In the years preceding the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, the White House and State Department were willfully blind to the consequences of Saudi Arabia promoting extremism. No one doubted that the Saudi government as a whole and members of the royal family individually were donating vast sums of money to extremist groups, but the Saudi charm offensive worked. Prince Bandar, the kingdom’s ambassador to the United States from 1983 to 2005, was a personal friend and confidant to a succession of presidents, both Democrat and Republican. His job was to run interference, and he did it well.

Saudi Arabia could also call on many former U.S. ambassadors to the kingdom who had accepted Saudi leaders’ generous golden parachutes. They won plum and well-paid jobs consulting or lobbying for the kingdom and had access to Saudi funding for their retirement think tank perches. Saudi authorities also spent lavishly on colleges and universities. The end result in the years preceding the worst terrorist attack on American soil was a failure to treat the Saudi-fueled extremist threat seriously.