Qaboos bin Said Al Said

It is, it is a country ruled by the Supreme Leader.

I'm always thinking about, you know, what else can we do? What, what haven't we done? What countries haven't we tapped? It occurred to me, well, we just, we need to put more pressure on, on Oman and, and the Sultan.

We had a phone call with Secretary Clinton, and I really pressed on her to get President Obama to make a phone call to the Sultan.

They had President Obama write a letter to, uh, Sultan Qaboos.

That letter prompted a letter from the Sultan to Ayatollah Khamenei.

The Sultan made clear that, you know, this was no longer a minor favor that he was asking.

Josh and Shane's continued detention was, uh, going to have negative consequences on the relationship.

[birds chirping]

Look, Oman, uh, uh, I can't say anything, uh, directly about them.

Y- you know, uh, the late, uh, uh, uh, Sultan Qaboos, the leader of Iran, invited me a few years ago, uh, to, uh, to join him.

This was, uh, an extension, I think, a beginning of the extension of the Abraham Accords, which President Trump and I worked on.

That's how we get Israelis.

A million Israelis going to, a million Israelis going to the Emirates to Dubai, and this flight was part of that [laughs] great, uh, exchange of tourism and, and a warm peace that we have.

So Du- uh, Oman, actually the late, uh, Sultan Qaboos invited me.

He was, uh, quite ill at the time, and he asked me to come for an official and actually public visit, uh, to, uh, to Oman, to Muscat, and we did.

I did.

They are Ibadi and tend to regard both the Sunni and the Shia with some caution, uh, and they're a very moderate branch of Islam as well.

Now, the Sultan of Oman, both the, the previous Sultan Qaboos and the current Sultan, uh, Haitham, have paid for scholarships for I-Omanis to go to Australia to be educated.

Now, when this particular gentleman apparently returned to Oman and got a job, uh, in the flight side of Oman Air, the national airline, he was, uh, found to be politically unstable.

Uh, there were some questions about his reliability, so he was moved to an administrative job, and nothing more was heard from him.

But people buy that, right? They've got the story.

Apparently Sultan Qaboos, the ruler of Oman, uses it.

You know, royalty uses perfume.

That's the story they tell.

And what can happen, Gregory? What is your opinion? Gregory Copley of Defense and Foreign Affairs.

Well, Sultan Haytham of Oman is a very low-profile individual, just as his late cousin was, Sultan Qaboos.

They were very, very integrated within the old British way of doing things quietly behind the scenes in the Middle East.

Sultan Haytham, who recently took over from his cousin Qaboos, had for many decades been very, very close with the British.

Absolutely.

Sultan Haytham, who is the cousin of the late Sultan Qaboos, is every bit as astute as Qaboos, by the way, is a great friend of the British and particularly the British crown.

He was, even well before he became Sultan, he was honoured with the highest British recognitions.

He is incredibly intelligent and, I think, and very, very discreet.