Prince Saud al-Faisal

From AICbackground

Prince Saud al-Faisal

Foreign Minister of Saudi Arabia

Quotes:

"Saudi Arabia believes that genuine pace in the Middle East cannot be achieved unless a permanent and just solution to the Palestinian question is reached and Israeli withdrawal from all occupied Arab territories is effected, including Jerusalem, which is an integral part of the Arab territories."

"The thing that has obstructed moving in a realistic fashion is the insistence on putting the issue of the security of Israel ahead of any other consideration. Israel demands to have complete security before it starts negotiating a peace process. It is exactly the reverse. You achieve peace and then you have security."

"The Palestinian people who voted for [Hamas] are those who voted for Oslo, they accepted the Arab peace plan, who accepted Madrid, and 242 and 338. These are the new constituents of the new government. If you use inclusion rather than exclusion, if you talk to them, they can be convinced of the advisability of pursuing a peace process if they are assured of equal treatment of any conditions put on one side are not excluded from being applied to the other side."

"We have a strategy in the Arab world, a strategy of peace, negotiations, and settlement of dispute through negotiations. And may I say, the threat that the conflict is causing – 70 years, for God’s sake, is a long time. We are almost reaching the record of the Hundred Years’ War in Europe. We may reach it sooner than later and have the record in this issue. Isn’t it time that we live?"

Background

Born in 1941, the fourth of eight sons of the assassinated King Faisal, you are a scion of the most prestigious branch of the royal family, the only branch entitled to its own surname, “al-Faisal,” in honor of your martyred father. You have been abroad many times, and earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics from Princeton University. It was there that you polished your English skills as part of the second generation of Saudi royals, who your father began sending abroad to learn skills that would aid in the Kingdom’s modernization. You served as Deputy Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources from 1971-74, after which you were appointed the Minister of Foreign Affairs in 1975, the position you currently hold. This is an especially important position for you because it is the position that was made famous by your father, who served as foreign minister for almost forty years, doing much to create the modern diplomatic policy of Saudi Arabia. With the aid of your older brother Turki al-Faisal, the director of Saudi Intelligence, you have spent 30 years making al-Faisal into a potent force in the complex internal politics of the Saudi kingdom, earning a reputation as one of the longest serving foreign ministers in the world while being considered a cool, incredibly able statesman. Your duties as Foreign Minister include responsibility for the Kingdom's political, cultural, and financial relations with other countries; as such, you also responsible for visiting other countries and foreign leaders as the highest-ranking diplomat of the Saudi Arabian government.

When your uncle Fahd became King in 1982, there was a difference of opinion as to what type of foreign policy the Kingdom should implement. The King was a modernist, but did not believe in taking the initiative and constantly relied on younger, better-educated princes—including you and your brothers. You believed that your government should abandon its pro-American policy, and adopt a Nasserite-type positive neutralism which aimed to ensure Saudi Arabia’s neutrality in the Cold War. This interest in neutrality made you initially sympathetic to the Islamic Republic of Iran because of its anti-American and anti-Israeli position. After Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini threatened to overthrow the Saudi monarchy, however, you grudgingly came to embrace the doctrine of strategic partnership with the US, despite your deep-seated misgivings about America’s policies in the region. Since then, you have tried to fully implement the policies of the Kingdom, as befits one of the world’s longest serving and best-respected diplomats.

Regional Issues

The two issues that worry Saudi Arabia most at present, and therefore occupy the majority of your time, are Iran and Iraq. Iran’s purported attempt to develop nuclear weaponry has frustrated you personally because of your overall favorable opinion of the Islamic Republic; since the 1990s you have gone on the record multiple times defending Iran as a responsible player in Middle Eastern politics and undeserving of Us government hostility. Since 2006, however, you have gradually come around to the side including King Abdullah and your cousin, national security advisor Bandar ibn Sultan, both of whom advocate taking a tough stance against Iran, up to and including support of a US military intervention to interdict Iran’s nuclear program. All the same, of major officials in the Saudi government you are probably the most willing to reach a compromise with the Tehran regime, which you have made clear in public statements to Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, whom you accuse of irresponsibly undermining Iranian moderates. You did not support American and French efforts to impose sanctions on Iran at the UN Security Council, but as of January 2007 you have echoed the official line of King Abdullah, warning that Iran must refrain from undermining the fragile Iraqi government.

As far as Iraq goes, you were against the war from the beginning, and have been very open about this fact. You are equally suspicious about American ambitions of planting a western-style democracy in the Middle East, but on a basic level you have come to support the occupation, because you feel that otherwise Iraq would splinter into its constituent pieces, which would almost ensure a wider regional conflict to pick up the scraps.

In a larger sense, you are concerned about the fate of Iraq because you think the violence there has completely overshadowed the Palestinian issue, which you feel is at the root of all Middle Eastern political problems. You were a staunch supporter of the PLO as a young man, and as a mature foreign minister your active support for the Palestinian people has never wavered. Lately, you have come out in support of the current Hamas-led government of the PA, asserting that western attempts to ostracize Hamas will in no way encourage it to renounce violence. This support for the Palestinians is mirrored by a deep frustration with the state of Israel, which you feel has been allowed to run roughshod over all norms of international law in strengthening its grasp over the Occupied Territories (and developing a nuclear arsenal). While your cousin and longtime ambassador to the US Bandar bin Sultan was willing to skirt this issue, you are much more confrontational on this topic, and to your credit the Saudi foreign ministry has done much to support the young Palestinian Authority while also keeping alive the international debate over the fate of the Occupied Territories and their inhabitants. You strongly support King Abdullah’s plan to renew the Peace Process on the basis of UN Resolution 242, which calls for a complete Israeli withdrawal to the pre-1967 borders. In the latest flurry of activity to implement this plan, you are instrumental in the January 2007 Mecca Summit, which aims to cobble together a Fatah-Hamas unity government capable of assertively pressing for the rights of the Palestinian people.

Roleplaying Hints

You come off as quiet in interviews and roundtable discussions, but when important issues surface your eyes light up, revealing the steely resolve you have inherited from your legendary royal father. You are willing to behave diplomatically when necessary, and have been very successful at your job for almost 30 years, but in word and deed you can also be very undiplomatic: you do not bother to conceal issues which are important to you, especially the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. You do not want to see the Jewish State destroyed, but you are convinced it is a completely irresponsible international actor, which must be compelled by international pressure to halt its expansionist desires, since it clearly will not stop victimizing the Palestinian people of its own accord.

References

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saud_bin_Faisal_bin_Abdul_Aziz

http://www.mofa.gov.sa/Detail.asp?InSectionID=1719&InNewsItemID=34525

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article789045.ece

http://web.nps.navy.mil/~relooney/Arabia_80.htm

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/saud/interviews/saud.html

http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=14612

http://www.saudi-us-relations.org/articles/2006/ioi/060521-saud-interview.html