Riyadh, November 30: Saudi Arabia’s monarch King Abdullah repeatedly asked the United States to attack Iran in order to quell the latter’s nuclear ambitions and thus allow Riyadh to retain its pre-eminent position in the Islamic world, a WikiLeaks revelation has shown. Ironically, this puts him in the same position as Saudi Arabia’s sworn enemy Israel which also wanted American intervention before Iran went nuclear.
The secret documents, released on the WikiLeaks site and also in five major newspapers around the world, reveal that the Saudis wanted quick action against Iran. In one of the leaked memos, the Saudi ambassador to the US Adel al-Jubeir is quoted as telling US general David Petraeus: “He (King Abdullah) told you (the Americans) to cut off the head of the snake.” Petraeus and al-Jubeir met in April 2008.
A secret memo generated on April 20, 2008, says under the sub-head ‘The need to resist Iran’: “The King, Foreign Minister, Prince Muqrin, and Prince Nayif all agreed that the Kingdom needs to cooperate with the US on resisting and rolling back Iranian influence and subversion in Iraq. The King was particularly adamant on this point, and it was echoed by the senior princes as well.
Al-Jubeir recalled the King’s frequent exhortations to the US to attack Iran and so put an end to its nuclear weapons program. ‘He told you to cut off the head of the snake,’ he recalled to the Charge (Petraeus), adding that working with the US to roll back Iranian influence in Iraq is a strategic priority for the King and his government.”
But there may have been internal disagreement on the Iran approach as the Saudi Arabian foreign minister and Prince Muqrin felt that sanctions on Iran could work.
The same memo says: “The Foreign Minister, on the other hand, called instead for much more severe US and international sanctions on Iran, including a travel ban and further restrictions on bank lending. Prince Muqrin echoed these views, emphasising that some sanctions could be implemented without UN approval.”
The memo added: “After that, he said, any military solution would result in unacceptable collateral damage. He also expressed concern that should Iran develop nuclear capabilities, other rogue states and/or terrorist groups would not be far behind.”
Barak said this in a meeting with US House of Representatives Foreign Relations Committee member Gary Ackerman and US Senate Foreign Relations Committee member Robert Casey.
It was not just a nuclear Iran that Israel was worried about. In the same meeting with Casey and Ackerman, Barak called Pakistan his “private nightmare”. The memo says: “Barak reinforced his message regarding Pakistan in both meetings.
He described Pakistan as his “private nightmare,” suggesting the world might wake up one morning “with everything changed” following a potential Islamic extremist takeover.”
Earlier in August 2007, Meir Dagan, the chief of Israeli spy agency Mossad had also voiced his concern about Pakistani nuclear weapons falling into the hands of Islamists.
In a memo, Dagan is quoted as being worried for the then Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf. “Dagan then said he was concerned about how long Pakistani President Musharraf would survive: ‘He is facing a serious problem with the militants. Pakistan’s nuclear capability could end up in the hands of an Islamic regime’.”
Israel was not alone. The US was in a stand-off with Pakistan over uranium enrichment. Washington had been concerned about Pakistan’s uranium enrichment programme at a nuclear research reactor from as early as 2007 and was secretly trying to remove uranium from one of the reactors to prevent it from being diverted for illicit purposes. It failed.
In 2009, Pakistan disallowed US technical experts to inspect the reactor, leading to further concerns in Washington. King Abdullah’s scorn for Pakistan is also reflected in his views on the country’s president Asif Ali Zardari. “When the head is rotten, it affects the entire body,” the monarch is quoted as describing Zardari, saying he is the greatest obstacle to Pakistan’s progress.
—–Agencies