By Viola Gienger

Source: Bloomberg

March 10, 2010

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates arrived in Saudi Arabia on a mission to show officials in Tehran that their neighbors in the region are closing ranks in opposition to Iranian nuclear and missile programs.

Gates, who flew to the Saudi capital, Riyadh, today after a two-day visit to Afghanistan, plans to meet with King Abdullah and Crown Prince Sultan bin Abdelaziz al-Saud, the deputy prime minister. The U.S. defense chief aims to demonstrate that Iran’s military buildup in defiance of international demands won’t make the country more secure and may backfire, U.S. officials said.

Weapons purchases by U.S.-allied Persian Gulf nations have grown in recent years, along with joint military training and exercises. Gates has urged his counterparts in the region to integrate air and missile defense systems, Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell told reporters before Gates left Washington.

“The historical regional reluctance to cooperate in that manner is being diminished by the recognized common threat they all face across the Gulf” from Iran, Morrell said. “As Iran becomes more menacing, we’re seeing greater cooperation.”

Gates’s visit is part of the Obama administration’s shift from negotiations with Iran to pressure, including plans to impose a fourth set of United Nations sanctions on the country. His meetings also will touch on Iran’s support for terrorist groups, the stabilization of Iraq, Middle East peace efforts and inroads by al-Qaeda in neighboring Yemen.

Baghdad Embassy

The Pentagon chief will stress that the best way for Saudi Arabia to minimize risks such as Iran’s ties with Iraq is to participate in potential solutions, such as setting up a Baghdad embassy, said a U.S. defense official who briefed reporters before the trip.

The U.S. is encouraging other Gulf nations to engage with Iraq as President Barack Obama withdraws the last American combat troops from the war zone by September. That will leave about 50,000 advisers and trainers to support Iraq until those military personnel are set to leave by the end of 2011.

Saudi officials have signaled that they are more open to improving ties with Iraq because of the planned U.S. drawdown and the advent of a new government in Baghdad, the defense official said.

Iraqis are awaiting official results from parliamentary elections held March 7, as candidates jockey for positions in a likely coalition government.

Yemen Worries

Terrorism concerns shared by the U.S. and Saudi Arabia also include Yemen, which is the poorest Arab nation and suffers from limited central-government control. Saudi Arabia was drawn into a conflict with Shiite Muslim rebels in Yemen’s north that eased with a cease-fire last month.

Iran’s nuclear ambitions are prominent on the agenda. The U.S. is working with France, Britain, Germany, Russia and China to persuade Iran to give up uranium enrichment that may be intended to create a nuclear weapons capability.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says his government is simply exercising its right to produce nuclear energy. He hasn’t taken up an offer from the group to enrich uranium under international supervision that Iran needs to fuel a reactor to make medical isotopes.

Ahmadinejad also was in Kabul today. The U.S. defense chief expressed amusement at the overlapping of their Afghan visits.

“It’s clearly fodder for all conspiratorialists,” Gates told reporters at a briefing with his Afghan counterpart, Defense Minister Abdul Rahim Wardak, before he left for Saudi Arabia. Gates reiterated the U.S. position that Afghanistan should have constructive ties with all its neighbors.

‘Upfront Game’

“But we also want all of Afghanistan’s neighbors to play an upfront game in dealing with the government of Afghanistan,” Gates said. The U.S. says Iran is providing funding and other assistance to the insurgency in Afghanistan in an effort to ensure that the coalition led by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization fails in the war against the Taliban.

Saudi Arabia’s status as the biggest supplier of oil to China last year may be helpful to the West’s sanctions push, U.S. officials have said. The Saudis are trying to persuade China to back further UN penalties, the official said.

The Saudis could help by offering more oil to China, a step that would reduce its dependence on Iran to power the Asian nation’s burgeoning economy.

China, Iran

China’s crude oil imports from Iran fell to a three-year low in January, and were about one-third the level of the shipments from Saudi Arabia, according to Chinese customs data.

Gates will seek to reassure officials in Riyadh, in light of the threat from Iran, that the U.S. is committed to following through on pledges to help Saudi Arabia modernize its air and missile defenses, the U.S. defense official said.

The defense chief will also urge the Saudis to make progress on integrating those defenses into a regional system under development, the official said. That includes features such as coordinated early-warning systems.

Gates’s visit is more to demonstrate solidarity than work on any new arms deals, the defense official said.

Gates isn’t likely to raise the question of whether Saudi Arabia might want to pursue its own nuclear program to counter Iran’s development work, because such a prospect isn’t immediate, the official said.

To contact the reporter on this story: Viola Gienger in Riyadh at vgienger@bloomberg.net.