Saudis Make Nice With Iranians

By ELAINE SCIOLINO
The New York Times
April 12, 1998

WASHINGTON -- For half a century, the Persian Gulf has held a crucial place in U.S. policy-making. Repeatedly, its oil and its leaders have drawn the United States into its sometimes deadly games, even as its rivalries and intrigues have confounded U.S. strategy.

So the United States can end up preoccupied with the smallest events, on the assumption that they may be the prelude to something big.

This is one of those times. Saudi Arabia, America's closest ally in the Persian Gulf, and Iran, one of Washington's most bitter foes, have been busy trying to charm each other. Nobody in Washington thinks the basic relationships among the three countries have shifted.

But U.S. officials are taking notice, aware that even subtle atmospheric changes can have far-reaching psychological effects in the Middle East.

In the two decades since Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini fomented Iran's revolution, the Saudis and Iranians have never been particularly close. Khomeini asserted that all the gulf Arab monarchies -- including Saudi Arabia -- were illegitimate. Even in death, he spewed venom against the Saudis. His last will and testament called for the public cursing of the Saudi royal family for "treachery" against the House of God.

Since then, Saudi Arabia and Iran have moved slowly -- very slowly -- to shape a more normal relationship. That effort accelerated late last year, when Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah met Iranian President Mohammed Khatami in Tehran at the summit of Islamic countries. After two meetings, the Iranian cleric and the Saudi prince gave signals that they had, in a manner of speaking, bonded.

This "is the start of a new era in relations between the two big countries of the region," Khatami told Abdullah. "I truly feel that I am in my own country," the crown prince replied.

The feel-good encounters were followed by a pilgrimage by former Iranian President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani to Mecca in March. The pilgrimage was a kind of dry run for Khatami, who has now been invited to visit Saudi Arabia.

These days, there are no more rumblings from the kingdom that Iran might have been involved in the terrorist bombing of an apartment building in Saudi Arabia in 1996 that left 19 U.S. servicemen dead. In fact, Saudi Arabia announced last month that it would allow its national airline to fly in and out of Tehran for the first time since shortly after the revolution.

So the question in Washington is: What's up?

It's not that the Saudis no longer feel a threat from Iran. They do. They have no illusion that Iran has abandoned its long-term goal of dominance in the gulf. And in the strict religious tradition of the Wahabi branch of Islam that dominates Saudi Arabia, Iran's Shiites come close to being apostates.

But the Saudis also want to get along. It takes only 15 minutes for a fighter jet from Iran's southern port of Bushehr to reach Saudi Arabia's northern oil fields. Saudi Arabia has serious problems with its own restless Shiites. The two countries are OPEC's largest oil producers, and a coordinated oil policy is in the interests of both. And gestures of reconciliation further isolate their mutual enemy of the moment, Iraq.

So Abdullah has little reason to ignore an Iranian leader who preaches a desire to reach out and touch his neighbors.

"Does all this mean that the Saudis trust the Iranians or that the Iranians trust the Saudis?" asked Anthony Cordesman, the military analyst and author. "Hell, no. The basic power structure of the gulf is a constant balancing and rebalancing act. They are trying to exploit opportunities and jockey for power. It's basic balance-of-power politics."

And that is where the U.S. anxiety comes in, because the United States is a crucial player in the balancing act. Saudi Arabia's close relationship with America and the large U.S. military presence in the gulf have created friction between the Saudis and the Iranians. Pentagon planners wonder whether the two countries could eventually reach an understanding on dictating limits on the U.S. military presence.

The stability of the Saudi kingdom is of so much concern to the United States that since the bombing of the military housing, a special task force of analysts has been studying the kingdom under the same rigorous process used to assess the most serious potential threats to U.S. national security.

The Saudis who hold power now are not about to walk away from the United States, of course. It's just that the relationship is a lot more difficult than when King Fahd was in good health, in charge and eager to please the United States. Crown Prince Abdullah, who is running the country on a day-to-day basis, simply isn't as likely as his brother the king to say yes every time the United States asks for something.

When Defense Secretary William Cohen visited in February in a vain effort to win support for possible military action against Iraq, Crown Prince Abdullah simply made himself unavailable. Prince Sultan, the defense minister, stood in.

A week later, the crown prince did turn up for a meeting with Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. Ever-protective of his boss, State Department spokesman James Rubin said she found the encounter "fascinating"; other officials described it as a stern lecture by Abdullah on the failings of U.S. policy in the Middle East, followed by an equally stern defense by Ms. Albright.

The Iranians, meanwhile, are not about to embrace the United States. They have been demanding for two decades that the U.S. military leave the gulf, and that is not likely to change. But already the Saudis have urged the Clinton administration to help along Iran's new president and have offered to mediate.

One thought remains profoundly comforting to the policy planners in Washington. Whatever else is going on between Saudi Arabia and Iran, trust is not part of the equation.

Crown Prince Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa of Bahrain, one of Saudi Arabia's close neighbors, shared a joke recently with a senior U.S. official visiting the sheikdom. In Iran, he said, "You have three people in charge: You have Khamenei, and he is in charge of religion and terrorism," referring to Iran's ruling spiritual leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. "You have Rafsanjani, and he is in charge of business and terrorism. And you have Khatami, and he is in charge of internal politics, moderation and terrorism."

Related links

* Iran News
* Complete list of Iranian online media
* Cover stories
* Who's who

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