America’s Ambassador to Oman Is First Woman Envoy to Any GCC Country

by Richard H. Curtiss

When she arrived in Muscat three years ago Frances Cook was America’s first woman ambassador to the Sultanate of Oman. That made her the first female American ambassador to any Gulf Cooperation Council country. In fact, so far as she knows, it also made her the first woman ambassador of any nationality to a GCC country. (A second U.S. woman envoy, Elizabeth McKune, now has been assigned as U.S. ambassador to Qatar.)

Ambassador Cook has been told that when her name was proposed to Oman’s ruler as a potential U.S. envoy in Muscat, the sultan discussed the nomination with some of his advisers. They concluded, correctly, that the nomination was an indication that, in view of the popular election of women to Oman’s consultative council, and the participation of women in the top echelons of Oman’s civil service at the under secretary and director-general levels, the U.S. State Department felt that Oman was the first of the GCC countries “ready” for such an appointment.

The sultan formally accepted the nomination and then, Ambassador Cook has been told, after her arrival in Oman the sultan again discussed with his cabinet the importance of making her feel accepted. In fact, the Sultan’s sensitivity to her feelings probably wasn’t necessary, since Muscat is her third ambassadorial assignment (she previously has been U.S. ambassador to Burundi and to Cameroon), and it followed other diplomatic postings, in one of which she was the first female U.S. consul general in Alexandria, Egypt. As a result of those previous diplomatic assignments, she already had several Omani friends whom she had met in Washington and abroad who subsequently had returned to their country.

One result of the sultan’s injunction that she be made to feel welcome became evident when she received two invitations to a wedding within the royal family shortly after her arrival in Muscat. Omani weddings involve two major festive gatherings, one for male friends and relatives of the families of the bride and groom and another for female friends and relatives.

When members of her staff politely informed the hosts that she was not married and therefore no invitation to the male gathering was necessary, they were informed that in fact she was being invited to the men’s gathering “as an ambassador” and to the women’s party “as a woman.”

She went to both events and was cordially received. Subsequently she has received many such dual invitations, and has made a point of attending both the men’s and women’s events. Such wedding receptions are an important part of Omani life, she explains, and non-attendance by a U.S. ambassador would be noticed. Weddings also involve a third, smaller, gathering at which female friends and relatives gather to watch traditional patterns being painted on the bride’s hands with henna dye. “Of course I’m invited to those, too,” Ambassador Cook remarked with a smile. “It keeps me pretty busy and also pretty well-informed.”

“It’s a good thing you’re not the self-conscious type,” remarked the writer, who had met Ambassador Cook 30 years earlier during her first foreign service assignment in Paris and was struck, even then, by her quick intelligence and outgoing, ebullient personality.

“Believe me,” she responded, “I was self-conscious at that first men’s wedding party. But since I was so newly arrived in Muscat and knew hardly any of the other guests, some of the sultan’s cabinet members made a point of coming over to chat with me. They were determined to make me feel welcome in Muscat, and I’ve come to feel as at ease in the men’s gatherings as I do in the women’s parties.”

She has concluded that although the Omanis are still in the process of working out new relationships between men and women in their own culture, which increasingly involve encouraging women to pursue higher education and employment in highly skilled and professional occupations, “gender doesn’t matter to them if you’re non-Arab.” If a foreign government sends women as diplomats to Oman, they are accepted as such and enjoy the same access as their male counterparts.

In fact, more than Omani hospitality binds the U.S. ambassador to many of Oman’s cabinet ministers and their deputies. Many have graduate degrees from U.S. universities and most have studied in other Western countries as well. The graduates of American universities in particular are inclined to repay the hospitality they recall fondly from their student days.

Ambassador Cook also is an outspoken booster of Oman’s basic law, which is the result of long and patient study and guidance by Sultan Qaboos. It has been painstakingly drafted to conform with Islamic and Omani traditions, the ambassador says, and whatever problems arise are not with its basic thrust toward social justice for all, but with the speed of implementation—which may be too fast for the traditionalists and too slow for some of the modernizers.

Looking back on her tour of duty in Oman, the U.S. envoy says she is especially proud of two accomplishments. One is helping to “level the playing field” for U.S. business which initially was shut out of long-standing trade relations. The second was the U.S. role in the creation of the new deep water Raysut port “on schedule and within budget,” an uncommon feat. She also is deeply impressed with the professionalism of Oman’s military establishment which, she says, works extremely well with U.S. military visitors and enjoys their deep respect.

For example, in Oman’s march toward popular participation in government, 50,000 voters took part in the most recent elections for members of the consultative council, making it somewhere between a general election and the electoral college in the United States. Many more voters are expected to participate in the next election.

On the writer’s previous visit to Oman in 1995, some 30 persons who had expressed political beliefs ranging from Islamist and Ba’athist to pan-Arabist had been arrested, and at that time U.S. Embassy officials were uncertain about the reasons for the arrests and even how many had been released and how many still were being detained.

On the writer’s current visit he was assured by U.S. diplomats that so far as they know all of the political prisoners have been released, most after only brief detention, and that to this day the opinions of individual Omanis about this episode vary. Some say the uncharacteristic clampdown “sent a message” in favor of stability to potential critics from both the left and the right. Others look upon the arrests as an over-reaction to rumors of unrest four years ago that proved to be false, but that nevertheless destroyed the careers of some promising government officials.

Summing up her own three-year assignment in Oman, Ambassador Cook says enthusiastically, “It’s been terrific. The Omanis have a map for the way forward, and they have utter and complete tribal, ethnic and sectarian peace here. They know who they are. They’ve been a country for a long time.”

Richard Curtiss is the executive editor of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs.