Barak asked about Obama’s view of events in the region, and I told him that while some in the United States thought the president wasn’t tough enough in international affairs, I totally disagreed. Obama had sent 60,000 troops to Afghanistan and had now attacked Libya. He was aggressively pursuing al Qaeda. While he was willing to talk with adversaries such as Iran, I said, “when push comes to shove, he is willing to push back and protect the interests of the United States and our allies.”
At a subsequent joint press conference, Barak said that the security relationship between Israel and the United States had never been stronger, and that cooperation between his ministry and the U.S. Department of Defense was unprecedented. On the unrest across the Middle East, he said that nothing like what was going on had been seen since the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, and it was a moving and inspiring phenomenon. He added, though, that “a pessimist in the Middle East is an optimist with experience.”
The next morning we drove up the Israeli coast to Caesarea for a breakfast meeting with Prime Minister Netanyahu. Caesarea was built by King Herod the Great a few years before the birth of Christ, and I would have liked to explore some of the ruins, but business left no time for pleasure. There were about twenty people at the breakfast, so both Netanyahu and I stuck pretty close to our script, although the prime minister understandably took a very tough line on the need to respond forcefully to the recent terrorist attacks. We talked about the continuing problem of Iran and, of course, about Libya and the political unrest across the region. The Israelis clearly were nervous about events, seeing considerable potential for trouble and little opportunity for outcomes that were in Israel’s interest. As I had with Barak, I urged Netanyahu not to go into a defensive crouch but to seize the moment with bold moves in the peace process. Bibi wasn’t buying.
I ended my visit with an eighty-minute motorcade to Ramallah in the Palestinian West Bank to meet with Prime Minister Salam Fayyad. It was the first time a U.S. secretary of defense had made such a trip. As I left Israeli-controlled territory, the motorcade rolled into a large fenced area and then, inside that, a sizable enclosure with high concrete walls. Everybody but me had to transfer to Palestinian armored vehicles for the drive to Ramallah. I suppose I was allowed to continue on in my own vehicle as a courtesy. Even so, my security team was pretty edgy at this point. When I met with Fayyad, he complained that although Palestinian security had never been better—we had trained them—there had been an increase in Israeli military incursions. Further, he said, violence by Israeli settlers—including “outright terrorism”—had been on the rise, but the Israeli authorities had “done nothing to rein it in.” I shared with Fayyad what I had told Netanyahu about using the regional turmoil to take bold steps for peace, adding that progress would require bold steps by the Palestinians as well. I thought my comments had about the same effect on Fayyad as they had on Netanyahu.
Less than two weeks later, I made my last visits to Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and the UAE. After a particularly productive conversation in 2010, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia had asked me to stop by and see him whenever I was in the region, “even if only for an hour.” I had done just that in early March, and now I was back again less than a month later. We met for nearly two hours at his palace in Riyadh, a huge white marble building. His office was about ten times the size of my Pentagon office and ornately decorated with dark wood and eight crystal chandeliers. In a meeting attended by many, we agreed that the bilateral military relationship was strong and affirmed that the $60 billion arms sale he and I had concluded was on track. The king said modernization of their eastern navy (in the Persian Gulf) was the next project.
Pleasantries done, the king excused virtually everyone else, and the two of us, and the Saudi ambassador to the United States, Adel Al-Jubeir, who interpreted, privately turned to Egypt and Iran. The king, in his late eighties, was not in good health physically—he still enjoyed smoking cigarettes—but was very sharp mentally. I walked into the meeting knowing that he was very upset with the United States for what he saw as our abandonment of Mubarak and our failure to fully support other longtime friends and allies, such as Bahrain, facing similar unrest. In fact, there had been loose talk by some senior Saudis about fundamentally altering the relationship with the United States and developing closer relations with other big powers such as China and Russia.
Reading from notes, Abdullah had a stark message for me and for the president:
• Our two countries have had a strategic relationship for seventy years. I value it and support all facets.
• The relationship is essential to the security of the world.
• America’s reputation is at stake. Events in Egypt and in the early stages in Bahrain have affected America’s reputation in the world.
• Some are comparing the treatment of Mubarak to the abandonment of the Shah.
• I believe this is wrong, but you have to manage the perception.
• You should look at how your friends view you.
• Individuals in both the U.S. and Saudi governments are saying things that cast doubt on the relationship. We must not allow them to succeed. The relationship has been tested and not broken by temporary events.
• Iran is the source of all problems and a danger that must be confronted.
He concluded by saying that his message was intended to be supportive.
While we favored democratic reform, I said, the United States had not been the cause of the uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, or Bahrain. These were the protests of people who had been forced to live too long under autocratic governments. I said our only advice to the Egyptian government, and to the protesters, had been to avoid violence and to embrace peaceful reform. I had told the king of Bahrain that stability there required reform led by the royal family. And while Iran had not caused the protests, I said, it was exploiting them for its own purposes.
After a long discussion of the unrest, the king again said the Gulf region’s leaders were bothered by the way the United States had turned its back on Mubarak and that, in light of talk of putting him on trial, the United States should protect him. I was noncommittal.
As we parted, Abdullah said he had “heard rumors I hope are not true—that you are leaving.” I said that I was leaving in a few months, to which the king replied, “Make it a few years.” I joked that President Obama insisted that I still looked healthy, but I had told him that was just on the outside. And then we parted company for the last time.
MILITARY SUCCESSION
One of the most significant responsibilities of the secretary of defense is recommending to the president officers to fill the highest positions in the military. It is a complicated business, involving not just picking the right person for each job but ensuring that the appointments are equitably distributed among the four services and dealing with the “daisy chain” of vacancies that cascade from each appointment. These senior personnel decisions usually are made months in advance because of the need to identify replacements and the uncertainty of every confirmation process.