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SUSRIS EXCLUSIVE

National Security Issues and the Saudi-US
Relationship: A Conversation with
Jean-Francois Seznec

Editor's Note

SUSRIS readers last heard from Jean Francois Seznec, adjunct professor at Georgetown University, in a September SUSRIS IOI when he talked about Saudi Arabia's look to the east in which he reviewed the industrialization process in the Kingdom and analysis of a new paradigm in Saudi foreign relations which included "carving out a major position of influence" with its Far East trading partners. Today we are pleased to present our interview with Professor Seznec in which he discusses the regional security issues confronting Saudi Arabia and the United States.

Professor Seznec talked with SUSRIS by phone from Annapolis, Maryland on March 2, 2007.


SUSRIS EXCLUSIVE

SUSRIS: Thank you for talking today about developments in US-Saudi relations. Let�s start with regional issues of concern. What would be on your agenda, and in what order of priority, if you were facilitating a discussion of national security issues among Saudi leaders?

Professor Jean-Francois Seznec: The key issue right now for Saudi Arabia is to stop the United States from inflaming the situation with Iran. I think the Saudis are very worried about it getting out of control. That worries them. The policy now for the Saudis is to find a way to calm down the game quite a bit, and I think that is what they are trying to do. That�s why they accepted the meeting with President Ahmadinejad.

That�s probably one of the reasons they have been sending Bandar all over the place including the White House to delay any further problems.

So I think the issue of the United States and Iran is key for Saudi Arabia.

Of course, the Iraqi situation bothers them tremendously and they would like to see some kind of resolution there -- a decline in the violence between the Sunnis and the Shia. They would like very much to see that calm down. They don�t want the United States to leave anytime soon, but they certainly would like us to change or at least to have a more positive influence.

SUSRIS: Is the Saudi Arabian leadership walking a fine line in calming the tensions between Washington and Tehran at the same time they are concerned about growing Iranian influence in the region?

Seznec: It is very much of a fine line. They don�t trust Ahmadinejad whatsoever. However, they believe they can deal with Iran and they are not too worried about Iran in the long term. In any event they must find some kind of arrangement because they are going to have to live with Iran for the next few thousand years. The Saudis want to make sure that the situation doesn�t become so out of control as to unite the Iranian people behind President Ahmadinejad.

The Saudis are viewing the situation in Iran as going pretty much their way if we do nothing. In other words, if you are actively doing nothing Iran will probably go bankrupt. Their oil production is declining, the price of oil is not very strong, their domestic oil consumption is increasing (because it is heavily subsidized), and they have high population growth. So they are making less on exports and spending more and more money on populist programs. Therefore, the country could be viewed as going bust if you do nothing for the next few years.

That would be good, for the Saudis in a sense, because it could really bring about a change, maybe not in the regime as such, but in the policies of the regime.

What really would worry the Saudi leadership would be to have the United States attack Iran militarily and create a backlash in favor of the present Iranian government, which would relieve the pressure on the regime.

SUSRIS: Should the Saudi leadership be concerned, as you suggested �actively doing nothing� and allowing a suffering Iranian economy to become a drag on the regime, that it could contribute to further Iranian adventurism in the region?

Seznec: I�m not so sure that�s what would happen so I don�t think they are so worried about that. There will be a time when the Iranians have to decide whether or not they want to have a proper economy, with people who are relatively satisfied, or if they will have to endure major expenses, like the ones in Iraq, like supporting Hezbollah and what not. I think the Saudis believe the leadership in Iran is rational and they will chose the path that is best for their own country.

SUSRIS: What are the points of convergence and divergence for the United States and Saudi Arabia regarding Iraq?

Seznec: You read in the press that the convergence is the Saudis are worried about the so called �Arc of Shiism� and that we should be worried about it too. The thinking is that the United States doesn�t want Iran to control the oil resources of the world, doesn�t want Iran to have too much influence in Lebanon, and so on.

I�m not sure that the Saudis worry so much about that. So in that sense I�m not sure that is where there is convergence. On the other hand I think there is convergence of interests for the Saudis and the United States in seeing a decline in Al Qaeda activities especially in the Anbar Province and around Baghdad. That is something they both want very much to stop.

Where there is disagreement, I think, is that the Saudis see that actions of the United States are creating more opportunities for Al Qaeda in the region. The goal would be to get rid of the Sunni extremists in Iraq. However, their view is that the United States is just doing the opposite and in fact encouraging them, not willingly of course. They would like to find a solution to that issue.

SUSRIS: Is this circumstance another fine line for Saudi Arabia, protecting Sunnis from the Shia in Iraq, while ensuring the Sunni extremists and insurgents are dealt with?

Seznec: Absolutely. It�s a very fine line. Saudi policy is very subtle. Because the problems are so huge, they cannot make a decision that goes too far one way or the other. They just try to navigate the shoals, which are pretty extensive.

There was a lot of talk -- especially last December after the changes in the Ambassador here in Washington -- about the Saudis planning to fill the void if the Americans were going to leave. I�m not sure they want to fill the void. They probably have some means of helping the situation by influencing the tribes that are both in Iraq and in Saudi Arabia. However, I don�t think they can fill the void as such. But I�m not sure we�re filling the void either, so it�s a pretty tricky situation.

I think they would like to work pretty closely with the present Iraqi government if it could bring some kind of stability. I think they�d like to influence the present Iraqi government to be slightly more open to working with the groups in al Anbar and in Baghdad. They probably could influence the tribes to bring some stability in the center of the country but I�m not sure they can do much more than that. I don�t think they would intervene militarily, as has been mentioned. They don�t have the taste for that, but they could perhaps influence some military groups within the country to protect some of the Sunni groups.

SUSRIS: You mentioned Saudi concerns about Iranian influence in Lebanon. Can you talk about Saudi Arabian interest and influence in Lebanon and the effects they have on the relationships with the United States and Israel.

Seznec: I think this is a vital subject. There are a couple of overarching points in Saudi policy, which the Saudis want to achieve. One of them is to continue the economic growth of their country, and we can talk about that because it has a lot of impact on how they deal with Iran and in stopping the United States from attacking Iran.

The second one is the Levant and the main point there is that King Abdullah wants to bring peace to the area according to his 2002 peace plan. Given that, they think that somehow the world will have to reengage Syria. There has been talk about Syria and Saudi Arabia being very much at odds on the Hezbollah issue and I�m sure they were. The Saudis were very upset that the Syrians may have been, or probably were, behind the assassination of Hariri. However, there is talk now that the Saudis and the Syrians are reopening discussions.

To bring about peace in the Levant the Saudis really want the United States to reengage Syria. They may be seeking a deal with Syria and the United States along the lines that if the United States could guarantee to Syria that they are going to get the Golan Heights through the peace process that it would flip the Syrian position on the region. You add to this a few billion dollars from Riyadh into Damascus and Syria at that point could stop being so closely allied to Iran. That could cut the umbilical cord of Hezbollah and would also bring some form of settlement in Lebanon. I think that�s really what Saudi Arabia would like to push at this point, and it seems where Riyadh�s foreign policy is really heading.

I think we are going to see a lot more of that approach from Saudi Arabia in the future. Does the United States want to push that? I don�t think we do. Even though the White House and Condoleezza Rice said they were going to go to the regional conference in Baghdad -- which included Iran and Syria -- I think they are very strongly opposed to talking to Syria at all.

It doesn�t make me feel any better that Mr. [Eliot] Cohen, who was a professor at SAIS, was just named as Condoleezza Rice�s special advisor. He�s one of the leading neocons in Washington so I am not terribly optimistic. In any case I see making a breakthrough in the peace process as one of the main goals of the King. I think at his age he would like to see peace in Palestine on the basis of the 1967 borders. That implies bringing Syria back into the fold.

SUSRIS: Some would say, especially since King Abdullah took the throne, that the level of engagement on a number of issues has been uncharacteristic for Riyadh. Is Saudi Arabia demonstrating a more robust approach to its diplomatic role in the region?

Seznec: Yes, I agree that there is a push in Saudi Arabia to become more openly involved in the region. I think the Saudis believe they have to show leadership in diplomacy in order not to be overwhelmed by American military force in the region. That is probably why they have been willing to try to bring the more extreme groups, like Hamas, into the fold. They also talked to a leader from Hezbollah who went to see the king four or five weeks ago. They are talking to the Iranians. They are talking to everybody. They will probably start talking to Syria again in order to sort of establish some kind of modus vivendi in the region that can guarantee some form of peace at least for the near-term. Yes, I think they are very much involved -- much more openly involved in the situation.

SUSRIS: Saudi Arabian diplomacy also reaches beyond regional issues. Last year was marked by landmark King Abdullah arriving in Beijing in January 2006. (Photo: SPA) exchange visits between China�s President Hu and King Abdullah -- his first foreign visit after becoming king. This year President Putin visited the Kingdom, the first Russian leader welcomed in Riyadh. Last September you wrote about Saudi Arabia looking eastward. What is the impact of these visits? What do they say about Saudi Arabia�s worldview and Riyadh�s relationship with the major world powers?

Seznec: Saudi Arabia is trying to advance its own interests. I think they see their interest not so much being as with the West and, in particular, with the United States any more. They see their future as being much closer to Asia.

The visit of the Chinese president was a watershed event because most of the new Saudi Arabian economy is being developed for the Chinese market. The Chinese are, of course, buying a lot of energy from the Gulf, but the Saudis are also selling a tremendous volume of other products.

China is still not the biggest trading partner. That would be the European Union and then the United States. But trade with China is growing. The King plans to make Saudi Arabia into a major industrial power by 2020. Their industries -- petrochemicals, aluminum, steel and what not -- will be for a market that will basically be China. They are preparing the path for the future and they want to work with China.

I would say there is a new paradigm in Saudi Arabia in terms of foreign policy. Until recently -- and it persists to a certain extent today -- the paradigm was that the country should work with the military hegemon. It looked to the country that has the most military power in the world, because it could defend itself or it could defend Saudi Arabia against predators like Iran and so on, and to protect the oil.

This is changing, however, because our military force has been so strong and used in such a difficult manner in the region that the Saudis are now afraid of the military hegemon. They would like to slowly break relations with the military hegemon over a period of 10 to 20 years and replace it with the economic hegemon. The economic hegemon in the future is China, mostly, because it is the country that has all the biggest reserves right now. The Saudis see their future as being with the economic hegemon.

The Russian President�s visit is also a very interesting event because Riyadh needs to talk to Russia in order to manage the energy market. Russia today is the largest producer of oil in the world, even higher than Saudi Arabia, although they are not the largest exporter. They are also the largest producer and largest exporter of natural gas in the world. So if the Saudis and the Russians can have similar views on how to work the world�s energy markets and the Saudis and the Chinese can develop the economic relationship it will change Riyadh�s approach to foreign policy. I think that�s what we are beginning to see.

SUSRIS: What does that mean for the United States?

Seznec: Well I�m not very optimistic. I wish the U.S. Administration would have a more realistic view of the interests of Saudi Arabia and see how those interests could match ours. Thankfully, there are very strong American companies who are trying to do business in Saudi Arabia, like Chevron, Conoco-Phillips, Exxon-Mobil and others. They have taken over the real foreign policy of the United States with Saudi Arabia because they are trying to work the economic hegemon approach, if you like, by bringing American technology and people and sales and so on to the region. Otherwise the Saudis are very much afraid of the U.S. military power and its use in the Gulf. I think they�re trying very hard to limit the damage which can be done by the United States today in the Gulf, after Iraq. So in that sense I�m not very optimistic in terms of state-to-state relations. However, I am very optimistic about commercial relations.

SUSRIS: What about the other components of the relationship -- the elements being discussed in the Strategic Dialogue � such as security issues, the war on terror, consular affairs and visas. Can you comment on those issues?

Seznec: Here I can be a little more positive after a rather negative discussion. I will say that Ambassador Oberwetter in Riyadh has done a great job in trying to solve the visa problems. It was very heartening to see that there are more Saudi students in the United States today than there has been in many, many years. That is a very positive development.

In the long run it will make a big difference in how the two countries view each other. I think, overall, on the strategic level the Saudis do not have a positive view of the United States but they cannot just cut relations with the United States because we are too important. But they would like to limit the influence of the United States in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf in general. In that sense I am not too positive on the relationship.

SUSRIS: Any last thoughts you would like to share.

Seznec: It may be that one of the goals of the Saudis at this point is to try to gain time. The key issue I see is achievement of peace based on the 1967 borders � the King Abdullah plan � for Palestine. The next priority is for Saudi Arabia to become a major world industrial power.

Saudi Arabia wants to use their energy wealth to become the prime producer of petrochemicals -- to be as important in petrochemicals in the world as they are in oil today. They will be that by probably 2015-2020. It�s very important for them to gain time so that there�s no major conflagration in the Gulf and to let these investments take place and start developing. So I think the main feature of the relationship will be to temporize the White house and hope that in the near-term things will improve.

SUSRIS: Thank you very much for helping us understand the dynamic regional security situation.

Jean-Fran�ois Seznec

Dr. Seznec is a Visiting Associate Professor at Georgetown University. His research centers on the influence of the Arab-Persian Gulf political and social variables on the financial and oil markets in the region. He is focusing on the industrialization of the Gulf and in particular the growth of the petrochemical industry. He holds a MIA from Columbia University [1973], a MA and his Ph.D. from Yale University [1994]. He has published and lectured extensively and is interviewed regularly on national TV, radio and newspapers, as well as by the foreign media.

Dr. Seznec has 25 years experience in international banking and finance of which ten years were spent in the Middle East, including six years in Bahrain as a banker. Dr. Seznec is a founding member and Managing Partner of the Lafayette Group LLC, a US based private investment company. He uses his knowledge of business in the Middle East and the United States to further his analysis of the Arab-Persian Gulf.

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