Known and Unknown_ A Memoir - Donald Rumsfeld [206]
With his immaculately trimmed, strikingly white beard and Bedouin features—skin hardened by sand and sun—Qaboos was much as I had remembered from when I met him in 1983 as President Reagan’s Middle East envoy. The Sultan was sympathetic toward the West, having been educated at Sandhurst, the British military academy, and having served in the British army. In his three decades as sultan, Qaboos had opposed Islamist fundamentalism. He skillfully developed Oman—a nation that in 1970 had few diplomatic relations with foreign states, a meager education system, less than ten miles of paved roads, and a draconian legal code—into a modern Middle Eastern country.
Qaboos became emotional when he discussed 9/11. Then he said something that I found striking. He speculated that the attacks might serve an important purpose by awakening America and the world to the dangers of Islamist extremism and the lethality of weapons of mass destruction. He urged a sustained campaign against the terrorists, cautioning that it would take a long time to do it right. Qaboos lamented that the Arab news media promoted the terrorists’ point of view. And he said we should suggest to other Muslim friends that their leading clerics speak out against terrorist atrocities to change the moral climate that influences young people. He told me he considered some of the Arab countries “hypocrites” who turned to America when they were in trouble but did little when America needed them.2 In that assessment he found a sympathetic ear.
Sultan Qaboos also offered important assistance to the Afghan campaign. He said Oman would allow us to base our C-130 aircraft at Masira Island in the Arabian Sea.
“We trust you. We’re allies,” he said simply. “I have nothing else to add.”3
From Oman, we headed to Egypt, where I met with President Mubarak. After a career as an air force officer, Mubarak had risen to power in 1981, following the assassination by Islamist extremists of his predecessor, Anwar Sadat. Mubarak, then the vice president, had declared a state of emergency and assumed near dictatorial powers. Usually pragmatic in foreign policy, Mubarak followed Sadat’s strategy of cooperation with the United States on issues such as Iraq, counterterrorism, and peace talks with Israel. For decades Egypt had received billions of dollars in American aid annually.
I had first met Mubarak in June 1975 when, as White House chief of staff, I accompanied President Ford to his meetings with President Sadat in Salzburg, Austria. I had worked with Mubarak later when I served as President Reagan’s Middle East envoy, in 1983. Little had changed about the man since our first meeting. On a personal level, I found him animated, even ebullient. Sensing that war in Afghanistan was imminent, he wanted to impart some advice. He shared President Bush’s concern that simply firing cruise missiles at caves in Afghanistan would not be effective. He urged us to use financial assistance to “buy allies on the ground.” He reflexively mentioned the Israeli-Palestinian issue as a root cause of terrorism but did not dwell on it. This was the standard line in the Middle East—everything was Israel’s fault, although in truth Arab nations had done little to help the Palestinians.4
My next stop was Uzbekistan, the most populous of the Central Asian republics and perhaps the most crucial of my trip. It was an example of a country that was generally ignored by American officials. Central Asia, which includes several former Soviet republics, is a blank slate to many in the West, in contrast to Eastern Europe, which Americans had reached out to after the collapse of the Soviet Union. This was due, in part, to personal familiarity. A major reason Americans were eager to forge close ties with Poland, the Czech Republic, and other Eastern European countries after the Cold War was that many Americans in cities like Chicago, Detroit, and Pittsburgh had relatives there or next-door neighbors of East European descent. It worried me that the countries of Central Asia were not getting similar attention,