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In the spring of 2001, George W. Bush selected Dallas attorney Robert W. Jordan as the ambassador to Saudi Arabia. Jordan's nomination sped through Congress in the wake of the terrorist attacks on 9/11, and he was at his post by early October, though with no prior diplomatic experience, as Saudi Arabia mandates that the U.S. Ambassador be a political appointee with the ear of the president. Hence Jordan had to learn on the job how to run an embassy, deal with a foreign culture, and protect U.S. interests, all following the most significant terrorist attacks on the United States in history. From 2001 through 2003, Jordan worked closely with Crown Prince Abdullah and other Saudi leaders on sensitive issues of terrorism and human rights, all the while trying to maintain a positive relationship to ensure their cooperation with the war in Afghanistan and the invasion of Iraq. At the same time he worked with top officials in Washington, including President Bush, Dick Cheney, Colin Powell, Donald Rumsfeld, Condoleezza Rice, George Tenet, and Tommy Franks. Desert Diplomat discusses these relationships as well as the historic decisions of Jordan's tenure and provides a candid and thoughtful assessment of the sometimes distressing dysfunction in the conduct of American foreign policy, warfare, and intelligence gathering. Still involved in the Middle East, Jordan also offers important insights into the political, economic, and social changes occurring in this critical region, particularly Saudi Arabia.

\"The Saudis don't want to show weakness. They don't want to show vulnerability to the winds of change in a way that might invite those changes,\" Mr. [Robert W. Jordan] said, sympathizing somewhat with the Saudi desire to \"manage the change rather than have it forced upon them.\" Nabil Fahmy, the foreign minister in Egypt's transitional government after the takeover, said the Saudis were only a \"complementary player\" to the domestic backlash against the Brotherhood. \"The Saudis came out very quickly and said they supported us, sure,\" he said. \"But frankly this was going to happen.\" Saudi Arabia has emerged as the regional leader because \"they were able to stand the storm,\" he said. \"So now they feel that, 'Yes, you survived, great, but you need to stabilize the environment around you if you want to survive longer.\"'

[Robert W. Jordan] was brought to the area by the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations to speak at a variety of venues, including the University of Chicago, [Zinta Konrad] said. The council then extended an offer for Jordan to speak at the Glen Ellyn campus during his visit.

The American ambassador became embroiled in a public flap in summer when an Arabic-language newspaper in London published what it said were remarks he made at a dinner party, expressing an opinion about the Saudi royal family's line of succession. The newspaper, al- Quds al-Arabi, quoted [Robert W. Jordan] on July 9 as saying that the United States wanted the kingdom's current crown prince and de facto ruler, Abdullah, to become the next king, and a member of the kingdom's younger generation of princes to be the next crown prince.

Family members include a son and his wife, Jeffrey C. and Deborah Jordan of Chichester; a brother, Charles Colby of Hillsboro; a sister-in-law, Martha L.

Robert W. Jordan and his representative, engineering company Parker, Estes & Associates, asked the Land Use Control Board last week to rezone 14.62 acres on Malone Road south of Holmes Road. It unanimously voted down his request. Properties adjacent to Jordan's property on the north and west were recently rezoned industrial, but two warehouses farther to the west were part of a planned development. A 116-acre landfill sits across the street from the Jordan property on land zoned agricultural.

Mr. [Bob Jordan] is a partner in the trial department and one of the founding partners of the Dallas office of Baker Botts L.L.P. A recent President of the Dallas Bar Association, he has been involved in the Association in a variety of capacities including Chair of the Association's Antitrust Section, Chair of the Judiciary Committee and Strategic Planning Committee. He is also a member of the Board of Directors of the State Bar of Texas.

President George W. Bush today announced his intention to nominate Robert W. Jordan to be Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States of America to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

Responding to Mr. [Robert W. Jordan]'s claim that the United States had requested additional security at the compounds, Prince Saud said that he doubted that it could be true. ''At no time have there been requests for added security in which we haven't afforded that security,'' he said at a news conference today. He did acknowledge that more than a dozen Saudis linked to Al Qaeda had carried out the bombing, and regretted that Saudi authorities had let them slip through their hands during a raid on their headquarters last week. Mr. [Black], who has spent most of his career at the Central Intelligence Agency, has been the State Department's coordinator for counterterrorism since December. In that role, he is the senior American representative on a joint American-Saudi working group on terrorism issues that was formed late last year. Prince [Muhammad], who is the son of the Saudi interior minister, Prince Nayef bin Abdelaziz, is the top Saudi representative. As evidence of that more aggressive role, Prince Nayef, the Saudi interior minister, said in February his government was holding 253 people suspected of belonging to Al Qaeda, including 90 with proven links. As a further indication of their commitment to that path, Saudi officials have publicized the May 6 raid on a Qaeda safehouse here that uncovered a large arms cache but failed to capture 19 militants who are still at large.