Fear: Trump in the White House

Harvey was not sure what role the president might or might not have.

McMaster clearly disliked the out-of-channel approach but there was not much he could do about it.

Harvey held a series of meetings with the intelligence agencies including the CIA. The message from them was that Kushner better be careful. The real solid guy was the current crown prince, Mohammed bin Nayef, 57, who was known as MBN. He was the king’s nephew credited with dismantling al Qaeda in the Kingdom as head of the Interior Ministry. Showing favoritism to the younger MBS would cause friction in the royal family.

From decades of intelligence contacts in the Middle East, Harvey believed that Kushner was right—MBS was the future. MBS saw that transformative change in Saudi Arabia was the only path to survival for the Kingdom. With Kushner as his patron, Harvey had unusual authority to begin planning. Harvey reached out to Defense, Treasury and the White House National Economic Council. The risks, Harvey believed, were substantial, but he saw high, high upsides.

In March, McMaster chaired a principals meeting on the possibility of a Saudi summit.

“From my experience at Exxon,” said Secretary of State Tillerson, waving his hand dismissively, “the Saudis always talk a big game. You go through the dance with them on the negotiations. When it comes time to putting the signature on the page, you can’t get there.” Engagement with MBS should be taken with a grain of salt. The U.S. could work hard on a summit, and in the end have nothing.

“It’s a bridge too far,” Mattis said. Arranging arms sales and other projects beneficial to the United States economy, the necessary deliverables for such a summit, would take a long time. “We’re better off waiting until next year. A new administration should be more careful and prudent.”

Secretary of Energy Rick Perry said there was too much to do in too short a time.

No one supported the idea of a summit in two months as Kushner was now proposing.

Kushner sat at the opposite end of the table from McMaster.

“I understand this is very ambitious,” the president’s son-in-law said. He stood. “I understand the concerns. But I think we have a real opportunity here. We have to recognize it. I understand we have to be careful. We need to work this diligently, as if it’s going to happen. And if it looks like we can’t get there, we’ll have plenty of time to shift gears. But this is an opportunity that is there for the seizing.”

No one said no. Harvey knew they really couldn’t, and he continued to plan as if it were going to happen. He set some thresholds, deciding that they would have to have over $100 billion in military contracts agreed on beforehand.

Execution fell to Harvey. MBS sent a team of 30 to Washington and Harvey arranged multiple conference rooms in the Eisenhower Office Building. Working groups of Americans and Saudis were set up on terrorism, terrorism financing, violent extremism and information campaigns. The Pentagon held meetings on contracts and security partnerships.

Harvey did not want to ask too much of the Saudis, who he knew did not have as deep pocketbooks as generally thought. Oil prices had dropped, cutting into Saudi revenue.

McMaster was still not enthusiastic. Because Kushner wants it, he told Harvey, we need to keep working it. But there’s not a lot of support for it. We’ll go through the motions, and then we’ll kill it at some point.

Kushner said that if the United States was going to stay engaged in the region, they needed to help the Saudis and Israelis succeed. The president was not going to continue paying the bills for U.S. defense in the Middle East when the primary beneficiaries were the countries in the region, according to Kushner.

His worry was increased Iranian influence and subversive operations in the region, especially Hezbollah, which threatened Israel.

Get the Saudis to buy more, Kushner said. If they bought weapons systems, it would help the U.S. economy and job creation. They would buy large stockpiles of munitions, 10-year maintenance and support contracts.

The Saudi team came back to Washington for a second visit. For at least four days straight they all had meetings that went to 1 a.m.

Kushner held daily interagency meetings of the key U.S. players in his office where a dozen people crowded in.

At times the Saudis were not delivering enough on contracts or arms purchases.

“I’ll make a phone call,” Kushner said to Harvey. He phoned MBS directly and the Saudis increased their arms purchases.

When it looked like they were close, Kushner invited MBS to the United States and brought him to the White House where he had lunch March 14 in the State Dining Room with Trump. Attending were Pence, Priebus, Bannon, McMaster and Kushner. This violated protocol, unsettling officials at State and the CIA. Lunch at the White House with the president for a middle-rank deputy crown prince was just not supposed to be done.