U.S. Secretary of State Bandar Bin Sultan?

Prince Bandar bin Sultan loves American culture--he's a McDonald's burger addict, among other things--so he'd appreciate the baseball analogy: with the Bush administration suffering a losing streak in the Middle East, it's called in Bandar to do some relief pitching. It may not be a stretch to say that the Saudi prince has as much influence on the direction of U.S. Middle East policy as Condi Rice.
In this week's New Yorker, Seymour Hersh's article describes a "redirection" of U.S. strategy involving covert activities that "has brought the United States closer to an open confrontation with Iran and, in parts of the region, propelled it into a widening sectarian conflict between Shiite and Sunni Muslims." Hersh says that the Saudi government has already cooperated with Bush's administration in clandestine operations against Hizballah, Iran and Syria. The key players behind the strategy redirection, Hersh adds, are Vice President Cheney, Elliott Abrams of the National Security Council, departing U.S. ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad and Bandar--Rice doesn't make the list.
What this means is murky, but here's what we know thus far:
After the Saudis succeeded spectacularly in repairing the diplomatic damage done to relations by the 9/11 attacks, the Bush administration began leaning on King Abdullah to play a more active role in supporting American policies in the Middle East. The Saudis enthusiastically accepted the assignment, if it wasn't their idea to increase their pro-American activities in the first place. At the same time, Bandar left Washington after serving as Saudi ambassador for 22 years and became Abdullah's national security advisor--given Bandar's wide experience, the post makes him a de facto super foreign minister. Indeed, well after having left Washington, Bandar would return for unannounced meetings at the White House--behavior that diplomats say irked his successor as ambassador, Prince Turki al Faisal, and prompted his abrupt resignation.
It's difficult to discern Bandar's precise role within the Kingdom's fragmented political setup in its formulation, but he has been in the forefront of an uncharacteristically pro-active Saudi foreign policy. In line with Bush's diplomatic boycott of Syrian President Bashar Assad over the Hariri assassination, Riyadh has effectively frozen relations with Damascus. Apparently as part of Bush's efforts to bolster Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert after Israel's debacle in last summer's war with Hizballah, Bandar met secretly with Olmert last September in what amounted to the highest-level Saudi-Israeli meeting in the 60-odd-year history of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Since the beginning of 2007, Bandar has held three meetings with his Iranian counterpart, Ali Larijani, to cool down dangerous tensions involving Hizballah and Hamas, Iran's allies in Lebanon and Palestine, and dampen Sunni-Shiite tensions spreading in Iraq and throughout the region. One of the things that makes Bandar an indispensable subcontractor to Bush is he can talk directly to Iranian officials, Hamas or Hizballah, unlike his own secretary of state, who is handcuffed by U.S. policy from doing so.
Bandar had an usual career as an ambassador in Washington. By his own reckoning, he played a role in addressing many of the world's crises, often acting as an envoy to European capitals and Moscow. He built an extraordinary array of relationships with Washington's power brokers, and considers the Bushes and Cheney as personal friends. Bandar acquired a reputation for lending a hand when Washington could use it. He played a key role, for example, in negotiating the end of the Lockerbie dispute that led Gadhafy to renounce nuclear weapons and terrorism--one of Bush's few relatively unblemished successes in the Middle East. According to Bob Woodward's 1987 book Veil, Reagan's national security advisor worked with Bandar to send covert funding worth millions to the Contras in Nicaragua. The book alleges that Reagan's CIA director enlisted Bandar for a 1985 plot to assassinate Hizballah spiritual guide Sheikh Fadlullah--a bombing that went awry, killing 80 people but missing the target. Veil also says that at the CIA's request, Bandar provided $2 million in Saudi funds to prevent Communists from coming to power in Italy.
The Saudis want to strengthen the U.S.'s hand in the region, limit Iran's emerging influence and bolster their own role as a defender of Muslim causes. But questions arise where it gets murky: Do Saudi Arabia and the U.S. share the same interests? Will they agree on methods? Who will influence the other, and will it be for better or worse? Will Bandar's counsel keep Bush out of new adventures in the Middle East? Or will the Administration's confusion about how to proceed give Bandar undue influence-and perhaps lead to some bold missteps that the U.S. will later regret? As Woodward described his relationship with CIA director William Casey 20 years ago, "Bandar had found Americans naive about the world, but here was a man with no inhibitions." Woodward adds a moment later, "Bandar knew how to have a conversation that never took place." Writing about Bandar just last week, The Washington Post's Jackson Diehl said: "Bandar's spin and dazzle make it tempting to think he can pull off almost anything."
So, is Bandar the Saudi tail that wags the American dog? His role in the recent Mecca agreement is a curious one. Condi Rice spent months beforehand arranging a summit meeting between Olmert and President Mahmoud Abbas to resume negotiations on a final settlement between Israel and the Palestinians. The move was strongly supported by many U.S. allies, notably Jordan. However, Cheney, Bandar's friend, was lukewarm to the idea, to say the least. A week before the summit, Saudi Arabia, with Iran's apparent blessing, cobbled together a Palestinian unity deal between Abbas and Hamas. That agreement, which puts Abbas's Fatah party in the same government as a group calling for Israel's destruction, took the wind out of Rice's sails.

--By Scott MacLeod/Cairo