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### Viewing cable 09RIYADH496, SCENESETTER FOR SENATOR BOND'S APRIL 6-8 VISIT TO

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Reference ID | Created | Released | Classification | Origin
--- | --- | --- | --- | ---
09RIYADH496 | 2009-03-31 14:02 | 2010-11-29 21:09 | SECRET//NOFORN | Embassy Riyadh
Appears in these articles: nytimes.com

`

    P 311432Z MAR 09
    FM AMEMBASSY RIYADH
    TO SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 0487
    INFO CIA WASHDC PRIORITY
    DIA WASHINGTON DC PRIORITY

` `

    S E C R E T RIYADH 000496

    NOFORN

    DEPT FOR H(SHANE) AND H/RGF(LANG)

    E.O. 12958: DECL: 03/31/2019
    TAGS: PREL PGOV PTER ECON SA
    SUBJECT: SCENESETTER FOR SENATOR BOND'S APRIL 6-8 VISIT TO
    SAUDI ARABIA

    Classified By: Deputy Chief of Mission David Rundell for reasons 1.4 (b)
    and (d)

    ¶1. (U) The Embassy welcomes your visit to the Kingdom of
    Saudi Arabia.  This message provides a brief overview of key
    current issues in U.S. - Saudi relations, tailored to the
    particular issues that your Saudi interlocutors will likely
    raise with you.

    ¶2. (C) You will be arriving six days after an Arab League
    Summit in Doha.  Despite the Saudis pulling out all the
    diplomatic stops to ensure the summit conveyed publicly a
    sufficient degree of Arab unity, Libyan leader Muammar
    Qadhafi's eccentric outburst showed that deep fissures still
    exist.  This was the second such embarrassment in the past
    three months showing the Arabs to be badly divided on
    regional security issues after public disagreements at the
    Arab Economic Summit in Kuwait in January.

    U.S. Saudi Relations on the Mend
    ---------------------------------

    ¶3. (C) As you will hear, Saudi foreign policy calculations
    are driven by a deep fear and suspicion of expanding Iranian
    influence.  While U.S.-Saudi relations have improved
    dramatically since their post-9/11 nadir, differences remain
    over U.S. Middle East policies. The Saudis have three
    principal issues areas of concern about U.S. policies:

    --(C) As the author of the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative, King
    Abdallah risked his personal prestige to advocate a
    comprehensive Middle East peace as the "strategic option" for
    the Arabs, only to be frustrated by what he saw as U.S.
    reluctance to engage over the next seven years.

    --(C) Similarly, in the Saudi view, we ignored advice from
    the King and Foreign Minister against invading Iraq. In the
    words of Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al-Faisal,
    "military intervention in Iraq and Afghanistan has tilted the
    (regional) balance of power towards Iran."

    --(C) Finally, the U.S. debate over whether and how to engage
    Iran has fueled Saudi fears that a new U.S. administration
    might strike a "grand bargain" without first consultating
    Arab countries bordering the Persian Gulf.

    Appointment of Prince Nayif
    ---------------------------

    ¶4. (C) Saudi King Abdallah issued a royal decree appointing
    his half-brother, Interior Minister Prince Nayif bin
    Abdalaziz, as second deputy prime minister March 27.  The
    position had been vacant since Abdallah became King in 2005.
    Though the previous two crown princes held Nayif's new
    position prior to being formally tapped as heirs to the
    throne, this appointment does not necessarily mean Nayif is
    "Crown Prince in Waiting," because King Abdallah created a
    committee -- the Allegiance Council -- to select the King's
    successor.

    ¶5. (S) The King was likely driven by expediency.  Crown
    Prince Sultan is for all intents and purposes incapacitated,
    and the King needed to travel abroad.  Someone had to be left
    in charge and Nayif, by virtue of his seniority among the
    sons of Abdalaziz and his position as Minister of Interior,
    was by tradition the leading candidate for the job.
    Assistant Interior Minister Mohammed bin Nayif (MBN) told the
    Ambassador that his father's appointment should not be seen
    in the light of succession, but as "an administrative
    necessity."

    Internal security
    ------------------

    ¶6. (C/NF) With our assistance, Saudi Arabia has largely
    defeated terrorism at home.  The Saudis are now arguably our
    most important counterterrorist intelligence partner.  They
    established tighter controls on charities and the
    transporting of cash to disrupt terrorist finance.  We have
    signed an Information Sharing Agreement with the Kingdom and
    started to exchange Airline Passenger Information and
    Passenger Name Record (API/PNR) data to help track terrorist
    suspects and facilitate legitimate travel.  We can say
    clearly that Saudi Arabia is now part of the solution, not
    the problem.

    ¶7. (S/NF) The Saudi leadership remains greatly concerned
    about the vulnerability of its energy production facilities,
    and has put MBN of the Ministry of Interior (MOI) in charge
    of efforts to acquire the capability to defend this key
    infrastructure.  He is looking primarily to the U.S. to build
    this capability through an initiative formalized in May 2008
    when Secretary Rice and Prince Nayif signed a TCA creating
    the Joint Commission on Critical Infrastructure Protection.
    We have established an inter-agency, DOS/DOD/DOE, security
    advisory organization, the Office of Program
    Management-Ministry of Interior (OPM-MOI), to implement this
    bilateral security agreement.  King Abdullah has made the
    protection of Saudi Arabia's critical infrastructure a top
    security priority, with MBN fully empowered to achieve this
    objective.

    Rehabilitation Program
    ----------------------

    ¶8. (S/NF) We estimate that at least 1,500 former extremists
    have passed through the Interior Ministry's rehabilitation
    program for extremists (1,200 through the prison rehab
    program and 300 through the care center), including 119
    Guantanamo returnees, with an overall recidivism rate of 8-10
    percent.  Despite the front page treatment of former
    Guantanamo detainee Sa'eed al-Shihri's appearance in Yemen,
    the real story of the Saudi rehabilitation program is one of
    success:  at least 90 percent of its graduates appear to have
    given up jihad and reintegrated into Saudi society.  The
    recidivists are the exception, not the rule.  The Ministry
    takes a dynamic approach to the rehab program and will look
    for ways to strengthen it by learning from these incidents of
    recidivism.

    ¶9. (S/NF) We know less about recidivism among non-Guantanamo
    detainees since they were arrested here for activities inside
    Saudi Arabia and as such their cases are an internal Saudi
    matter.  However we believe a small minority of these have
    re-engaged in violent extremist activity, and MOI tells us
    former Guantanamo detainees were harder to rehabilitate than
    this other category.

    The Peace Process after Gaza
    ----------------------------

    ¶10. (C) King Abdullah stated the Saudi position bluntly in
    the opening session of the January Summit in Kuwait:  Israel
    should realize that the choice between peace and war will not
    be available indefinitely, and the Saudi-authored Arab Peace
    Initiative, currently on the table, will not remain there
    forever.  However, the Saudis have made no move to withdraw
    the plan yet.  Saudi and Arab public opinion have reacted
    strongly to the Israeli offensive on Gaza, creating intense
    pressure on Arab governments to act.  The Saudis fear
    instability and increasing Iranian influence could result,
    and believe that there is a limited window of opportunity for
    action.

    Iran
    -----

    ¶11. (S) Iran remains the strategic threat at the forefront of
    Saudi security concerns. Senior U.S. officials visiting the
    Kingdom recently have heard the King expound at length about
    the great danger that Iran poses to the region.  In general,
    the Saudi leadership has begun to look at all regional
    security issues through the prism of their fears about
    growing Iranian influence.  They see Iran's activities as
    dangerously provocative, not only in Iraq, but also in
    Lebanon, Bahrain, Yemen, parts of Africa, and southeast Asia.
    King Abdullah met with Iranian Foreign Minister Mottaki
    earlier this month, and subsequently informed the NSC's John
    Brennan that he had had a "heated exchange" with Mottaki,
    upbraiding him that "Persians" have no business meddling in
    "Arab" affairs and threatening that he would give Iran no
    more than a year to repair its relations in the region.
    Saudi intelligence chief Prince Muqrin told Brennan the
    "Shi'a crescent has become a full moon," implying that the
    Saudis are surrounded by Iranian intrigues.

    ¶12. (S) On Iranian nuclear activities, the Saudi view is that
    nations have the right to a peaceful nuclear program, but
    that Iran does not have the right to do what it is doing.
    The Saudis want to see a peaceful solution to the Iran
    nuclear problem but they also want reassurance that Saudi
    interests will be factored into any deal struck with Iran.

    Afghanistan
    ------------

    ¶13. (S/NF) We have been encouraging the Saudi government to
    be more active in support of the Karzai government, in
    particular by helping to train, or to fund the training of,
    Afghan security forces.  Saudi Arabia has been helpful in
    providing assistance, but we would like them to do more.  One
    area in which Saudi diplomacy has been forward leaning is in
    offering to help mediate between the Afghan government and
    the Taliban.

    Pakistan
    ---------

    ¶14. (C) The Saudis are extremely concerned about Pakistan's
    political fragility, and have worked hard, through their
    embassy in Islamabad, to bring the Pakistani factions
    together.  Saudi relations with Pakistan have been strained
    because the Saudis don't trust Zardari and see him and other
    leading Pakistani politicians as corrupt.  Zardari visited
    Saudi Arabia last November for talks with King Abdullah on
    Saudi support for the "Friends of Pakistan" initiative and
    oil subsidies.  The visit was an opportunity for Zardari to
    persuade skeptical Saudis that he can be a trustworthy
    partner in managing one of Saudi Arabia's most important
    regional relationships, but his trip appears not to have
    resulted in new Saudi assistance or other commitments.  The
    Saudis say they have been holding back economic and political
    support pending evidence that the political situation in
    Pakistan is stabilizing.

    FRAKER

`