I want to state clearly that I am a humanitarian, not an activist. I do not follow any agendas – only that of humanity, not only in Saudi Arabia, but all over the world.
As a girl growing up in Cyprus, Saudi Arabia and then India, the idea of cracking the industry in America seemed crazy. So thankfully, the way I was raised was to be an open person.
In some countries that are darlings of the West, like Egypt, everyone knows the result of national elections years in advance: The man in power always wins. In others, like Saudi Arabia, the very idea of an election is unthinkable.
But the key thing is that Iraq, while it’s got very large oil reserves, has marginalized itself as an oil exporter and these days its exports are only about one tenth that of neighboring Saudi Arabia.
The only pool of young people lies in Saudi Arabia, some of the Middle-East countries, and few African countries. But they are not prepared as Indians are… we travel well; we are accepted globally very well, and that makes India truly a place to source world’s workforce.
Saudi Arabia isn’t just a conservative country with different values we shouldn’t judge. It is a modern Gilead.
I was a teenager in the 1970s and grew up in Medina, Saudi Arabia.
The death of Yemeni strongman Ali Abdullah Saleh shows that Saudi Arabia is paying for its betrayal of the Arab spring in Yemen in 2011.
Saudi Arabia is blessed with energy from various sources, whether it’s fossil in oil and gas, or renewables, wind and solar, that are extremely competitive.
We are a G20 country. One of the biggest world economies. We’re in the middle of three continents. Changing Saudi Arabia for the better means helping the region and changing the world. So this is what we are trying to do here. And we hope we get support from everyone.
Weapons systems the U.S. sold to the Shah of Iran wound up in the hands of Islamic militants who seized power there in 1979; a comparable scenario in Saudi Arabia is hardly impossible.
After a proposal made by us, Saudi Arabia has had a major government reshuffle. Ibrahim al-Assaf has replaced Adel al-Jubeir as foreign minister, and the Saudi ambassador to the U.K. has been recalled to advise King Salman.
Look, I don’t think President Obama would have bowed to the ruler of Saudi Arabia if he didn’t have oil to the degree that the Saudis do. I think they and other producing states, almost all of whom, except Norway and Canada, are dictatorships or autocratic systems, have thrown their weight around because of oil.
Most dramatically, and perhaps least noticed, is the violence inside Saudi Arabia itself.
My own center, my Kingdom Center, which is the highest priced tower in Saudi Arabia, was vacated twice because of terrorist attacks, terrorist threats.
Corruption in Saudi Arabia is quite different from corruption in most other countries, as it is not limited to a ‘bribe’ in return for a contract, or expensive gift for the family member of a government official or prince, or use of a private jet that is charged to the government so a family can go on vacation.
Our pious horror at the intolerant and repressive behaviour of Islamic State is bitterly funny, given that it is really not that different from the policies of our close ally, Saudi Arabia.
Saudi Arabia supplies much oil to the U.S. And it is the world’s largest consumer of American weaponry.
Wipro is one of the fastest growing companies regionally and globally, and I am personally very excited with our journey in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
Lebanon is restless, Syria got its walking papers, Egypt is scheduling elections with more than one candidate, and even Saudi Arabia, whose rulers are perhaps more terrified of women than rulers anywhere else in the world, allowed limited municipal elections.
We are not a failed Arab republic, so we should not fear Arab Spring. We should embrace Arab Spring. That’s what I hope Saudi Arabia will do.
Because America is the Saudi Arabia of natural gas. We have the world’s largest reserves of natural gas, and the world’s most sophisticated production and storage facilities, by a wide margin.
The Syrian border town of Qa’im was the main gateway Islamic radicals used to go to Iraq. Syria became the passageway for extremists from Egypt, Libya, Afghanistan, Yemen, Saudi Arabia and other Muslim nations to fight a jihad against American forces in Iraq.
We have accomplished our mission of stopping Iraq’s drive to take over Saudi Arabia and the rest of the Middle East. We should begin to reduce our forces in Saudi Arabia, ever so slowly, and look to a more multinational force to keep the peace.
It’s one thing to say you’re feminist, but then what does that mean? Not selling arms to a regime that is the most repressive and probably one of the worst human rights violators, particularly towards women, like Saudi Arabia?
My father was a Foreign Service officer, a diplomat and an Arabist who spent virtually all his career in the Near East, as it was called in the State Department. So I spent most of my childhood among the Israelis and the Arabs of Palestine, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and Egypt.
If you compare the size of our reserves of Saudi Arabia and the whole Middle East, it’s like three times as much as all of that combined and that’s just the easily, readily available 1800 billion barrels and there are probably 3 billion barrels that are commercially just under that, available.
