I have incurred many debts along the way. Countless Saudi friends were incomparable in their kindness to me, their hospitality worthy of all that has been said and written about Arab hospitality. Their culture is one of discretion, so I have not named them. My hope is that, were they to read this work, they would find in it a worthwhile depiction of their world.
Professor Charles Doran, my colleague at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) at Johns Hopkins University, gave me encouragement to press on with this book when I needed it. My younger SAIS colleague, Professor Camille Pecastaing, is an exacting scholar. I am grateful to him for his insistence that earlier drafts still needed more of the texture of the Saudi realm.
At the Hoover Institution, I was lucky for the friendship and support of Charles Hill and John Raisian. Charlie, “the man on whom nothing was lost,” took time out of working on his thrilling work, Grand Strategies, to read mine. John Raisian was all academics dream of in the way of deans and directors but rarely get. He conceived the project out of which this book grew, gave it sustenance, and carried it along and made room for me at Hoover. He and his colleagues, and the good people at Hoover Institution Press, are consummate professionals. I am particularly grateful to Jennifer Presley, Marshall Blanchard, Jennifer Navarrette, and Denise Elson for their commitment in getting this book to press. And to the cause of Hoover and its work.
As in two earlier longer books, and scores of essays and reviews, I couldn’t have done this without my assistant, colleague, and friend at SAIS, then at Hoover, Megan Ring. Megan, as is known to one and all I know in Arabia, Baghdad, and elsewhere, can do many things at the same time. For her friendship, for her faith in this project, I am truly in her debt. As is her way, Michelle Ajami would rather not be thanked, but this work, too, bears her mark. At SAIS, Katarina Lesandric, who administers the Middle East program, was helpful and supportive in many ways.
Secretary George P. Shultz took time out of an impossibly busy schedule to give this text a sustained and critical reading. I am grateful to him for his kindness and for his interest in my work. The Middle East was but one arena to which George Shultz applied his formidable talents of diplomacy and state-craft. The world of that Greater Middle East has always tugged at him. It is in this spirit that the text could be read as an attempt to answer the sort of questions that engaged him in his years in office and in the years hence.
FOUAD AJAMI
Stanford, California, 2010
In the ten years since this book was completed for publication, much has changed in Saudi Arabia—and not changed. Fouad had no inkling of the rise of Mohammed bin Salman, but there was much he sought to understand on a deeper level. It was a society that profoundly intrigued him—“the magic kingdom,” as he liked to say—a realm obscured to outsiders, more than other Middle Eastern lands, by layers of custom and profound discretion. There is a great deal in his reading of the place that peels away those layers and helps set in context the events of today.
We had long grappled with the desire to put this to press, and it was Dr. Cole Bunzel who ultimately gave it the nod towards the light. As a student who was held in highest regard by Fouad, his enthusiasm for this project was decisive. The new introduction he has provided grounds this work in the present. For this and for his careful reading and editing, we are both enormously grateful. Fouad would have been proud to have his final touches on this manuscript.
Barbara Arellano gave her wholehearted support—once again—to publication and pulled out all the stops to make it happen in a timely way. Danica Michels Hodge and Alison Law lent their formidable talents in the most gracious and effective way, sensitive to all Fouad’s predilections as if he’d been there to oversee the project. Denise Elson has been a vital and key part of everything Fouad did at Hoover. She never hesitated for a moment in reviving this book. She, Chris Dauer, and Shana Farley were always the team Fouad turned to.
Charlie Hill and Russell Berman, with Fouad, were the pillars that conceived and breathed life into the working group that produced a stellar lineup of publications, of which this was one. They have been true to that original concept and mission ever since. Eric Wakin, the inimitable head of the Hoover Library & Archives, has been caretaker of all Fouad’s papers, and his constant support has been reassuring and inspiring.
Finally, we want to add a special word of thanks to Miriam Sofaer—and her husband, Abe—for the fundamental role they played.
MICHELLE AJAMI AND MEGAN RING
Stanford, California, 2020