Friendly spirits at work in Crawford

My favourite cartoon while growing up was Caspar the friendly ghost and I used to wait impatiently for the white, slightly chubby figure to appear on the black-and-white television screen. Here was a character who did good behind the scenes but who frightened the daylights out of the other cartoon characters whenever he tried to make friends with them. There was always a happy ending.

Sadly there are evil spirits at work in real life.

I do not know if you noticed, but last week in Crawford, Texas, there was a ghost missing from the proceedings when Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Abdullah Bin Abdul Aziz and President George W. Bush met. I saw hand holding and talk of a new future in relations. I saw not what some editors interpreted as a spat over high oil prices but the laying to rest of the ghost of 9/11 and a particularly nasty one at that.

Maybe I am wrong and it was all a public relations exercise for the benefit of the media. But what you saw in Crawford was the leader of the mainly Christian, free world and the Arab prince who is de facto ruler of the kingdom that is home to Islam's holiest shrines. It also holds a quarter of the world's crude oil reserves but that is a reality that helped lead us to Crawford and the significant declaration issued at the end of the talks.

Bush's spread there is coincidentally called the Prairie Chapel Ranch. In many ways, the place reflects what Bush himself is all about, a devout Christian who likes to wear a cowboy hat. He also sees himself as going after the bad guys in the tradition of the Westerns that were also a common staple of my television days. Substitute the Red Indians for terrorists of all colours and you get the plot.

After 9/11, the bad guys were Osama Bin Laden and his Al Qaida network of terrorists. Bush went after them in Afghanistan and extended his war on terror to bullies and tyrants around the world. With Saddam Hussain deposed in a quick war with a handful of allies in 2003, Arab leaders around the region were looking over their shoulders for fear they were next.

Since that awful September day, the ghost of Osama Bin Laden soured relations between Washington and Riyadh. Divorce was never an option as Saudi Arabia with its vast oil reserves became an even more important source of crude oil imports to the United States as Iraq struggled to get its own oil to markets in the aftermath of the war. No matter how many times Bush tried to convince opponents of his energy bill that the United States needed to curb its dependence on foreign oil and in particular Arab oil, Saudi Arabia retained its ranking as one of the three top suppliers of crude oil to the United States.

Prince Abdullah is a pragmatic leader but no marathon runner. Yet he is the man who came up with the idea of opening Saudi Arabia's gas reserves to foreign participation when, in 1998, he invited US oil companies to bid for gas acreage. Then came the September 11 attacks and US companies pulled back, a decision that was partly political and partly due to disagreement over rates of return and the role of state-owned Saudi Aramco in the process. Change comes slowly in Saudi Arabia but there has been some and the three-phase municipal elections may appear to be too little too late as far as political reform goes, it they are a significant move for the cautious kingdom.

When Bush held out his hand to Prince Abdullah in Crawford, he buried that ghost, at least for now. This is one script where there will be no shootout at sunset. There are too many mutual interests at stake and both sides appeared to have come to terms with that reality.

Initiative

The Crawford statement referred to the "decades of close relations" the two countries have enjoyed for 60 years and contained a pledge by the two to work together to guarantee security of oil supply. It is true that the two men did not share the same views as to the cause of record high oil prices. The United States feels the Saudis should pump more crude oil while the Saudis blames the price spike on the lack of refining capacity. Soon after the Crawford meeting, Bush announced his initiative to build new refineries at closed military bases.

Tense relations between the world's energy powerhouse and the world's only superpower contributed to the geopolitical tensions that also pushed up oil prices in the aftermath of the Iraq war. It is worth quoting from the Crawford statement because I feel its significance was not stressed enough in news coverage.

"Today, we renewed our personal friendship and that between our nations. In our meeting we agreed that momentous changes in the world call on us to forge a new relationship between our two countries a strengthened partnership that builds on our past partnership, meets today's challenges, and embraces the opportunities our nations will face in the next sixty years," it said.

"The United States respects Saudi Arabia as the birthplace of Islam, one of the world's great religions, and as the symbolic center of the Islamic faith as custodian of Islam's two holy places in Makkah and Madinah. Saudi Arabia reiterates its call on all those who teach and propagate the Islamic faith to adhere strictly to the Islamic message of peace, moderation, and tolerance and reject that which deviates from those principles. Both countries agree that this message of peace, moderation, and tolerance must extend to those of all faiths and practices," it added.

Reaffirmation

The communique reaffirmed the two countries' commitment in the fight against terrorism and a pledge to work together to eradicate terrorism. It contained recognition by Saudi Arabia of the freedoms enshrined in the first amendment and an assurance by Washington that it would not impose a political system on Saudi Arabia.

The two sides also agreed to set up a joint committee headed by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Saudi Arabian Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al Faisal to help expand bilateral ties. "The United States and Saudi Arabia agree that our future relations must rest on a foundation of broad cooperation. We must work to expand dialogue, understanding, and interactions between our citizens."

This is pretty powerful stuff and a victory for successful diplomacy of which we have seen little of late. Bin Laden must be eating his heart out. I suspect my hero Caspar, the friendliest ghost of all, has been at work here.

The writer is Middle East editor of Platts, energy information division of the McGraw-Hill Companies. The opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Platts.