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She attended the elite Holton-Arms College for women within the suburbs outdoors Washington. On weekends she strolled with mates on purchasing journeys by means of the Tysons Nook Middle mall in Northern Virginia. Three American secretaries of state — Colin L. Powell, James A. Baker and Madeleine Albright — had been common company in her dad and mom’ dwelling.
Lately, Princess Reema Bandar al-Saud, 48, the daughter of Prince Bandar bin Sultan, some of the highly effective diplomats in Washington when he was Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to the USA for greater than 20 years, occupies her father’s outdated job.
It has not been simple.
She landed in Washington as the primary girl within the submit in July 2019, lower than a yr after Jamal Khashoggi, a Washington Put up columnist, was murdered and dismembered by Saudi brokers. She confronted the formidable process of making an attempt to rehabilitate Saudi’s de facto chief, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who was assessed by U.S. intelligence businesses to have permitted the grisly killing of Mr. Khashoggi. By early 2021 she was navigating the change from the nice and cozy embrace of the Trump White Home to the hostility of President Biden, who as a candidate in 2019 known as the dominion a “pariah.”
Within the 5 tumultuous years since her arrival, Saudi Arabia’s fortunes in Washington, and Princess Reema’s, have turned. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the necessity for Saudi assist within the oil markets led President Biden to a diplomatic fist-bump with the crown prince in Jeddah in the summertime of 2022. Princess Reema, with the help of her kingdom’s multimillion greenback lobbying and publicity machine, has been a high-profile a part of the grudging détente.
“Within the relationship that the dominion and the U.S. have had, there have been a number of highs and a number of lows,” she stated throughout a current interview within the American English of an individual who grew up in the USA from a younger age. “And a part of my accountability was to remind all people in America what the highs seemed like, and actually work collaboratively to get ourselves again there.”
The return to friendlier relations has not been seamless. The White Home was outraged by the dominion’s choice to slash oil manufacturing simply months after Mr. Biden’s go to. The killing of Mr. Khashoggi — Princess Reema has backed up the crown prince’s avowals of innocence — has left deep scars within the psyche of journalists and politicians. Regardless of authorized features for girls in Saudi Arabia, the authoritarian authorities has worsened its crackdown on dissent.
However Princess Reema is within the room at a crucial time. She was in Jeddah in mid-March for conferences with the crown prince and Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken on persevering with plans, stalled for now due to the battle in Gaza, to normalize relations between the Saudis and Israel. Every week later she met in Riyadh with the crown prince and Senator Lindsey Graham, the South Carolina Republican and a significant proponent of the potential Saudi-Israel pact, to debate U.S. protection measures for the Saudis as a part of any such deal.
Finally the crown prince will make the selections, and it’s unclear how a lot affect Princess Reema has within the talks. Her biggest worth to Riyadh could also be as a Saudi girl selling a brand new imaginative and prescient of the dominion to the USA, and as a pleasant face with longtime household ties in Washington soothing egos and tensions on Capitol Hill.
“I can settle for that we aren’t at all times going to agree,” she stated in her embassy workplace, positioned throughout the road from the Watergate constructing on a avenue that municipal authorities have renamed Jamal Khashoggi Approach.
Her method was approachable however regal, befitting the direct descendant that she is of King Abdul Aziz Ibn Saud, the founding father of Saudi Arabia. Throughout the interview, she pointed to a black-and-white {photograph} on her wall of the 1945 assembly between President Franklin D. Roosevelt and the king aboard the American cruiser U.S.S. Quincy within the Suez Canal, an encounter that set the tone for eight many years of U.S.-Saudi relations. The king expressed the sturdy opposition of the Arabs on the time to the creation of a Jewish state in a partitioned Palestine.
‘You Are Not Your Father’
Shortly after Princess Reema arrived as ambassador to Washington, she known as on her father’s outdated good friend, Mr. Powell, for recommendation.
“Please keep in mind you aren’t your father,” Princess Reema recalled that Mr. Powell, who died in 2021, advised her. “In case you attempt to be your father, you’re going to fail.”
“I didn’t know I wanted to listen to these phrases,” she added, “however I did.”
Prince Bandar was distinctive in Washington. His shut ties to Presidents Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter and notably to each Presidents Bush gave him extraordinary entry to the federal government’s highest echelons and earned him the nickname “Bandar Bush.” Charismatic, ingenious and relentless, he gave luxurious dinners at his sprawling residence overlooking the Potomac River, and courted mates of Saudi Arabia at a seashore home in Jeddah and at properties in Aspen, London and the south of France.
Throughout his years as ambassador — 1983 to 2005 — Prince Bandar labored to maintain the uneasy alliance between Saudi Arabia and the USA steady by means of financial tensions over the dominion’s use of oil costs to flex its energy, two wars in Iraq and the fear assaults of Sept. 11, 2001.
His daughter is working in a far totally different surroundings.
“There are far fewer occasions when our pursuits intersect with Saudi Arabia than the overseas coverage consensus would have you ever consider,” stated Senator Christopher S. Murphy, Democrat of Connecticut, who has met with Princess Reema. “I believe the Saudis have pulled one over on the overseas coverage consensus in Washington for the final 20 years.”
To attempt to counter that sentiment, Princess Reema has assiduously labored the Hill. Clad in a free hijab along with her lengthy hair flowing out, she has canvassed the committees essential to the Saudis, overseas relations and armed companies, and constructed up relations with each Democrats and Republicans. She has had visiting Saudi authorities ministers meet with U.S. officers over Center Jap appetizers at her dwelling in McLean, the identical place the place she grew up. She has traveled the USA, spreading the phrase on Saudi modernization.
Center East consultants word that the work grew to become much more laborious after President Trump left the White Home.
“Reema clearly confronted a special subject set from Trump to Biden, however she stored the identical method of on the lookout for shared pursuits,” stated Brian H. Hook, a former senior State Division official who labored intently along with her below Mr. Trump. “The Biden administration ultimately discovered them, which solely elevated her function.”
After Mr. Graham threatened a “bipartisan tsunami” in 2018 in opposition to the crown prince if he had been deemed to have been answerable for Mr. Khashoggi’s killing, Princess Reema set about successful him over when she bought to Washington. Mr. Graham stated that at her behest — and sweetened by a $37 billion order from the dominion for Boeing plane, to be assembled by staff in South Carolina — he met with the crown prince in his royal court docket in Riyadh final April.
“I stated, ‘Thanks for purchasing the jets. I’d wish to have a brand new relationship,’” the senator recalled telling the crown prince at that assembly.
Throughout a dinner on the restaurant Cafe Milano that included Gen. David H. Petraeus, a former C.I.A. director, Princess Reema was seated close to Consultant Ro Khanna, a California Democrat who has been extremely crucial of Saudi Arabia. In dialog that night, Mr. Khanna blamed the Saudis for the mounting humanitarian disaster within the Saudi-led battle in Yemen. He stated he anticipated an icy retort from Princess Reema however acquired an invite as an alternative.
“I simply stated, ‘Perhaps dinner isn’t the place to have a dialog, however can I come to your workplace?’” Princess Reema recalled. “He was very, very welcoming, very, very open.”
Throughout their assembly on Capitol Hill, Mr. Khanna stated, he advised the ambassador that the bombing in Yemen needed to cease and the blockade of the nation lifted for Saudi Arabia to keep away from additional eroding assist amongst U.S. lawmakers. Princess Reema stated she conveyed his message to her leaders and warranted the congressman that the dominion, too, needed to work towards peace in Yemen.
Saudi Arabia had spent years mired in Yemen however ultimately scaled again its navy involvement, partly due to American stress, and Saudi officers entered peace talks with the Houthis.
Mr. Khanna now describes Princess Reema as “some of the considerate and dynamic leaders on Center East points.”
Sharpening the Saudi Picture
Born in Riyadh because the second of eight kids to Prince Bandar and his spouse, Princess Haifa al-Faisal, Princess Reema lived in McLean, Va., from age 7.
She graduated from George Washington College in 1999 with a level in museum research, labored U.S. commerce festivals as a retail purchaser of garments and sweetness merchandise for a family-run health boutique within the kingdom, had two kids, then returned to Saudi Arabia at age 30, the identical yr her father stepped down as ambassador. There she labored as a retail govt, a breast most cancers activist and a girls’s sports activities official for the Saudi authorities at a time when gyms, stadium house and public restrooms for girls in athletic complexes had been uncommon.
By the point she was named ambassador in February 2019, she was divorced. Beneath the dominion’s stringent guardianship legal guidelines, she wanted her father’s permission to journey to the USA.
As soon as in Washington she relied on former members of her father’s inside circle, like Mr. Powell, in addition to a brand new and increasing circle of her personal. She established a kinship with Yousef Al Otaiba, the United Arab Emirates ambassador to the USA, and his spouse, in addition to along with her counterparts from Jordan and Kuwait.
She additionally employed LS2 Group, a communications and lobbying agency based mostly in Des Moines, for about $1 million per yr, in accordance with federal filings analyzed by Open Secrets and techniques, the nonpartisan analysis group that tracks cash in politics. It was a small however notable slice of the $56 million that the dominion spent on lobbying, publicity and American operations final yr.
LS2’s process was a extra Predominant Road-oriented lobbying push for Saudi Arabia across the nation. Beginning in 2020 in emails and texts to native companies, civic teams and journalists, LS2 pushed a story about Saudi Arabia’s benevolent function as a U.S. commerce associate and job creator, whereas embracing the notions of gender fairness and diversification at dwelling.
Princess Reema was its entrance girl. She visited Cheyenne, Wyo., showing within the first state to grant girls the suitable to vote in honor of Worldwide Girls’s Day. In Salt Lake Metropolis, she met with Mormon leaders, emphasizing her nation’s shared values of religion and household.
She toured a Boeing plane meeting line in North Charleston, S.C., the place she thanked staff for being a part of the corporate that helped hold her father secure throughout his years piloting the F-15 — and trumpeted Saudi Arabia’s $37 billion order. Boeing, in flip, introduced her with a mannequin Saudi airliner that she retains prominently displayed in her workplace.
“This job isn’t just about assembly the crucial senator; it’s about these individuals,” Princess Reema stated.
At present, because the Israel-Hamas battle enters its seventh month, Princess Reema has assured key lawmakers and Biden administration officers that diplomatic relations with Israel are nonetheless inside attain. However Saudi Arabia is not going to signal on to such a pact with out concrete commitments, she stated, on the Palestinian subject.
“The dominion may be very, very agency,” she stated. “We’re completely happy to not simply acknowledge Israel, however do the work that’s crucial. However there needs to be a two-state resolution, and it can’t be one which’s open-ended,” she stated. “Proper now, it needs to be a finite, definitive path, with very particular dates.”
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