Welcome to AUSPC.com. Here we provide for your information transcripts, photos and other materials related to the annual Arab-US Policymakers Conference (AUSPC), organized by the National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations (NCUSAR) in Washington, DC. This site was created by PatRyanAssociates.com and sponsored by the SUSRIS Project and related web sites.
Our panel today is wonderful and I know that because I watched the video of Dr. Mody Alkhalaf’s talk from last year. It’s really inspiring and wonderful. She will be our first speaker. I think I’ll briefly introduce all of them right now and then they can speak in order. I’ll let you read the more complicated biographical details. She’s the Director of Social and Cultural Affair at the Saudi Cultural Mission at the embassy here in Washington. The next speaker will be Ms. Magali Rheault, senior analyst for the Gallup Center for Muslim Studies. She does polling among Arab youth and more than that which I’m sure she’ll tell you about. I think polling doesn’t all involve why do they hate us.
First, of course, we have Iran. The Iranian nuclear program continues to have a destabilizing effect on the region. It’s quite clear that Israel considers Iran with a nuclear weapon to be an existential threat. It is also clear that Saudi Arabia, the UAE and other Gulf states do not want to see a nuclear-armed Iran that might throw its weight around and also spread its revolutionary ideology. There are some in our country who believe that arms sales to our friends such as the Saudis and the UAE will serve as a counterbalance in the region against a nuclear-armed Iran. There are others who worry that the arms deal might just lead to an arms race in the Middle East. There are others who question why do we want to sell arms to people in the region who can simply cause even more harm to each other. So that will be an issue that will likely be discussed today.
The relationship between our two countries is now in its seventh decade. In the 1930s, when your Army Corps of Engineers was building the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, your business community built an 8,000 mile bridge to Saudi Arabia. Americans came. They discovered oil. They put down roots among us. They launched what was to become a very important relationship to both countries as well as to the world.
