US embassy cable - 05RIYADH5371

C O N F I D E N T I A L  RIYADH 005371 
 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 08/01/2015 
TAGS: PGOV, PREL, SA 
SUBJECT: THE LATE SAUDI KING FAHD: A MIXED LEGACY 
 
REF: A) RIYADH 4932 B) RIYADH 5352 
 
Classified By: Classified by Ambassador James Oberwetter, 
reasons 1.4 (b) and (d). 
 
1. (C) Summary: A chief architect of Saudi Arabia's 
transformation from feudal monarchy to modernizing nation 
state, the late King Fahd will be remembered above all as a 
modernizer -- a ruler who pushed his subjects to abandon 
their feudal insularity and join the modern world-- and an 
institution-builder.  Fahd did more than any other Saudi king 
to develop Saudi political institutions; the group of reforms 
decreed in 1992 were the most comprehensive modernization of 
the Kingdom's political structure since its founding in 1932. 
 He should also be remembered as a steadfast ally of the U.S. 
who played an important role against communism, for 
Arab-Israeli peace, and for stability in the Gulf region. 
 
2. (C) His domestic legacy, however, is a mixed one, for some 
of the most pressing problems the Kingdom faces today find 
their genesis in the late King's policy choices.  Lacking the 
religious stature and authority to contain conservative 
religious elements, he was obliged to allow one of the most 
crucial building blocks of a modern nation state -- the 
education system -- to remain in the hands of reactionary 
religious conservatives who saw no need to give the Kingdom's 
burgeoning youth the skills necessary to allow the country to 
overcome its heavy dependence on foreign labor. 
 
3. (C) The late King's personal profligacy and inability or 
unwillingness to control the greed and excesses of the royal 
family, particularly during the downturn in oil prices in the 
1980s, resulted in economic hardship for many average Saudis 
and eroded popular support for the royal family.  His 
indecisiveness when facing the economic crises that began in 
1986 led him to postpone making many of the necessary hard 
choices required to restructure the Saudi economy.  Most 
strikingly, during his reign, public sector debt grew for a 
time from zero to a level exceeding GDP, although the SAG has 
now paid it down to half of GDP. End summary. 
 
 
The Essential Fahd 
------------------ 
 
4. (C) Born circa 1921, Fahd was the eleventh son of King Abd 
Al-Aziz bin Abd Al-Rahman Al Saud, who founded the modern 
Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in 1932.  Following the death of Abd 
Al-Aziz in 1953, the Kingdom was led by Fahd's elder brothers 
Saud (1953-1964), Faisal (1964-1975), and Khalid (1975-1982) 
before Fahd became king in June 1982.  Fahd's future role in 
world politics was foreshadowed when he accompanied Faisal to 
the San Francisco conference in 1945 that established the UN. 
 Having served as governor of Al-Jawf province and then 
Minister of Education, he was named Minister of Interior in 
1962.  King Faisal's assassination in 1975 led to Khalid's 
accession and Fahd's promotion to crown prince and deputy 
prime minister.  Although his reign officially began in 1982 
upon Khalid's death, the "Fahd era" truly began in 1975 as he 
oversaw the Kingdom's domestic and foreign policies for the 
ailing and generally disinterested King Khalid. 
 
An institution builder 
---------------------- 
 
5. (C) King Fahd did more than any other Saudi king to 
develop the Kingdom's political institutions.  A group of 
reforms decreed in 1992 -- the Basic Law, the Laws of the 
Council of Ministers, the Majlis Al-Shura law, and the 
Regions -- formed the most comprehensive modernization of the 
Kingdom's political structure since its founding in 1932. 
The Basic Law identifies Saudi Arabia as a monarchy ruled by 
descendants of Abd Al-Aziz Al Saud, with its constitution 
being the Quran and the Sunna (the traditions of the Prophet 
Muhammad). It sets forth the principles, rights, and duties 
of the state as well as the mechanism for selecting the Crown 
Prince and the roles of the executive, judicial, and 
regulatory authorities.  The Council of Ministers law details 
the powers (and the limits) of the cabinet, led by the King 
as prime minister, and grants this body executive power and 
final authority in all financial and administrative affairs 
of government entities.  By issuing these two laws, Fahd 
streamlined Saudi politics and institutionalized what had 
been merely tradition -- the King's right to select and to 
remove the Crown Prince and, upon the King's death, the Crown 
Prince's automatic assumption of royal powers until pledges 
of allegiance can be made to him. 
 
6. (C) Both Kings Faisal and Khalid had talked about creating 
a national consultative council, but it was King Fahd who 
established the Majlis Al-Shura by statute in 1992 (its first 
session was in 1993).  The Majlis is far from a western-style 
legislature; it is a fully appointed body of 120 members 
enabled only to give advice based on the Quranic principles 
of consultation and consensus.  Majlis members debate matters 
referred to them by the King and by the general public and 
formulate advisory opinions for passage to the King.  The 
Majlis has the right to request documents from state agencies 
and to summon government officials -- several ministers have 
appeared before the council.  Through the Majlis, King Fahd 
institutionalized the input of academics and technocrats into 
the Saudi policy formulation process: many of its members 
have doctoral degrees from U.S. universities.  The Law of the 
Regions, the final piece of Fahd's 1992 reform initiative, 
strengthened the role of the Interior Minister in 
administering the country's provinces and established 
councils in each region similar in function to the national 
Majlis Al-Shura. 
 
7. (C) In addition to streamlining government institutions, 
Fahd had to deal with another major domestic political task 
as king -- managing the royal family.  To keep the rapidly 
expanding Al Saud satisfied, Fahd tolerated many forms of 
royal excess, from the construction by senior princes of 
multiple large palaces to their increased influence in much 
of the country's commerce.  The persistence of such activity 
even in times of economic difficulty for most Saudis has led 
part of King Fahd's legacy to be the pervasive popular 
perception of significant Al Saud corruption.  While 
oppositionists may have exaggerated the extent of royal greed 
and excess, the fact is that Fahd's laissez faire attitude 
toward the practices of many princes -- and his own 
willingness to flaunt family wealth -- built the foundation 
for such criticism. 
 
8. (C) On the other hand, whereas previous kings had faced 
threats from within the Al Saud (ranging from senior princes' 
defections to Nasser's Egypt to Faisal's assassination at the 
hands of his nephew), Fahd's reign largely was free of such 
public intra-family squabbles.  King Fahd's balancing act 
first involved taking care of the largest faction within the 
Al Saud -- his sons, his full brothers (known collectively as 
the Sudayri Seven and including Defense Minister and Second 
Deputy Prime Minister Sultan, Interior Minister Naif, and 
Governor of Riyadh Salman), and their progeny.  For example, 
Fahd selected Sultan's son Bandar for the important post of 
Ambassador to the U.S., appointed his full brother Abd 
Al-Rahman as Vice Defense Minister, and distributed regional 
governorships to his son Muhammad (the Eastern Province) and 
Sultan's son Fahd (Tabuk).  He also managed not to alienate 
non-Sudayris; he retained Saud Al-Faisal as foreign minister 
from Khalid's cabinet and selected or retained in key 
regional governor positions princes closer to Crown Prince 
Abdullah than to himself (i.e., Majid in Mecca and Khalid 
Al-Faisal in Asir). 
 
9. (C) Fahd maintained the delicate societal balance between 
the country's conservative religious traditions and forces of 
modernization and liberalization.  Despite radical Islamic 
challenges that ranged from zealots' takeover of the Grand 
Mosque in Mecca in 1979 (when Fahd was Crown Prince) to the 
bombing of the headquarters of the U.S. Military Advisor to 
the Saudi National Guard in 1995, Fahd was able to appease or 
neutralize most religious elements through various means -- 
while repressing radical Islamists.  Fahd expanded state 
support for Islam at home and abroad and maintained most of 
the kingdom's conservative laws; he even adopted the title 
"Custodian of the two Holy Mosques" in 1986 to bolster his 
Islamic credentials.  However, Fahd also succeeded in muting 
most criticism from Saudi progressives by establishing and 
subsequently expanding the Majlis Al-Shura (which has a large 
technocratic component), and by appointing western-educated 
technocrats to trusted cabinet positions. 
 
A stalwart U.S. ally 
-------------------- 
 
10. (C) Fahd was a friend of the United States.  From the 
late 1970s until the fall of the Soviet Union, Fahd's Saudi 
Arabia was a staunch ally against communism -- witnessed most 
clearly in Saudi-U.S. cooperation in support of the Mujahidin 
fighting the Soviet invasion and occupation of Afghanistan. 
Fahd tightened the Saudi-U.S. security relationship with SAG 
purchases of F-15s and AWACS aircraft in the 1980s and 
supported moderation in oil prices.  After Saddam Husayn's 
invasion of Kuwait, it was King Fahd -- against the advice of 
some leading Saudi princes -- who made the ultimate decision 
to invite U.S. and other foreign military forces into Saudi 
Arabia to help defend the Kingdom and, eventually, to 
liberate Kuwait. 
 
11. (C) King Fahd played a key supporting role in the peace 
process.  In 1977, he made a highly publicized visit to the 
U.S. to discuss the possibilities of a peace conference. 
Although the hard-line Arab consensus at the Baghdad 
conference in 1979 pushed the Saudis to reject the Camp David 
accords between Egypt and Israel, Fahd persuaded the 
conference not to apply economic sanctions to Egypt.  In 
1981, Fahd outlined a settlement for the conflict with Israel 
(known as the "Fahd plan," it was presented at the Arab 
Summit in Fez, Morocco in 1982) that provided at least the 
psychological basis for peace negotiations.  More recently, 
King Fahd led Saudi Arabia to participate in the Madrid 
Conference and to support the Oslo and subsequent accords 
between Israel and the Palestinians. In addition, Fahd 
resisted Syrian pressure in 1991 and agreed to participate in 
the bilateral tracking of the peace process.  This paved the 
way for the rest of the GCC, creating a critical mass of 
participation that was pivotal in enabling the five years of 
regional talks that followed. 
 
12. (C) The flip side of such steady if not always lock-step 
support for U.S. interests in the region is the backlash 
against the U.S.-Saudi relationship that Fahd set into motion 
by tightening Riyadh's embrace of Washington.  The presence 
of U.S. military forces in Saudi Arabia was at the core of 
the violent opposition to the Al Saud advocated by Usama bin 
Ladin and others. Fahd altered the bilateral strategic 
relationship, bringing the U.S. from its 1970s and 1980s 
"over the horizon" posture to a more visible presence posture 
after 1990.  Ironically, by doing what he felt necessary-- 
calling on U.S. military forces to enter the Kingdom in an 
emergency -- the late King set forces in motion that 
challenged the U.S.-Saudi relationship in later years. 
 
13. (C) The landscape of international relations in the Gulf 
and in the wider Middle East owes much to Fahd's regional 
stability efforts.  The Gulf Cooperation Council, binding 
Saudi Arabia to Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman, and the UAE, 
was established with Fahd's blessing in 1981 and has endured 
largely because of Saudi leadership.  Despite numerous 
provocations from Tehran -- including a dogfight between the 
Saudi and Iranian air forces over Gulf waters in 1984 -- King 
Fahd kept Saudi Arabia out of the Iran-Iraq war.  Fahd was 
involved personally in resolving regional disagreements, such 
as the feud between Qatar and Bahrain in 1986 over disputed 
islands in the Gulf that probably would have led to a war 
without mediation efforts initiated by Fahd.  Saudi Arabia's 
restoration of relations with Egypt in 1987 set the example 
for much of the Arab world to let Egypt back into the fold. 
After the Gulf war in 1991, Fahd invited Cairo and Damascus, 
regional rivals during the 1980s, into a largely symbolic but 
enduring security dialogue with the GCC states known as the 
Damascus Declaration.   King Fahd also brought the Lebanese 
national assembly to Taif in 1989 to sign a charter of 
national reconciliation that provided the basis for Lebanon's 
political and economic recovery from years of civil war. 
 
Comment 
------- 
 
14. (C) Fahd's legacy is mixed.  Some of the most pressing 
problems the Kingdom faces today find their genesis in the 
late King's policy choices.  Lacking the religious stature 
and authority to contain the religious right, Fahd was 
obliged to allow one of the most crucial building blocks of a 
modern nation state -- the education system -- to remain in 
the hands of reactionary religious conservatives who saw no 
need to give Saudi Arabia's burgeoning youth the skills 
necessary to allow the country to overcome its near complete 
dependence on foreign labor.   Although he was a 
forward-thinking man who was full of ideas, he was 
undisciplined and often failed to follow through on his own 
initiatives quickly -- if at all.  One example among many is 
the Majlis Al-Shura, the establishment of which he promised 
numerous times over the years before its eventual creation. 
His efforts to expand the size of the Saudi government and 
centralize authority in Riyadh led to a bloated bureaucracy 
and an urban sprawl.  Fahd's steps to open the Kingdom to 
foreign influences, which went far beyond the measures taken 
by his predecessors, energized conservative elements of Saudi 
society, in a development whose effects are still being felt. 
 
15. (C) However, one would be hard pressed to overstate the 
imprint Fahd has left on Saudi domestic and international 
politics.  His fading from the day-to-day management of the 
government over the past 10 years following his 1995 stroke 
does not diminish his accomplishments since the 1970s, and 
his death allows us to take a look back and realize to what 
extent Saudi political institutions and the U.S.-Saudi 
relationship grew out of his initiatives and policies. 
Fahd's policy errors and health problems later in life cannot 
overshadow the extent to which he shaped the modern Kingdom 
of Saudi Arabia and its foreign and domestic policies. 
 
 
OBERWETTER