US embassy cable - 05MANAMA949

S E C R E T SECTION 01 OF 03 MANAMA 000949 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 07/06/2015 
TAGS: PREL, PGOV, BA, IR 
SUBJECT: KING WORRIES ABOUT NEW IRANIAN PRESIDENT 
 
REF: A. MANAMA 940 B. STATE 121757 C. MANAMA 942 D. 
     MANAMA 943 
 
Classified By: Ambassador William T. Monroe.  Reason: 1.4 (B)(D) 
 
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SUMMARY 
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1. (S) A major focus of the Ambassador's July 5 discussion 
with Bahrain's King Hamad was the King's concern about the 
implications of the election of Iranian President 
Ahmadinejad.  Ahmadinejad, he said, faces a big challenge in 
unifying Iranians, and one way he will generate unity will be 
by provoking tensions with the Gulf.  He cited three recent 
Bahrain-related incidents to demonstrate his point.  The King 
also raised concerns about Iran's nuclear program, 
reiterating a request for a security guarantee if Iran gets 
nuclear weapons and saying that the GCC was preparing a 
memorandum for Iran expressing concerns about its nuclear 
program in environmental terms. The King was pleased that 
Bahrain's elected parliament had ratified the FTA earlier in 
the day, and relieved that the Bahrain CDA in Baghdad had 
survived an attack a few hours earlier.  He expressed 
continuing concerns about Saudi-GCC relations, saying that 
Saudi Arabia's irritation with Qatar was the core of the 
problem.  He responded positively to a request to issue 
statements against terrorism, and promptly put out a 
statement saying that attacks like the one against Bahrain's 
CDA in Baghdad "did not belong to Islam."  He was harshly 
critical of Shia activist Al-Khawaja, noting his links to a 
1982 plot to overthrow the government and his background with 
Iran's Revolutionary Guards.  He said that he and the Crown 
Prince were taking on corruption by gradually easing the old 
guard out.  The next step in this process would be the 
replacement of leadership at key state-owned companies, 
beginning imminently with aluminum giant Alba. 
 
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GOOD NEWS: REPRESENTATIVES RATIFY FTA 
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2. (SBU) King Hamad invited the Ambassador and DCM for tea at 
Safriya Palace late on the afternoon of July 5 for an 
informal discussion of domestic and regional events that 
lasted 90 minutes.  Dressed in riding clothes (he was 
planning a pre-sunset ride just after the tea), the King 
opened the meeting by expressing great satisfaction that 
Bahrain's elected Council of Representatives had ratified 
earlier in the day the Free Trade Agreement with the United 
States (Ref C).  Noting that a small number of 
representatives had voted against the agreement, he said, 
shrugging, that "this is democracy" and was pleased that it 
had such strong support in the parliament. 
 
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BAD NEWS: BAHRAIN CDA SHOT IN BAGHDAD 
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3. (C) The King noted that Bahrain's Charge d'Affaires in 
Iraq, Hassan Al-Ansari, was apparently not seriously wounded 
during an attack in Baghdad earlier in the day (Ref A).  The 
Ambassador briefed the King on steps we had taken to move 
Al-Ansari to a U.S. military hospital and give him the best 
possible treatment.  Our CDA in Baghdad, David Satterfield, 
was personally engaged, and our embassy and military would 
facilitate his return to Manama as soon as he was fit for 
travel.  The King was deeply appreciative.  He said that at 
this week's cabinet meeting, which he chaired, he had 
instructed Foreign Minister Shaikh Mohammed to forward 
Al-Ansari's credentials papers immediately so that his status 
could be upgraded to Ambassador.  This instruction had been 
given before the kidnapping of the Egyptian envoy.  Last 
night, the King stated, he had begun to wonder -- in light of 
the Egyptian's kidnapping -- if it might not be prudent to 
wait a few days.  He was uncertain what will happen now.  He 
said that he would promote Al-Ansari immediately to personal 
rank of Ambassador (the press reported July 6 that this was 
done), but did not know if  Al-Ansari would return to Baghdad 
or if a replacement would be appointed. 
 
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PRESIDENT AHMADINEJAD: A THREAT TO THE GULF? 
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4. (S) It quickly became clear that the major issue on the 
King's mind was Iran and the implications of the election of 
President Ahmadinejad.  He said that a big challenge for the 
new Iranian President will be the need to unify Iranians, and 
one way he will do that will be to provoke tensions with the 
Arab countries of the Gulf.  Bahrain, he said, is already 
seeing disturbing signs of a more provocative Iran since the 
election.  He cited a recent broadcast from Radio Tehran that 
blamed Bahrain, Jordan, and Israel for terrorist attacks 
inside Iraq.  He noted the sharp Iranian and local Shia 
reaction to a cartoon in the pro-government newspaper 
"Al-Ayam" that depicted a mullah with his beard twisted in an 
upwardly direction like a rising indicator on a graph.  Local 
Shias labeled the cartoon an insult to Khamenei (the depicted 
mullah is said to be a caricature of Khamenei) and the 
Iranian ambassador reportedly lodged a protest.  The King 
stated that, to him, the cartoon simply suggested that 
conservative influence was rising in Iran.  Finally, he 
stated that it was no accident that, just after the 
Ahmadinejad election, the Islamic Action Society met to 
"honor" 73 people convicted in the early 1980s of trying to 
topple the government, and that Iranian Spiritual Advisor 
Sayed Mohammed Hadi Mudarasi telephoned the gathering to 
deliver a message from Iran (Ref D).  (Note: Separately, a 
senior MFA official sounded a similar theme to POL/ECON Chief 
July 6, adding one additional point: an Iranian Foreign 
Ministry spokesman recently said that the Gulf states should 
know their place and that Iran is more powerful than all the 
GCC countries put together.  The Bahraini official added: 
"We've interpreted that as a threat."  End Note.) 
 
5. (S) The King also reiterated concerns about Iran's nuclear 
ambitions, repeating a request he has made that, if Iran does 
develop a nuclear capability, the U.S. provide a security 
guarantee for the countries of the Gulf.  He said he would 
raise this point as well with British Prime Minister Tony 
Blair when he visits London at the end of July.  He added 
that the GCC is currently circulating a memorandum on Iran's 
nuclear program to be submitted to the Government of Iran. 
The memorandum, he said, puts the issue in terms of 
environmental concerns. 
 
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GCC-SAUDI RELATIONS: CONTINUING CONCERNS 
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6. (C) As he has often in recent meetings, the King expressed 
his continuing frustration with Saudi Arabia's relations with 
its GCC partners.  He described Saudi Arabia as "a big 
country acting like a little boy" in its dealings with the 
GCC.  He recounted familiar bilateral concerns -- failure to 
reinstate the 50,000 b/d oil grant, failure to resume exports 
of sand for Bahrain's construction industry -- but said that 
the crux of the general problem is Saudi Arabia's relations 
with Qatar.  "It's all about Qatar," he said, attributing 
this focus to the Al-Jazeera issue.  He said that Crown 
Prince Abdullah even criticized the King when he traveled to 
Qatar to watch a soccer match, accusing him of showing 
solidarity with Qatar. 
 
7. (C) The King talked hopefully of the day when pipelines 
and causeways linking Bahrain, Qatar, and the Emirates were 
in place, facilitating the movement of people and natural 
gas.  He spoke of plans for a bullet train that would link 
Bahrain with Dubai through Qatar.  Asked about progress on 
the proposed Qatar-Bahrain pipeline, he contended that it is 
moving forward but acknowledged that Qatar would not be able 
to supply enough gas to meet Bahrain's growing needs.  He 
concluded by saying that he would welcome any help from the 
U.S. in urging the Saudis to improve relations with its GCC 
brothers. 
 
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STATEMENTS AGAINST TERRORISM 
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8. (C) Returning to the subject of the attack earlier in the 
day against Bahrain CDA in Baghdad Hassan Al-Ansari, the 
Ambassador stated that the USG was hoping that political and 
religious leaders in the region would issue statements 
condemning terrorist violence (Ref B).  Noting that Jordan's 
King Abdullah had delivered a strong statement condemning 
terrorism the day before (a statement that received prominent 
coverage in the Bahraini press), the Ambassador urged the 
King and others in Bahrain to look for opportunities to issue 
similar statements, all the more so in the wake of the attack 
of the Bahraini CDA in Baghdad.  The King responded 
positively, turning to Royal Court Minister Shaikh Khalid bin 
Ahmed and saying that, in statements on the Baghdad attack, 
they should be sure to stress that it was contrary to what 
Islam is about. (Note: In an initial statement issued to the 
press that night, the King was quoted as telling Al-Ansari 
that "such terrorist acts did not belong to Islam."  End 
note.)   The King said that he would look for other 
opportunities to stress that Islam is against terrorism and 
is a religion of tolerance, moderation, and brotherhood. 
 
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AL-KHAWAJA: REMEMBER HIS REVOLUTIONARY GUARD ROOTS 
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9. (C) The King returned to the subject of the June 29 
Islamic Action Society event, noting the prominent role 
played by Shia activist Abdul Hadi Al-Khawaja.  He said that 
Al-Khawaja had been one of the 73 convicted in 1982 for 
attempting to topple the government, although he was able to 
flee to Iran without being imprisoned.  While in Iran, he was 
trained by the Revolutionary Guard and, he said, "you always 
worry about people trained by Usama Bin Laden or the 
Revolutionary Guard."  He mentioned Al-Khawaja's continuing 
close links with the 1982 coup plotters, including Iranian 
Sayed Mohammed Hadi Mudarasi, who was an instigator of the 
1982 plot and who telephoned the June 29 event from Iran, and 
Shaikh Mohammed Ali Mahfoudh, another 1982 plotter who is 
President of the Islamic Action Society and longtime member 
of its predecessor organization, the Islamic Front for the 
Liberation of Bahrain. 
 
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TAKING ON CORRUPTION 
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10. (C) The King described in some detail his efforts to deal 
with corruption by reforming the government in an 
evolutionary, not revolutionary  way. In the Arab world, he 
quipped, you have to be careful about people you force into 
retirement because they can cause you the most trouble.  That 
is why he has been moving slowly to ease the older generation 
out and put younger technocrats into leadership positions in 
the Cabinet and state-owned companies.  This is a project the 
Crown Prince in particular is working on.  Initial steps were 
seen in the Cabinet reshuffle at the beginning of the year 
and the enhanced powers given to the Economic Development 
Board this spring.  In the next few days, he said, we will 
see changes in the leadership of the key state-owned 
companies, beginning with the aluminum company Alba.  Other 
companies like oil company BAPCO and communications company 
Batelco will follow.  Ideally, he said, he would like to 
bring in more Americans and Europeans to run these major 
state-owned companies, because they offer strong protection 
against corruption.  He added that, for military purchases, 
he much preferred to deal with the USG through FMF because 
the transactions are guaranteed to be clean.  In that 
connection he mentioned an unhappy experience with the 
purchase of helicopters from the U.K.  Comment.  Local 
observers have commented on the potential significance of 
recent moves to strengthen the EDB, particularly if indeed it 
is given the power to appoint heads of the state-owned 
companies.  Until now, this power has rested with the Prime 
Minister, giving him access to the income generated by these 
companies.  The press reported June 6 that a change in the 
board of directors of Alba was expected in the coming days. 
This appears to be the first indication that the King and 
Crown Prince are now ready to start wrestling control of the 
state-owned companies away from the Prime Minister.  With the 
Council of Representatives demanding greater transparency in 
the accounts of these companies in recent weeks, the timing 
could not be better.  End comment. 
MONROE