"Bandar is a huge asset to shape Middle East revolts in a direction that serves America!"

(Cheney's NS Adviser, John Hannah) - "... The Obama administration would be wise to take note. Working in tandem with the United States, Bandar's over-sized talents could prove a huge asset in efforts to shape the Middle East Revolts of 2011 in a direction that serves U.S. interests. Put to other uses, however, those same skills could lead to results that Washington may find, well, much less agreeable.

The reason that Bandar has been urgently called back into service is not hard to fathom. While many in the West have seen the promise of democracy and freedom in the political turmoil roiling Arab lands, the Saudis see little but disaster....  For the Kingdom,  the scorecard has not been good. The regime of Hosni Mubarak -- longtime Saudi ally ...  the Sunni al-Khalifa monarchy ....   And in stark contrast to Washington's very public effort to push aside its longstanding Egyptian ally -- "yesterday," to quote Robert Gibbs -- Team Obama has kept an embarrassingly low profile in the face of sustained protests and bloodshed in anti-American Syria, a regime that proudly serves as Iran's closest ally in the Arab world.

.....  the House of Saud has circled the wagons, brought all hands on deck, called in the A Team -- choose your metaphor. But it all leads back to Bandar -- one of the most dynamic, creative, and aggressive statesmen of the past 30 years -- being summoned out of diplomatic purgatory to help the Kingdom cope with what it sees as an unprecedented crisis. Make no mistake, the Saudis now feel themselves very much at war with Iran, albeit by other means, and the stakes as viewed from Riyadh are nothing less than the future of the Arab Middle East and the survival of the House of Saud. ...  Bandar's formidable skills in the service of a Saudi Arabia that feels itself increasingly cornered and unable to rely on U.S. protection is a formula for trouble -- made even worse when the likes of Pakistan and China are thrown into the mix.... Even worse, would the Kingdom go shopping for nuclear weapons or, at a minimum, invite Pakistan to deploy part of its nuclear arsenal to the Kingdom? Analysts have long speculated that Saudi money financed the Pakistani nuclear weapons program in exchange for a promise that when it became necessary, its fruits would be put at Riyadh's disposal....

Even short of these extreme scenarios, other troubling possibilities exist. During his trip to Pakistan, Bandar reportedly discussed contingencies under which thousands of additional Pakistani security forces might be dispatched to Bahrain and Saudi Arabia for the purpose of, in effect, cracking Shiite heads. Iran condemned the news, ratcheting up tensions further and increasing the risk that the situation could erupt into a full-blown Sunni-Shiite war. Additionally, no one can discount the danger that, with its back against the wall, the Kingdom might not once again fire up the old Sunni jihadist network and point it in the general direction of Shiite Iran -- leaving the rest of the world to deal with the nasty, unintended consequences of well-financed takfirists run amok..... The administration would also be smart to re-establish a very strong line of communication to Bandar ..... Drawing on Saudi resources and prestige, Bandar's ingenuity and bent for bold action could be put to excellent use across the region in ways that reinforce U.S. policy and interests: through economic and political measures that weaken the Iranian mullahs; undermine the Assad regime; support a successful transition in Egypt; facilitate Qaddafi's departure; reintegrate Iraq into the Arab fold; and encourage a negotiated solution in Yemen. ...

In April 2002, then-Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia arrived in Texas for a meeting with President Bush. The day before the summit, a front-page story appeared in the New York Times declaring that "Saudi to Warn Bush Over Israel Policy." In the article, an unnamed senior Saudi official offered this inflammatory threat:"

 It is a mistake to think that our people will not do what is necessary to survive, and if that means we move to the right of bin Laden, so be it; to the left of Qaddafi, so be it; or fly to Baghdad and embrace Saddam like a brother, so be it. It's damned lonely in our part of the world, and we can no longer defend our relationship to our people.

Everyone immediately knew that the quote belonged to the Saudi Ambassador, Prince Bandar...."