KING WORRIES ABOUT NEW IRANIAN PRESIDENT

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