Prince Bandar bin Sultan bin Abdul Aziz, the Talleyrand of our age, was for over 20 years the dominant personality in Arab relations with the English-speaking countries. Born into the obscurest royal poverty, Bandar turned himself into a fighter pilot of dash and elan (if not of the very first proficiency), before serving as Saudi Arabia’s ambassador in Washington from 1983 until 2005. He is now secretary-general of something called the Saudi National Security Council, but it is hard to descry through the desert sand and wind his latter-day power and influence.
This biography, written by a British classmate from the Royal Air Force College at Cranwell, is the usual courtier’s mixture of hero-worship and good information. The challenge is to tell them apart. In Simpson’s account, Prince Bandar (rhymes with ‘thunder’) is a sort of diplomatic Atlas, supporting the whole world on his shoulders, banging heads in Palestine, bringing peace to Lebanon and Libya back to the fold, ending the Cold War.
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