The 7000 lives of Bandar bin Sultan

My first contact with the Arabs of the Gulf, happened something like fifteen years ago .
It was on the internet and came through Saudis .
They are people with extremely strong and complex personality, hard to give trust, specially out of their circles .
But once gained their confidence, they are the best ally (wali) one can hope for .

There is quite of lot of talks these days, about prince Bandar bin Sultan .
First there was the story of his appointment as chief of the Saudi spy agency, and few days later, about the possibility of his assassination .
If true, that would be maybe the tenth time or more, in few years, that media have announced such an event .
Just it is most probably not true, as it was denied unofficially by an article appeared on Arabnews, in less than a week the bomb was thrown by fake counter-information press, which often engage in this sort of operations .

Prince Bandar fame, is surrounded by a good number of legends, mostly of negative taste, and in my opinion all very far from truth .
If one wants to try to understand him, then we have to refer to his story of late accepted member of the Saudi royal family .
Bandar, according to reports, is the illecit son of prince Sultan .
His mother was definitely not a royal .
Who is familiar with tribal mentality and royal dynamics of the Arab world, can imagine how hard it must have been for him, to be welcomed among the elite .
The Arabs of the Gulf are very sectarian and closed minded people .
They would hardly accept adopted children, let alone boys coming from outside marriage relations .
Moreover Bandar has very dark skin .
That is the sign of a slave, something that many in the Gulf of today, still accept reluctantly .

So when we read that he took his own way by going to the US for studies, then we must see it in this perspective .
Same goes to all the stories circulated about his flamboyant personality .
They must be understood and filtered, considering the tendency Arabs have to gossip, and the hostile environment he must have faced at home .
The real Bandar, is the one speaking in this interview, in which we can have a glimpse on a fine politician, having the pulse of what is happening in his kingdom and abroad, a man with a deep sense of history and politics .
That is the prince whose ability was recognised by the king, when he sent him as Ambassador to the US and left him in place for very many years .

That is the same Bandar, which is needed now, to fix the Middle East chessboard actually in transition, and re-establish on strongest bases, Saudi Arabia position, within the Arab world and in the global context .
Of course his famous strong hand, is necessary to make a balance in different issues, internal and external .
Those contexts in need of stability, like Yemen, Bahrain, Iran, Syria, as well as domestic ones, and international relations, not only with their historic ally, that is America, have to be rebuilt and rebranded, confirming the primary role that Saudia Arabia has .
For that, a man who has coscience, of what is going on around the world, is in high demand .

Prince Bandar is definitely the right man in the right place .