Ideagen Radio
Ideagen Radio
Catalyze Impact Podcast Episode 7 - Navigating Global Diplomacy: Patrick Theros on US Foreign Policy and Cultural Influence
Discover the art of diplomacy and leadership with former US Ambassador to Qatar, Patrick Theros, as he unlocks the secrets of navigating the complex world of US foreign policy. Tune in to learn about the challenges and triumphs he faced during a pivotal time in Qatar and the Gulf region. Gain insights into the delicate balance required when dealing with corporate giants like Mobil and Enron and how these negotiations shaped the landscape of gas diplomacy.
Our conversation unfolds into the shifting dynamics within the Gulf economy and the strategic interplay between major global powers. Ambassador Theros sheds light on the growing influence of China in the region, the evolving US-Qatar relations, and the impact of educational initiatives in a rapidly changing geopolitical environment. Listen as we explore how the US can recognize mutual interests with nations like China while understanding the nuanced role of diplomacy and international business.
In a captivating journey through history, Ambassador Theros reflects on his harrowing experiences in Nicaragua during the Somoza regime, demonstrating the power of quick, decisive action in the face of chaos. We wrap up our discussion by examining the profound influence of American culture abroad, revealing how cultural exports can often achieve more than traditional political maneuvers. This episode uncovers the importance of empathy and cultural understanding in shaping effective foreign policy for a globally connected world.
Welcome to the IdeaGen Global Catalyze Impact podcast series. Today, I am thrilled to have with us former US Ambassador to Qatar, Patrick Theros. Patrick, thank you for joining us today.
Speaker 2:It's a pleasure. I always enjoy it.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. I'm excited for this conversation as well. I know we've had you on several times, but it's always a pleasure to hear from you and your extensive experience in diplomacy and leadership and all types of things. So with that I want to roll right into the interview here all types of things. So with that I want to roll right into the interview here. As I said, you know you have an extensive experience in foreign policy and diplomacy. What kind of inspired you to join the US Foreign Service in, I believe, 1963, was it?
Speaker 2:And what kind of kept you engaged for your I can answer the last question first, which is it was the most fun job I could ever imagine, uh, and you walk away with a feeling at the end of your career that you've actually made the world a little bit better perhaps just a smidgen, but that you've contributed to making the world a little bit better and that you've contributed to what your country wants, what your country needs relationships. We live in a world that's no longer. We're no longer protected by oceans after they developed this thing called an ICBM. And so the isolationism, the distance that the US kept from the world, the lack of foreign entanglements those were fine before the 20th century. At some time in the middle of the 20th century it turned out that we were no longer able to check out. The world had come to us, we'd gone to the world, and what seemed like a 15-day trip across the atlantic a long time ago is now down to six hours getting into london. So you contribute at the end that's.
Speaker 1:that's incredible to hear and it kind of just leads into my next question about you know you and your role as a US ambassador in a pretty transformative period in Qatar and the Middle East. Could you kind of describe maybe some of the biggest challenges and the opportunities that came, you know, with strengthening that US-Cutter relationship?
Speaker 2:Perhaps the biggest challenge happens before you leave. It's fully understanding what your government, what the US government, wants from the relationship. I mean there are certain general rules. We want people like us, we want people to vote with us in various forums like the UN and so forth. We want to have a good trade relationship. But also there are first of all there's competing demands within the United States as to what we would like out of this relationship and you have to sort them out and get the Department of State to prioritize and occasionally decide which agency of the US government or which constituency is going to get preferential treatment is first up in the priorities of the US government, stop in the priorities of the US government. So the preparation to go out there is quite difficult and in my case it was sort of truncated because before you are confirmed by the Senate you're not allowed to speak to anybody because the Senate takes this as sort of a threat to its own prerogatives. You are not an ambassador, confirmed ambassador, until they actually vote for you, and then you've got a perhaps limited period of time between the confirmation vote and when you leave to get all these things together.
Speaker 2:In my case I was very lucky because I knew the region quite well, because I pretty much knew what the host country wanted, I had a pretty good idea of what their priorities were, though, I must admit, in the end I was surprised by some things. Priorities were, though, I must admit, in the end I was surprised by some things, but the largest part. For example, at the time the Department of State was trying to mediate between Exxon and a company called between Mobil Oil I'm sorry, it was before Exxon Mobil, just Mobil and a company called Enron that you're, if you're old enough to remember, went belly up about 30, about 25, 30 years ago, enough to remember went belly up about 25, 30 years ago and they were engaged in a fight to the death over who gets up front in what the US government wants in terms of American companies exploiting the newly developed cutter gas field, the newly developed Qatar gas field. We also had this question at the time of the US strategic posture in the region was not clearly worked out very well. And also the other issue in the United States again was where did the US stand on the disputes between the countries of the Gulf? We knew that the big dispute, which was Iran versus the countries that we were associated with closely, which were the Arab states of the Gulf on the other side, that one was pretty clear what we wanted to do.
Speaker 2:But there were other discussions, other disputes between the countries in the region and one had to try and figure out where the US came down, because this would in effect determine how you dealt with the host country government, in effect determine how you dealt with the host country government. In this case, the US really didn't have or hadn't thought through the disputes of the Gulf and you pretty much get out there and then in the end, if the US doesn't have a position, you have the ambassadors in each country sort of taking the position of each country against the neighboring one. I mean, that's natural enough anyway, because you're living in the country, this is where you're getting your information and the motivations from. But trying to sort all this out can become quite time-consuming. I frankly didn't have the time.
Speaker 2:I was at less than 10 days between my confirmation and getting on the airplane to go to Doha. When you get there, the first thing you discover pretty quickly is if you've been absent from the region for a few years, things have changed and your assumptions may not always be accurate the case of Qatar. The emir had displaced his father early. His father had abdicated. The father had particular policies that the United States was not, in, which the interests of the US were not pretty high up.
Speaker 2:And I arrived to discover that the new government was a government that was determined to be as close as possible to the United States, which was great for me. When the Emir met me the first time after I presented credentials, the custom was you'd sit and have tea or coffee with him for a few minutes. Ours turned into an hour session which was pretty much centered around his opening line, as I intend to become America's best friend of the Gulf, and I realized that nobody in the United States government ever considered this as a possibility. So these are the sort of the initial problems, the initial issues that develop when you.
Speaker 1:They're not necessarily problems when you arrive in the first few days of being ambassador the understanding that what Washington expects of you is unrealistic and what the host government expects of the United States may be equally unrealistic sometimes, or sometimes realistic, anyway, I hope that's no, yeah, that's that's, you know, very interesting and and your perspective you know personally is is key there and you kind of touched on, you know, the priority shifts that cutter had um, but what about the priority shifts and the diplomatic strategies that change for the? U within that region of you know? Rapid political and economic change?
Speaker 2:Yeah, specific to Qatar, the most important developments were that the United States was extremely interested in the exploitation of the North Dome gas field. This was the single, the largest single deposit of natural gas in the world, giving Qatar the third position for the natural gas reserves. The potential was huge. When I got there, a new technology was being introduced for the first time. Technology had existed but no one had figured out how to make it work on a commercial basis, which was the LNG technology. Mobile oil was taking a big risk. It was the American company that was the first one to come in because to see, first of all, to get the gas out of the ground and then to figure out how to make LNG work.
Speaker 2:The transportation of natural gas by sea and a little bit of technical background. Until then, the primary way of moving natural gas was by pipeline. Pipelines are high upfront costs, easy to manage, cheap to send gas afterwards, but the problem is that they've got to run through somebody else's territory or they have to be under the sea, where you have other problems. They can be interfered with. They can have natural breaks, spilling of gas. You don't know how to fix it or where it's fixed. So there were lots of difficulties involved with pipelines, but at the time it was the principal technology for moving gas from where it was coming out of the ground, to the customers. Liquefied natural gas was a technology that, even though the basic science behind it was known for a long time how do you actually commercialize it was difficult. Mobile oil was the first major company in the world to get into it big time because the Qataris did not want to ship gas from Qatar by pipeline because it would have put them at the mercy of their neighbors and this is a small country in a rough neighborhood surrounded by neighbors who have certain predatory views towards the Qatari's wealth. And at the same time we had a problem with Enron coming in wanting to do the same thing, because Enron wanted to ship gas to India. And they got into the US government and they said we will also be able to ship gas from Qatar to Israel.
Speaker 2:At that time most of the Arab world had maintained a boycott against Israel and, trying to balance out, the Qataris were prepared to lift the boycott for shipping natural gas to Israel, but they had the contract with Mobil. My job was to, on the ground, keep the Qataris on board, to modify the contract. The State Department had to persuade Mobil in the United States to agree to modify the contract, united States to agree to modify the contract, and it was a fairly ugly fight between the two companies, in which you had to keep your eye on the future, never mind what people are saying to each other at this time. The other problem was, as I said, the hostilities between the various countries in the Gulf, between the various countries in the Gulf, and these are in most cases they're not recent hostilities and they are pretty much like, say, the attitude that Armenians have towards Turks. These are things that happened a long time ago, but people are still feeding the resentments and in the Gulf these resentments were in the form of battles that had taken place 100 years before, in which pieces of territory had been lost, or the Saudis believing that they should be the paramount country in the Gulf, trying to monopolize American the relationship with the United States and trying to get the United States to execute its policies with the small countries through Saudi Arabia, rather indirectly and as a consequence, it was a fairly complex series of relationships in the Gulf.
Speaker 2:Complex series of relationships in the Gulf and again, the worry about Iran, the largest country in the Gulf, the most powerful one and the one with which the US had, and still has, obviously, a rather toxic relationship.
Speaker 2:That, for the United States, goes back to the taking of hostages in the American embassy in Tehran, and for the Iranians it goes back to the US overthrowing the first and only democratic elected government in Iranian history in 1953. So there was an awful lot to do, complicated by the fact that I had a tiny embassy including the communicator and the admin officer and the consular officer. I had five American diplomats at the post, so you had a very small group of people with which to carry out, to work on these things. And so we were off to a sort of a fun start trying to sort all these things out, figuring out how to make things work in Qatar and how to make things work in the United States. And I have to tell you a general rule of diplomacy it is usually more difficult dealing with your own country's government the people sent you out than it is dealing with the country of the government you're accredited to.
Speaker 1:Wow, just you know the amount of angles here that you described. I mean you have the domestic and the private sector and then you have, of course, the surrounding countries involved. I mean no short, no small job, obviously for your team, but you guys did incredibly well. That's really cool to hear and it leads me into our next question. You know, throughout your career you've worked under different administrations with, you know, varying foreign policy priorities. How do you adapt maybe your leadership style or your you know working style to navigate those changes?
Speaker 2:As I said, the most difficult part of the job is dealing with your country, with the United States. The style in dealing with the host country doesn't change very much from country to country. There are some idiosyncrasies between monarchies and dictatorships and republics as to how you deal with these governments, but those things are sort of set. You know that you try to get a feel for how stable the government is. You try to get a feel for how willing the government is to listen to its own public opinion. You try and meet as many of the opinion makers, influencers of government and so forth as you can in the country. But that's you know in writ large. That's a fairly standard way of dealing. The differences in dealing with Washington are more pronounced as you go from administration to administration. Not so much the administrative difficulties of how do you do the post, how do you set it up, how do you organize, how do you budget and so forth, but the difficulties of getting how can I say of getting the information you need from Washington and who to go to in Washington to influence American policy in a way that you see beneficial towards the relationship with the host country. Some administrations, for example, kept a tight hold on communications. Everything went through the desk officer of the Department of State. Other administrations were very loose. You'd get phone calls in the middle of the night from somebody who wanted you to do something and you had to balance off the fact that the person may be very high-ranking with the possibility that he may not have even told the Department of State that he's going to call me. And they say this varies from administration to administration. How much does the president care about your part of the country? I have served in countries where the president cared a great deal about what was going on, in Jordan, for example, and I have to say that my initial time in the UAE and in Qatar later, the US government didn't really care about the region very much and you were left trying to figure out what you could do to improve things without getting anybody mad at you, back in Washington on your own, without much instruction. So dealing with Washington is the most difficult. How do you deal with a company, for example, like Exxon, which would call you and say I'm coming, the president of Exxon is coming to Qatar and I want to see the Emir of Qatar at 10 o'clock on Sunday morning? Exxon may think Exxon may be able to play that game in Washington, but you have feelings on the other side. The Qataris were deeply offended that the president of Exxon was going to set the emir's schedule. So I tried to do Washington and Washington apparently was sort of afraid to have somebody call Exxon and say look, you've got to be more flexible.
Speaker 2:We worked through it, but it was a good example of how that relationship could have been tanked rather badly. Exxon could have suffered tremendous reputational harm and the hostility of the government if they had persisted in this. Exxon did this because they figured they're the biggest company at that time, the biggest oil company in the world, and the Qataris were a tiny country. So this is, you know, issues like this, issues like the Qataris wanted to buy certain kinds of military equipment. Other countries that were on bad terms with Qatar would then be lobbying in Washington saying don't sell them this, don't sell them that. Then other countries the Qataris were sort of new to the game. They did not have a large diplomatic establishment and the Saudis, who had been dealing with the United States for a long time and knew the US well and had a very large and efficient diplomatic establishment in the United States, would frequently get in to bend somebody's ear when the Qatari diplomats couldn't do it.
Speaker 2:We had sort of early on in my posting there it was 6th of February 1996, the Qataris discovered an attempted coup d'etat.
Speaker 2:They rolled it up sort of a few hours before it was to happen and things began to get really ugly as we realized that the coup d'etat had been organized by all three of Qatar's neighbors Bahrain, saudi Arabia and the UAE plus Egypt, and things had gotten really tense. If you 2017, we got a repeat of that in a different sort of way, but there was real worry of an armed clash, of these Saudis rolling into Qatar, and there the job was to get the department to tell everybody to calm down and sort of stand the troops down without breaking other relationships. Again, this took a fair amount of being up all night talking to Washington, sending cables back and persuading Washington what was, at least what I believe to be, in the best interest of the United States, and I did not believe that a Saudi attack on Qatar was in the best interest, and the Saudis are sort of dropping hints in the other direction. So I don't know. I may be wandering a little bit off the subject right now, but anyway, how does that sound for an answer?
Speaker 1:That's. I mean, I just keep going back to the angles and like the way that you have to communicate with the variety of stakeholders, and each are very important, but you know, maybe think they're the most important as well, and it's a challenge, I'm sure. And so, yeah, you discussed the private sector and your work with business, so you're also president of the US Qatar Business Council.
Speaker 2:I was. That's my second retirement now.
Speaker 1:Well, could you talk about? Maybe you know the challenges and what went into strengthening the trade and investment between the two countries through your work with the US Qatar Business Council.
Speaker 2:Two or three important roles. First of all, the, I'd say, the specific case of Qatar. This is an extremely rich country that most people in the United States didn't know anything about. So you had a long list of companies coming to the business council saying this is what I'd like to sell, this is what I'd like to invest, and so forth, and it was separating the wheat from the chaff. You had to tell companies, including some pretty big ones, that you know you may want to sell this product in Qatar, but the Qataris don't want to buy it. And I'm going to save you $20,000 in airfares and hotels going to Qatar only to find out that there's no market for what you want you want. Secondly, you had to help these companies shape their approach to the cutlery customer. The different countries have got different how can I say? Environments for doing business, certain views, the cutleries again, a small country, a very small number of people in the total population and a very small number of people among major decision makers, even amongst businessmen. You had to shape your proposals in certain ways. I'll give you one example that kept coming up all the time no-transcript necessary to take my investment in there, make what I invested in much more valuable and then sell in five years. And they wanted to get Qatari partners to come in with them to do this in the United States or another part of the country.
Speaker 2:In the Gulf all the Gulf countries, not just the Qataris investment is not seen as a quick in and then exit strategy and get out. They are building a portfolio for the future. These are again small countries. They are generally dependent on one particular commodity, be it oil or gas, for the national economies. They want to be in a position where, if something happens to that one commodity in marketing, the prices go out of the market wars. What have you that? They have a base of a large number of investments around the world to fall back on. So what is now?
Speaker 2:Qatar Investment Authority, for example, was originally named the Supreme Committee for the Protection of the Future. So they didn't want exit strategies. They wanted the kind of businesses they wanted to invest in the United States or elsewhere, in the kind of investment that 20 or 30 years later would still be producing something for them. They had no particular idea of when they would want. They didn't want to exit in order to make money, persuading American, the American financial industry, that this is the way the Qataris, and in fact it applies to all the Gulf states that this is the way the Gulf states want to do business was like pulling teeth without an anesthetic. Our financial wizards believe that they've got a monopoly on who's smart, how to make money, and they've done a pretty good job of it, but their goals were not the same as the goals of the Qataris and of the rest of the region, so getting the American companies to understand that was a problem.
Speaker 1:Ambassador Therese, how, in your opinion, has economic diplomacy changed in the Gulf region over the past two decades?
Speaker 2:that the fact that the people of the Gulf, the bankers, their own venture capitalists, their governments, no longer need the human input. A long time ago not a long time ago, but maybe in your age a little bit less virtually all the managers, all the experts, in virtually every field were foreigners, usually Americans and Europeans, a lot of Indians, some others, but primarily the operators of the economies of the Gulf were foreigners. Aramco was originally the Arabian American oil company. It was an American-owned operation until the early 70s. Most of the other oil companies in the Gulf were foreign oil companies operating uh pretty much uh as they liked, because the inhabitants of the gulf, the people the gulf, still lack the technical skills to uh to manage these huge operations. Well, that's changed. Over a couple of generations of kids going to school, kids getting out of school, kids going to college, getting advanced degrees, many of them going to work for the foreign oil companies. They slowly began to supplant the foreigners there, plant the foreigners there. In the final analysis, the foreigner yes, he was working for the Saudi or the Qatari or the Emirati, but he was also his how can I say? His mindset was always oriented towards the benefit of the foreign company, even when they were working for the Saudis, for the Qataris, the Emiratis, and there was this assumption that you could put something over on the local, on the Emirati or the Qatari, because you really didn't know what was going on and you could sell him things that you, things that he still made money from them, but the weight of the money, most of the money, was going abroad to the foreign customer, to the foreign partners, whoever they might be. The change has come slowly. Let me just give you an illustration of a political change that occurred in Qatar quite recently.
Speaker 2:As you know, qatar contracted with six American and three European universities to come and establish branch campuses in Qatar. Amongst them were Miami Mater, Georgetown University School of Foreign Service and Texas. A&m had an engineering faculty, petroleum engineering in particular and these schools were brought out there because the Qataris felt that the only way you could improve local higher education, tertiary education, was by bringing foreign schools in and both the example and the technical skills that they would impart, the academic skills that they would impart to the indigenous schools. Well, right now, so the I can say that for the first 10 to 15 years, it's been 25 years now since most of the schools came out 20, 25 years years now, since most of the schools came out through 20, 25 years. The schools were indispensable to Cutterie education. Cutterie University has now improved to the point where it's as good as it's up there with some of these schools. It's really quite good, they're getting good kids out. It's up there with some of these schools. It's really quite good, they're getting good kids out. The schools themselves are slowly bringing more Qataris into management and into the faculties.
Speaker 2:But the and I don't think we realize this quite so much as we did this last couple of months, you know, with everything that's going on, the politics in the United States towards the Middle East have become particularly toxic. Qatar has been mediating the dispute between Israel and Hamas in Gaza. There was a certain anti-Qatari feeling was beginning to develop in certain areas in the United States. And then I woke up one morning to my great surprise to learn that Texas A&M had decided to close down its faculty in Qatar, which to me was a shock. Had decided to close down its faculty in Qatar, which to me was a shock. It was a faculty that the students who went there, the branch campus, loved it, the Qatari students, the foreign students who were there. It was an essential sort of university because it was teaching primarily petroleum and gas engineering and everything that went with it, which is central to the country economy, and it basically figured out why they closed it that sort of horrid week in which the presidents of Yale and Harvard and some other schools were hauled up in front of a House committee and were basically crucified. And there had always been this undercurrent by certain factions, certain elements of the United States politics, against close relations with Arabs and against the Arabs of the Gulf, and particularly Qatar, because it was seen as having too much influence with, as being the country that we had to go to to deal with our enemies in the region. And apparently the president of Texas A&M was terrified that he was going to be the next guy up in front of Elise what her name is, elise Stefanik to be crucified. So he made the decision and got the board it's called the Board of Governors to go along with him and they made the decision to close the school, board of Governors to go along with him and they made the decision to close the school.
Speaker 2:When I went out this trip, it was to attend Qatar Foundation events and I was surprised rather pleasantly surprised to discover that the Qataris had discovered that they could carry the ball on their own, that they could move in, they could replace the faculty, they could replace what Texas A&M had brought to Cutter and operate it just as well on their own. As one person told me, they were past, that they didn't. You know, we shouldn't even worry about trying to get Texas A&M back into Qatar because they, the Qataris, can manage this quite well. So this has changed in many ways the environment into which foreign companies are coming. It is no longer let me find out which expatriate from my country is in that company that I'm dealing with the government agency and see what I can do with them. It has become now you're going out to a country that is perfectly capable of running its own affairs and cutting a deal that is in its own interest, with its own people not having to go. I think a lot of companies in the West, not just American companies, have been sort of slow to realize it.
Speaker 2:The second factor that has come in, which is quite important, is China. Which is quite important is China. China is totally dependent on the Gulf for its energy supplies. Beyond the coal that it produces, all its oil and gas comes from the Gulf, or virtually all its oil and gas comes from the Gulf. Now and the Chinese are making headway and I don't see them. I mean they are competitors in a way, but they are the other huge economy that is now trying to build a relationship in the Gulf and too many Americans, in my view at least, have seen this as the Chinese are trying to take over the Gulf. They're going to throw us out. They're going to take over.
Speaker 2:Chinese are more concerned with how do they defend their position in the Gulf, how do they operate successfully in the Gulf? They didn't know much. We're 1945. We were fairly ignorant about the Gulf. They didn't know much. We're 1945. We were fairly ignorant about the Gulf. The Chinese knew even less about the Gulf than we knew in 1945, let alone today. So they're developing expertise, they're developing relationships.
Speaker 2:In my lifetime, and probably in yours, I don't expect to see a Chinese naval fleet in the Gulf providing the security that we've provided the Gulf states through the years. Chinese don't operate that way. They're not going to risk it, but I can see them playing a larger and larger role in the economy of the Gulf, playing a larger and larger role in the economy of the Gulf and we are somewhat at odds as to how we deal with it. Do we try to muscle, intimidate the Gulf countries not to buy Chinese products? There are people doing that right now, trying to get, for example, gulf countries to stop buying anything for Huawei, that company, other Chinese industries that have moved in. And the people who I think are doing it right are the ones who say we've just got to get better. We were asleep at the switch, we were too complacent, we thought this was our backyard and we just have to get better at what we do.
Speaker 2:In competing with the Chinese, we have a position to defend. The United States will always be the only country that will be the security provider to the Gulf, primarily because we're the only country willing to do it or capable of doing it, and we're going to have to learn how to compete with the Chinese. The wrong term is to deal with them. You're not dealing with the Chinese, you're dealing with the Gulf countries in competition with the Chinese, and what I hope doesn't happen is we have common interests with the Chinese in the region. Those common interests are to keep the oil and gas flowing flowing Instead of emphasizing who's going to make more money there. Part of the business. The common interest is maintaining the flow of hydrocarbons into the world economy. I don't know who's going to win that battle in the United States. I hope it's the people who see a common interest with the Chinese.
Speaker 2:This has changed who the competition is for incoming business, for buying oil and gas, it's the Far East and Asia. The Gulf is situated where it's easier to ship their stuff eastward. The United States is situated in such a position that almost all our oil and gas export facilities are in the Gulf of America and I'm supposed to call it the Gulf of Mexico. They're in Texas and Louisiana and for us it is easier to ship to Europe and to West Africa and to South America and we are now the. We compete with the Gulf in the volume of oil and gas that we export. So this is there's been a fundamental change in who our customers are and who the competitors are in the region. I don't see this as a bad thing. We're supposed to be good at business and we need to simply up our game. What I'm worried about is that there are too many people who do see it as a bad thing, who see anything the Chinese engage in as a zero-sum game with us. It needn't be so, but we'll see how that turns out.
Speaker 2:Thirdly, the events of the last year in particular, but the last two or three years have calmed down the threat, have calmed down Arab Gulf state fears of Iran. The Iranians have suffered, they've been set down at a pace by the course of the war and the Israeli attacks and so forth, and they are far more interested in developing a better relationship with the Gulf states. The Gulf states have a great interest in, in effect, pacifying the Iranian threat and they're doing it. And right now there is a increased, a better relationship, an improved relationship between the Gulf states and Iran. And we are going to start running into problems because the Gulf states have no interest in getting into a war with Iran. Israel does I don't believe Trump does, I don't believe President Trump does. But so long as our policies have always been to back up the Israelis, we run the risk that the Israelis will involve us in a war with Iran.
Speaker 2:The last thing the Gulf states want is for themselves to get into a war with Iran or for us to get into a war with Iran, or for us to get into a war with Iran. They simply it would be a catastrophic development for them and as a result, you can see them. They have, and I think throughout the region they have lost confidence in the United States, both as a protector and as a business partner. That the behavior of the United States, both as a protector and as a business partner, that the behavior of the United States government the last two years, three years, has undermined their confidence in us. And then we have been a bit too free at sanctioning everything we come across.
Speaker 2:The Gulf states want and need to do business with Iran.
Speaker 2:It's part and parcel of having a better relationship and again we need to adjust.
Speaker 2:And the US government's like an oil tanker you give it a right helm order and it takes another 10 to 15 miles before the ship starts turning.
Speaker 2:And we are very much like that in terms of our sanctions policy, of the economic warfare that we push. So right now you have the Saudis, the Emiratis and others talking about joining the BRICS, about getting in deeper in bed in terms of business and perhaps even to a certain degree politically with the Chinese and the Russians, because we have not sat down to review our own policies and see how to deal with this new reality and we're going to see, for example, more arms sales going to arms purchases from the Gulf, other going to China. Right now, the Chinese totally dominate the consumer business and they're going to start dominating in a few years, or at least having a big impact on the what's the term the industrial equipment that the Gulf needs to buy, and their stuff is good and it's we're going to be competing with them. We have to learn how to compete with the Chinese in an area that was ours and we got fat and lazy in many ways.
Speaker 1:Wow, yeah, so it seems like you know the products there and everything has remained the same. The competition has been changing rapidly. That's really just something, and I'm really excited for this next question actually helped rescue 147 Americans during an uprising in Nicaragua. Yeah, could you just take us back to that moment, kind of what went into making those you know critical decisions and kind of what that high risk experience has taught you about leadership under pressure.
Speaker 2:Well, the first thing it taught me was that I was 26 years old and I wouldn't have done it. I wouldn't have done it now. It would save your life. When you're 26, there's a certain amount of excitement and the whiz of bullets overhead sort of jacks you up a little bit. You are willing to take risks because you don't know. The risks really are there and there's this. You know you think you're immortal when you're 26 years old, but what happened was that there was a.
Speaker 2:This was in the days of Samosa in Nicaragua, and three of us, all good Spanish speakers, were sent down to downtown Managua at a time when there would be a very large-scale demonstration in advance of national elections, because everybody felt that the Somozas would try and rig the elections and to say you know, in a city of 400, you know 300,000, there were probably 50,000 people in the streets demonstrating and we were down there reporting back to the embassy what was going on. These were days before cell phones. There were such days, there were times when we didn't have cell phones, so all three of us had friends around and we'd drop into somebody's house and call back to the embassy and say something. You know what was happening, and it turned into a somebody shot somebody. It's unclear who shot first, but a lot of the demonstrators had come armed. The Nicaraguan National Guard, which was the police force and army for Nicaragua, responded to a great deal of violence and the center of Managua was just people shooting at each other from all directions. I got into a friend's house called the embassy, told them what was going on they were some little bit distance out of town. They didn't believe me so until a few billets came into the house and then they believed me and we were supposed to stay downtown, the three of us, and continue reporting. Within half an hour there was one of us. Within half an hour there was one of us. The one of the three ran into a police station to call the embassy and forgotten that just for fun he'd pinned an opposition campaign pin on his shirt and the cops took one look at him and he was sort of darkish and they just beat him up and threw him in a cell. We didn't get him out of the cell until many hours later.
Speaker 2:And the second guy the guy I actually go to school with Georgetown was further downtown, towards the Grand Hotel, which is something right out of novels about Central America in those days. But there were about 142 Americans in the hotel, tourists and a bunch of the people the insurgents the more organized part of the insurgents ran into the hotel. They were going to sort of keep the Americans as hostages and fight off the government attacking them, and so my colleague was trapped inside the hotel. We were all about the same age and the same level of mental maturity at that point and I was the only one going up and down streets. I was going up and down streets. I had enough friends around at the time that there were a couple of dozen houses that I could knock the door, go in and call.
Speaker 2:And finally I went down to my apartment, which overlooked the Grand Hotel. I looked down and I could see that there was a lot of shooting going between the hotel and the government troops on the outside, including some armored cars. And I called the embassy and the ambassador got me and I reported what I'd seen. He said this is really bad. There's 140 Americans. We cannot have American casualties happening. I'm trying to get through to Samosa to tell him to stop shooting at the hotel. I don't want Americans killed.
Speaker 2:In the meantime the leadership was his. I want you to go down and tell the National Guard to stop shooting at the hotel. You know my response was, sir, yeah, okay. And then I went downstairs, walked out on the street, walked towards the hotel, was stopped by a patrol and I explained who I was. I had my diplomatic ID card and it was sort of, take me to your leader. And I went. They did take me. It was a major commanding the forces there and I explained that I had come, that I would like him to stop shooting at the hotel because there are Americans in there and my ambassador is trying to reach your president to get this to stop and, in the meantime, just stop shooting, because you surely wouldn't want to be responsible for American deaths. And his response was to ask me if I'd been drinking and I said no, stone Cold's over, and this is really important. And I talked him into ordering his troops to stand down and don't shoot at the hotel.
Speaker 2:And I sat there and he said to me he was not a nice guy. I'd known him a little bit before. To say that he was guilty of human rights abuses would be an understatement. Personally and I'm sitting there I started smoking cigarettes again. I hadn't smoked in a long time waiting for the call to come, and about 20 minutes later he walks up to me and he says you're lucky, I just got a call to stand down and we're sort of limited as to what we can shoot at the hotel. And then from that point on, papal Nuncio got involved and about 2 o'clock in the morning we got everybody out of the hotel, including my colleague who sort of unluckily had a stray bullet take his ear off. That was the only American casualty of the day, but the ambassador moved quickly. I think Somoza was trying to avoid talking to him if he could. I don't know what transpired in that conversation, but I do know that at the end he convinced Somoza that killing Americans in a hotel would not be would not be a good thing for his government.
Speaker 1:Wow, that is an incredible story and as someone who is, you know, of a similar age as you were at that time, you know it's nothing short of remarkable. I can guarantee I know you said you know, when you you're 26, you feel alive and that you can do anything. You're invincible. But I wouldn't have done that. That's just.
Speaker 2:That's an incredible story it was fun, you know. I think back about it and I've nothing but not nothing, but got some funny stories out of this. At one point I didn't realize yet that the insurgents had taken the hotel and that the army was beginning to move towards it the National Guard. So I walked up to the back door of the bar. The bar had another opening from the it was one of these romantic bars but another opening onto the street from the main entrance into the hotel. And I opened. The door wouldn't open. I couldn't figure out what was going on. And then there was a window broke above me and I looked up. Somebody stuck a rifle out the window and started shooting down the street. And I looked down the street and saw a government armored car coming up the street, shooting. And I now hold the world's record for the 19 yard dash which was, which was the distance from the bar door to the next corner where they can get behind a building.
Speaker 1:Someone may need to contact the Guinness Book of World. Records there, we'll get you in touch with the right people. That's funny. Again, I want to thank you for your time here in this interview today. It's been really insightful and I just have one last question for you, if we can, A holistic, again overarching question. If you could change one thing about US foreign policy today, what would it be?
Speaker 2:Rather than getting specific on the US foreign policy, on items of US foreign policy, what I think is needed most is the understanding that foreign policy is not a zero-sum game. It is. It's like a business deal, but it is. It isn't driven but necessarily by money. It's driven by many other factors and if you're trying to negotiate a deal to buy a house or anything, you make an offer, they turn it down. You make another offer, they come back with a counteroffer, but before you can get into it, you have to spend a great deal more time understanding the foreign country. The Americans have an inability to understand and let me say I'm not being anti-American to understand what motivates foreigners and from my experience, chinese and Russians fit into the same pattern. Because we are a huge continental country, very, very few Americans have any concept of what life is like outside the United States. Chinese feel the same way, chinese feel the same way, russians feel the same way. You get into conversations with them and to me, the most important what's the word I'm looking for element of US foreign policy is the lack of empathy, and what a diplomat needs is empathy, not sympathy. I don't have to like what you're doing, but I have to understand why you are doing it, and the Department of State has probably more people per capita who understand what goes on in foreign countries than anybody else does. But the Department of State is not in charge of making policy. The Department of State is in charge of executing it when it can and of trying to persuade the powers that be the President, the Congress they're. Basically, we don't have a Secretary of State. We have one Secretary of State and 535 people on Capitol Hill who think they're the secretary of state. So we don't teach enough foreign languages, we don't teach enough in terms of foreign affairs, we don't teach much of other people's history and we don't teach other people's history from the other person's point of view. There are a myriad of things that we have done right in the world and there are a myriad of things that we have done badly in the world, and I can't really single something out that would be terribly important in changing US foreign policy. That would be terribly important in changing US foreign policy. What I believe we need is, first of all, we need a bigger foreign service, one that is sufficiently well-resourced that it can go out and sit in the coffeehouse and talk to the taxi driver and go to the ministry of the 200 other countries in the world and then be listened to. And the only way they're going to be listened to is if we do a better job of preparing our own people, of not preparing Somehow or other.
Speaker 2:We have to change the inability of the foreign policy home establishment, of the political establishment of the United States, to understand what motivates somebody else and to understand that you have to stay constantly engaged. There's this belief that if we open diplomatic relations with the other country, we're doing the other country a favor. No, we're doing ourselves a favor, because you will never know what's going on in there if you break diplomatic relations. The dumbest thing you can do and we've done it over and over again is to break diplomatic relations with countries in which we have a bad relationship and then think that we can just intimidate people into doing something that they're not, that their psyche doesn't allow them to do.
Speaker 2:Look at Cuba. We've spent what is it now? 50-odd plus years, no, 60 years since Castro. The Castros took over in Cuba and put all the weight of the US government into overthrowing them, and I'll tell you, we could have done a lot better at overthrowing communism in Cuba by embracing them. We can. American rock bands and McDonald's have more influence than speeches on Capitol Hill and cutting trade ties. Does that make sense?
Speaker 1:Yes, I think I understand. That's incredible to hear. I appreciate you again for this interview. Obviously, you're an extremely accomplished diplomat and it's been amazing to hear from you today.
Speaker 2:Thank you very much for the compliments and the flattery as well.
Speaker 1:I really appreciated the conversation today, so thank you again, ambassador Patrick Barrows, everyone.
Speaker 2:Take care.
Speaker 1:You too.
Speaker 2:All right.