:13,160 --> 00:20:19,910 Just because you have oil doesn't mean you're going to be economically able to develop your country. 192 00:20:19,910 --> 00:20:28,580 And then the final thing that they did was they provided gradual social change at a pace that most people would find acceptable. 193 00:20:28,580 --> 00:20:32,330 And it's again, it's a miss. 194 00:20:32,330 --> 00:20:44,000 It's a misunderstanding to believe that the Saudi people are chafing for nightclubs and mini skirts and that the Elci would are holding them back. 195 00:20:44,000 --> 00:20:49,340 Actually, in many cases, the people have been more conservative than the than the monarchy. 196 00:20:49,340 --> 00:20:55,160 And the monarchy is actually push them forward. But by and large, they've gone at the pace that the people wanted. 197 00:20:55,160 --> 00:20:59,940 But I just would mention that, you know, when they introduced girls education and some of your listeners would know this, 198 00:20:59,940 --> 00:21:04,130 but they had to use the military to actually, if you will, 199 00:21:04,130 --> 00:21:10,790 integrate schools the same way they did in the American South when they desegregated those schools. 200 00:21:10,790 --> 00:21:15,110 People were killed in riots that affected the first television station, 201 00:21:15,110 --> 00:21:20,570 which people were protesting against that TV because I thought that was against Islam. 202 00:21:20,570 --> 00:21:24,140 So the government has actually been reasonably progressive in that point. 203 00:21:24,140 --> 00:21:28,220 And I would really say that they've gone at a pace that was acceptable to most people. 204 00:21:28,220 --> 00:21:36,200 So those are the those are the four still of the four legs of stability in terms of the specific points you mentioned. 205 00:21:36,200 --> 00:21:47,180 I think that's kind of interesting to comment on that. Saudis have a very different relationship with imperialism than most Middle Eastern countries. 206 00:21:47,180 --> 00:21:54,830 They were never colonised. They have basically a positive relationship with the American oil men who came there and developed it. 207 00:21:54,830 --> 00:22:01,070 And the British government never dominated them in the same way that it dominated Iraq or Egypt. 208 00:22:01,070 --> 00:22:08,900 And in fact, the British were very influential in helping them to get rid of the Ottomans. 209 00:22:08,900 --> 00:22:18,840 So something you would know a great deal about. And so where is an Egypt or Iraq the. 210 00:22:18,840 --> 00:22:22,830 Origin of the state is from an anti imperialist, 211 00:22:22,830 --> 00:22:29,070 let's get rid of the Westerner's because they're not helping us in Saudi Arabia is quite the opposite in Saudi Arabia. 212 00:22:29,070 --> 00:22:32,790 The British are helping us get rid of the Ottomans and the Americans are helping us find oil. 213 00:22:32,790 --> 00:22:39,510 So they had a very different relationship to imperialism than much of the Arab world. 214 00:22:39,510 --> 00:22:43,680 Nationalism was, until recently, not a very important issue in Saudi Arabia. 215 00:22:43,680 --> 00:22:48,840 They were ideology. Their ideological ideology was really more religion. 216 00:22:48,840 --> 00:22:56,940 And then again, this is quite similar to the one one way I look at Saudi Arabia is to study European history and just to see how it evolved. 217 00:22:56,940 --> 00:22:59,610 And you can often see very similar parallels. 218 00:22:59,610 --> 00:23:07,470 And there was a time in European history when religion was really the primary ideological force and slowly after the French Revolution, 219 00:23:07,470 --> 00:23:13,080 that was replaced by nationalism. And that's beginning to happen in Saudi Arabia today. 220 00:23:13,080 --> 00:23:16,500 But nationalism up until fairly recently was not what it was. 221 00:23:16,500 --> 00:23:26,220 They didn't even have a national day. Just for example. They have National Day was considered against Islam because you only only have eight. 222 00:23:26,220 --> 00:23:29,970 And so now that that's changed, now they actually have a national day. 223 00:23:29,970 --> 00:23:43,110 So, again, that's an indication of that change. And then the final thing I would say about religion is that the Saudi interpretation of Hanbali Islam, 224 00:23:43,110 --> 00:23:49,890 which often goes by the name of Wahhabism in the West. 225 00:23:49,890 --> 00:23:57,090 Basically rasas allegiance to the rule or to a religious responsibility. 226 00:23:57,090 --> 00:24:02,160 In other words, they believe that stability is a little bit of a chain here. 227 00:24:02,160 --> 00:24:06,540 But what they really believe is that in order to be saved on Judgement Day, 228 00:24:06,540 --> 00:24:14,280 you need to live in an Islamic league governed state to have an Islamic law governed state need to have stability, to have stability. 229 00:24:14,280 --> 00:24:25,230 You need to have one ruler who nobody revolts against. And therefore, this supporting of the existing government becomes a religious duty. 230 00:24:25,230 --> 00:24:29,340 And what that means is that they don't really worry. 231 00:24:29,340 --> 00:24:34,740 That is to say to religious scholars, don't worry about how you got to power. 232 00:24:34,740 --> 00:24:39,180 We in the West are very concerned about whether or not you were elected. 233 00:24:39,180 --> 00:24:43,650 They don't really care how you got to be the king, whether you murdered your brother or got elected. 234 00:24:43,650 --> 00:24:47,670 Doesn't really matter. What matters is how you do your job. 235 00:24:47,670 --> 00:24:51,840 Once you are the king and that's what determines your continued legitimacy. 236 00:24:51,840 --> 00:24:59,760 So their attitude toward religion has been a little bit different than many actually in the Westerns and even some Arab countries. 237 00:24:59,760 --> 00:25:05,840 And therefore, that also has contributed to their stability. So hopefully that answered your question. 238 00:25:05,840 --> 00:25:12,330 You've identified key stakeholders in the Saudi system as the tribes, the religious clerics, 239 00:25:12,330 --> 00:25:17,300 the merchants, the technocrats and the members of the royal family itself. 240 00:25:17,300 --> 00:25:27,810 So how is the balance of power between the stakeholders changed since you first went to the kingdom nearly 40 years ago? 241 00:25:27,810 --> 00:25:31,020 Some stakeholders have seen their influence decline. 242 00:25:31,020 --> 00:25:37,950 I would say that the tribes and the religious establishment have they are certainly still important, 243 00:25:37,950 --> 00:25:44,250 but they are less important than they were 40 years ago, 244 00:25:44,250 --> 00:25:50,340 particularly the religious establishment, which at one point had a had a role in selecting the monarch. 245 00:25:50,340 --> 00:25:54,270 They don't anymore. So at least let's put it. 246 00:25:54,270 --> 00:26:01,560 Let's be clear. They had a role in the application of King King Sout. 247 00:26:01,560 --> 00:26:05,550 So the tribes and the religious community have lost influence. 248 00:26:05,550 --> 00:26:08,070 I think the technocrats, 249 00:26:08,070 --> 00:26:16,620 the modern secularly educated technocrats and the business community have seen their influence and importance to society grow. 250 00:26:16,620 --> 00:26:22,140 The royal family itself has seen its its remains important. 251 00:26:22,140 --> 00:26:26,410 But the number of members of that family that are important has declined. 252 00:26:26,410 --> 00:26:34,550 So it has become more concentrated. And then I would add that there are a couple of new stakeholder groups, 253 00:26:34,550 --> 00:26:42,470 which I would say are youth and women who are didn't they were they were totally non-existent 254 00:26:42,470 --> 00:26:50,130 stakeholder groups before and they are not organised and they're not politically active in the same. 255 00:26:50,130 --> 00:26:56,450 The exact sense that these other groups are with they don't have an organised elite that deals with the monarchy, 256 00:26:56,450 --> 00:27:00,410 but they are stakeholder groups that the government now pays attention to. 257 00:27:00,410 --> 00:27:04,550 So I would say that's how the stakeholder groups have changed. 258 00:27:04,550 --> 00:27:10,160 Your book is really about domestic Saudi politics and not so much about its foreign relations. 259 00:27:10,160 --> 00:27:15,260 You're particularly discreet about Saudi US relations, which I think is a real strength of the book. 260 00:27:15,260 --> 00:27:21,270 You didn't make this into a study of Saudi American relations. 261 00:27:21,270 --> 00:27:28,560 You don't tend to view the kingdom through American lenses, but America could be added to your list of stakeholders in the Saudi system. 262 00:27:28,560 --> 00:27:38,610 So let's bring America into the discussion. In your experience as a diplomat, how have U.S. Saudi relations evolved over the past 40 years? 263 00:27:38,610 --> 00:27:49,980 Well, that's again. That's a good question. I think you're right. You could consider the United States a stakeholder in the in the Saudi government. 264 00:27:49,980 --> 00:27:59,960 Over the past 40 years. Some things have changed and some things have remained constant. 265 00:27:59,960 --> 00:28:09,040 What has remained constant is that Saudi Arabia, at the end of the day, depends upon the United States for its security. 266 00:28:09,040 --> 00:28:16,150 And Saudi Arabia remains, at the end of the day, very important to the global economy. 267 00:28:16,150 --> 00:28:20,470 Those things existed 40 years ago and they still exist. 268 00:28:20,470 --> 00:28:26,890 Those issues or those facts? What is changed is the Cold War has ended. 269 00:28:26,890 --> 00:28:37,870 The first part of my career. Every day I got up and looked in the mirror and said, what am I going to do to beat the Soviet Union today? 270 00:28:37,870 --> 00:28:44,560 And I just tell you another interesting story that was very clear, because they see this is a sidelight. 271 00:28:44,560 --> 00:28:52,990 But, you know, when I was a very junior officer in Washington, Ronald Reagan came and gave us a speech and. 272 00:28:52,990 --> 00:28:59,220 He said, my plan for dealing with the Soviet Union is. 273 00:28:59,220 --> 00:29:05,000 Simple. Some of you will think it simplistic, and I remember thinking that's a big word. 274 00:29:05,000 --> 00:29:11,330 I thought this guy was, you know, is this is sort of a dumb actor, you know, he says and some of you will think, my plan's simplistic. 275 00:29:11,330 --> 00:29:15,690 And in that he just looked out at a store and he said, we're going to win. 276 00:29:15,690 --> 00:29:20,580 They're going to lose. And you're going to do it. And I thought, wow. 277 00:29:20,580 --> 00:29:23,960 Now you can go play golf for the rest of the day because he he did his job. 278 00:29:23,960 --> 00:29:29,120 I mean, he told everybody very clearly what was going to happen and how it was going to happen and what we're supposed to do. 279 00:29:29,120 --> 00:29:34,400 So for the first part of my career, that is pretty much what we tried to do. 280 00:29:34,400 --> 00:29:41,390 And the Saudis helped us. The Saudis were one country that never shirked, never. 281 00:29:41,390 --> 00:29:45,830 Whether whatever we asked him to do, they were they were willing to help, whether it was, you know, 282 00:29:45,830 --> 00:29:54,980 funding contras in Nicaragua, which some people didn't like, or supporting the Mujahideen or helping in Africa in many ways. 283 00:29:54,980 --> 00:29:59,480 They were they were a very strong ally in in the in the Cold War. 284 00:29:59,480 --> 00:30:06,410 Cold War went away. And then we had what we would call, I guess, the war on terror. 285 00:30:06,410 --> 00:30:09,870 And again, that the Saudis became strong allies in that. 286 00:30:09,870 --> 00:30:16,910 So one conflict was replaced by support in another. 287 00:30:16,910 --> 00:30:22,820 I think something else which changed really were the economic factors. 288 00:30:22,820 --> 00:30:27,500 The United States is not Saudi Arabia's biggest trading partner anymore. We were for a long time. 289 00:30:27,500 --> 00:30:31,970 Now, Europe and Europe is really and China are their biggest trading partners. 290 00:30:31,970 --> 00:30:37,810 And also Russia has become their partner in energy markets. 291 00:30:37,810 --> 00:30:45,020 So China and Russia are much more important to Saudi Arabia commercially than they were in the past. 292 00:30:45,020 --> 00:30:54,080 And then the final thing I would say is that what has remained constant in the relationship is its volatility. 293 00:30:54,080 --> 00:31:03,260 It's always volatile. I mean, this is these are these are countries that have shared interest and not a lot of shared values, 294 00:31:03,260 --> 00:31:08,150 at least in most of the history that I've been involved with. 295 00:31:08,150 --> 00:31:17,210 And the relationship is always up and down, up and down, but within within a certain set of parameters. 296 00:31:17,210 --> 00:31:22,940 And the other thing about it is that it has remained a very personalised relationship. 297 00:31:22,940 --> 00:31:33,560 There is a king and there is a president. And the relationship really does revolve a lot about the relationship between those two. 298 00:31:33,560 --> 00:31:36,800 Who is the prime minister of Great Britain and the president? 299 00:31:36,800 --> 00:31:45,800 United States matters to some extent, but those relationships are largely institutionalised and not going to change overnight. 300 00:31:45,800 --> 00:31:49,580 That's not true with the relationship with Saudi Arabia. The king could decide tomorrow. 301 00:31:49,580 --> 00:31:54,140 He doesn't like Saudi or doesn't like America. And he decides he wants to be the friend of China or something. 302 00:31:54,140 --> 00:32:01,340 The president has, you know, a Congress that he's got to bring along and that cost him politically often. 303 00:32:01,340 --> 00:32:08,420 I've seen that many times that president has to spend political capital to maintain this relationship and sometimes he might not want to do that. 304 00:32:08,420 --> 00:32:16,920 So. So the relationship we need remains more personal than than most other major relationships that we have. 305 00:32:16,920 --> 00:32:20,160 That would have. I see to my next question. OK. 306 00:32:20,160 --> 00:32:26,760 The way that the Saudi U.S. relationship has been transformed over the past four years since Donald Trump 307 00:32:26,760 --> 00:32:34,920 became president in January 2017 and Mohammed bin Salman became crown prince in June of that same year. 308 00:32:34,920 --> 00:32:40,560 These two men have pursued policies that have fundamentally altered the Saudi system. 309 00:32:40,560 --> 00:32:51,650 Some might say broken the system. Certainly weaken the position of the traditional stakeholders and concentrated power in the crown prince's hands. 310 00:32:51,650 --> 00:32:59,320 Will these changes pave the way to necessary reforms that set out in the much touted Vision 2030? 311 00:32:59,320 --> 00:33:04,840 Or does disregard for the rules that held the game together put the Saudi project in jeopardy? 312 00:33:04,840 --> 00:33:13,540 Well, that is the key question, isn't it? That is the meat of the whole book. 313 00:33:13,540 --> 00:33:27,840 The first comment I would make is that. I don't think that King someone broke the system so much as recognise that the system was coming to an end. 314 00:33:27,840 --> 00:33:39,030 The system that had existed for the past sixty five years with one brother handing power over to another brother over to another brother, 315 00:33:39,030 --> 00:33:43,500 was coming to a natural end because they were running out of brothers. 316 00:33:43,500 --> 00:33:53,190 And so they were going to have to make this transition to the third generation of princes at some point. 317 00:33:53,190 --> 00:34:03,150 And that was never going to be easy. So when I look at what the king has achieved and I think he's achieved quite a lot, it's not, in my view, 318 00:34:03,150 --> 00:34:11,100 the fact that women are driving or he's balancing the budget or he was at least until covered. 319 00:34:11,100 --> 00:34:20,850 Those are significant. But what really is the most important achievement, in my view, is that he avoided a Game of Thrones or a family feud. 320 00:34:20,850 --> 00:34:26,430 That's sort of what he avoided. That is, in fact, his biggest achievement. 321 00:34:26,430 --> 00:34:37,610 And the. Five hundred plus grandsons who all thought they should have become the king could have been very destabilising. 322 00:34:37,610 --> 00:34:44,540 And as anyone who's been to the Middle East centre knows, they all know who had been doing this and they all know that it's been held down, 323 00:34:44,540 --> 00:34:51,830 says that dynasties will last for 100 years or at the most three generations, and then they will collapse. 324 00:34:51,830 --> 00:35:00,030 And I can assure you, King Salman is read, I've been called Doom. And he didn't want that to happen in his watch. 325 00:35:00,030 --> 00:35:04,190 So so he's engineered the rise of Mohammed bin Salman. 326 00:35:04,190 --> 00:35:09,380 No question about it. Mohammed bin Salman was the anointed, chosen person. 327 00:35:09,380 --> 00:35:21,830 And he did consolidate power. And that is a dramatic change in that the way the country used to use to operate and whether or not it now becomes. 328 00:35:21,830 --> 00:35:30,650 A police state or whether it becomes a more accountable monarchy is a very open question. 329 00:35:30,650 --> 00:35:39,050 I would have to say that at the moment the odds looks like it's becoming more of a police state. 330 00:35:39,050 --> 00:35:47,870 Power is being concentrated. This may well have been necessary to make the changes, to make the transition. 331 00:35:47,870 --> 00:35:57,530 And we can only hope that when you look at the models of how European monarchies evolved, some of them evolved peacefully and some of them did not. 332 00:35:57,530 --> 00:36:02,140 And we can hope that the Saudi monarchy evolves peacefully. 333 00:36:02,140 --> 00:36:07,250 The one thing that would lead me to believe that that might happen or two things. 334 00:36:07,250 --> 00:36:17,450 Number one, the monarchy is legitimate and the people most of the people support the idea of the monarchy today, in part because they don't. 335 00:36:17,450 --> 00:36:22,140 The different stakeholders trust the monarchy more than they trust each other. 336 00:36:22,140 --> 00:36:26,780 But so they have a strong base to start from. 337 00:36:26,780 --> 00:36:37,480 And the second factor is that the. Ultimate goal of the monarchy is to remain influential and powerful, and if they saw that, 338 00:36:37,480 --> 00:36:42,820 the best way to do that was to slowly relinquish some of their authority, 339 00:36:42,820 --> 00:36:46,900 they might be willing to do that rather than face some sort of violent backlash. 340 00:36:46,900 --> 00:36:51,700 So there's a chance that they can evolve and there's a chance that they won't. 341 00:36:51,700 --> 00:36:57,770 I would argue. That this is really where we have a choice to make. 342 00:36:57,770 --> 00:37:04,190 We in the West and I mean Britain and the United States have a choice to make. 343 00:37:04,190 --> 00:37:12,770 We need friends and allies in order to defend our own security and prosperity. 344 00:37:12,770 --> 00:37:19,400 And that when it during my diplomatic career, that I was always taught that the role of American foreign policy or British foreign 345 00:37:19,400 --> 00:37:24,080 policy is to protect the prosperity and security of the British or American people. 346 00:37:24,080 --> 00:37:28,160 So to do that, we need we need friends and allies. 347 00:37:28,160 --> 00:37:31,040 And I've gone through some of the things that the Saudis have done, 348 00:37:31,040 --> 00:37:40,850 whether it's in oil markets or counterterrorism or promoting the peace process, or, as I say, just in general, being a status quo power. 349 00:37:40,850 --> 00:37:47,370 These are these are things which are helpful to us. But at the other on the other hand. 350 00:37:47,370 --> 00:37:52,940 Support for human rights is also a strength of Britain and the United States. 351 00:37:52,940 --> 00:38:05,150 And here the Saudis have quite a bit to answer for, whether it's the assassination of Jamal Khashoggi, the war in Yemen, the detention of dissidents. 352 00:38:05,150 --> 00:38:12,170 These are these are problems. And we have to decide how do we. 353 00:38:12,170 --> 00:38:19,370 Protect our interests. Continue to promote the reforms that are going on this this quite significant economic and social 354 00:38:19,370 --> 00:38:26,180 reforms that are taking place in Saudi Arabia and also get them to improve their human rights record. 355 00:38:26,180 --> 00:38:35,780 And I think it's pretty clear that trying to sanction them or antagonise them in some way, 356 00:38:35,780 --> 00:38:44,240 isolate them is probably not going to work with a group of people who know that they're important 357 00:38:44,240 --> 00:38:50,540 to the global economy and believe that they are important in creating a global religion. 358 00:38:50,540 --> 00:38:57,260 So they are in many ways. They have a unique culture and a unique history and a unique situation. 359 00:38:57,260 --> 00:39:03,060 And I don't think isolating them is likely to help us obtain our goals. 360 00:39:03,060 --> 00:39:12,050 And so what I would argue is that we need to figure out how to constructively engage them to to work on the problems that we have, 361 00:39:12,050 --> 00:39:19,660 but also to continue with the positive, if you will, elements of our relationship. 362 00:39:19,660 --> 00:39:24,130 So I think that's what I would do, what I would say about that. 363 00:39:24,130 --> 00:39:30,280 Well, I think you're giving good advice for the incoming Biden administration as it looks to a post tromped relationship with Saudi Arabia. 364 00:39:30,280 --> 00:39:40,160 David, thank you very much. I have been speaking with author David Rundell about his book, Vision or Mirage, Saudi Arabia at the Crossroads. 365 00:39:40,160 --> 00:39:44,480 And this has been Middle East centre book talk. Thank you for listening. 366 00:39:44,480 --> 00:39:54,253 Goodbye from Oxford.