Book Launch: The King's Messenger: Prince Bandar bin Sultan and America's Tangled Relationship wi...

The Middle East Program held a book launch to honor David Ottaway's latest book, The King's Messenger: Prince Bandar bin Sultan and America's Tangled Relationship with Saudi Arabia. David Ottaway is a Senior Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center and a former Investigative and Special Projects Reporter for the Washington Post. The event also featured Jean-François Seznec, Visiting Associate Professor at Georgetown University, and Robert Vitalis, Professor of Political Science at the University of Pennsylvania, who shared their thoughts about the book.

David Ottaway was working as a reporter for the Washington Post and was in a position to observe a U.S.-Saudi relationship that began to change drastically with the Saudi-led oil boycott of 1973. Launched in response to American support of Israel in the October War of that year, the boycott destroyed American illusions of Saudi dependence and led to the development of a complex two-way relationship, characterized by the -˜oil for security' formula and the colorful figure of Prince Bandar bin Sultan, Saudi Ambassador to the United States.

Ottaway's book focuses first on the sudden rise and slow descent of Prince Bandar in the Washington D.C. political scene between 1978 and 2008, and also addresses the substantive change in the nature of the U.S.-Saudi relationship after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Ottaway argues that the deterioration of the relationship began primarily under the Clinton administration and was greatly accelerated under George W. Bush, and that Prince Bandar's sporadic engagements and disengagements with the United States acted as a barometer for the evolving U.S.-Saudi relationship. The book cross-checks Prince Bandar's own opinion of his contribution to this "special relationship" with that of American officials, as Ottaway remarked that in dealing with Prince Bandar "there is hyperbole, there are truths, then there are half truths, and then there are non-truths."

Robert Vitalis commended Ottaway for not merely reproducing Prince Bandar's views but testing them; calling the author "the investigative reporter at his best." What Vitalis liked best was that the book makes an argument, one that is "bold and counterintuitive," though he cautioned that the lack of alternative explanations of the U.S.-Saudi relationship makes it more difficult for the reader to evaluate how pivotal Prince Bandar really was.

Jean-François Seznec also praised Ottaway's work and argued that the most difficult part of Prince Bandar's job was dealing with the events of 9/11, which led the United States to turn against Saudi Arabia. The complete lack of popular support for America in the Kingdom revealed that the Saudi policy had never been to develop a true relationship with the United States, only the impression that such a relationship existed. Seznec explained that given this context, Prince Bandar was nothing more than an instrument used to amuse the Americans and ensure continued arms sales, without influencing the social and political structure of Saudi Arabia.