Obama Seeks to Repair Frayed Ties With Saudi Arabia

RIYADH – Barack Obama's visit to Saudi Arabia on Friday marks a bid to warm relations that the Saudis hope will result in commitments by the U.S. president to boost the supply of sophisticated weapons to Syrian insurgents.

Mr. Obama's stopover at the end of a European tour will mark his first visit to the kingdom since U.S.-Saudi ties were severely strained last year following the renewal of high-level U.S. contacts with Iran and the cancellation of planned airstrikes against the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

The Saudis, America's most powerful Arab allies, are now looking for Mr. Obama to make clear how he views the growing regional influence of Iran, Saudi Arabia's rival.

Saudi officials also are hoping he will bring word of a breakthrough in U.S. and Jordanian opposition to supplying Syrian rebels with more advanced weapons, including shoulder-launched missiles, known as manpads, capable of bringing down Syrian aircraft, according to Saudis, a Western diplomat and regional security analysts familiar with the situation.

Obama administration officials gave no details on plans for the president's meetings with Saudi officials but said U.S.-Saudi ties had progressed.

"We have been working for the last several months to increase our coordination with the Saudis and to more effectively distribute assistance to the opposition," a senior administration official said Thursday. "The president's trip comes in the context of this closer cooperation."

The official said relations with Riyadh had improved since late last year, when Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, the Saudi interior minister, became Saudi Arabia's top point man with the U.S. and on Syria.

Prince Mohammed is well-regarded in Washington for his long cooperation with the U.S. against al Qaeda.

The Obama administration's reluctance to authorize delivery of more sophisticated weaponry has angered Saudi officials, as pro-regime forces continue to dominate the Syrian battlefield.

"If he is not going to change his policy toward Syria, there will be no reason he comes to Saudi, to be honest," said Mustafa Alani, a security analyst at the Geneva-based Gulf Research Center who regularly receives briefings from security officials in the kingdom.

"If he's coming empty-handed and King Abdullah hears the same rhetoric he's been hearing, I think the relationship will suffer far more than it suffered before," Mr. Alani said. Saudi Arabia's priority is U.S. approval for delivery of manpads and advanced communications systems, as well as more antitank weapons, to the Syrian rebels, Mr. Alani said.

Prince Salman bin Sultan, the kingdom's deputy defense minister who oversees arms transfers to anti-Assad rebels, met with CIA director John Brennan and Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel during a visit to Washington last week, raising expectations and pressure for Mr. Obama to arrive in the Saudi capital on Friday bearing a pledge to supply the military gear.

"Riyadh does not want the visit to be an 'anesthetization' visit" of pleasantries only, said Abdullah al-Shammri, a former Saudi diplomat.

Hadi al Bahra, a senior Syrian opposition member who was in Washington, D.C., earlier this month, meeting with members of the National Security Council and representatives in Congress, said there was no final decision from the U.S. on the supply of manpads.

But, he added, "We all expect a decision after President Obama visits Saudi Arabia, which is in favor of increasing [rebel] capabilities."

Senior U.S. officials said last month that the administration continued to oppose any transfers of manpads to rebel fighters, citing the danger the weapons could fall into the hands of al Qaeda and other armed extremist groups.

The CIA already has helped Saudi Arabia and other allies train select groups of Syrian rebels in neighboring Jordan. It is those vetted rebels who have undergone training that stand to be equipped with the more advanced weapons, according to the Syrian opposition and a Western diplomat in the Middle East.

Jordan also has blocked delivery of the additional weapons through its territory to rebels in Syria, for fear of getting pulled deeper into the Syrian conflict. The diplomat and two Syrian opposition officials said Amman is waiting for the U.S. to approve the deployment of Saudi-bought manpads currently sitting in Jordanian warehouses.

The Jordanian government didn't respond to requests for comment on the weapons, but has denied such reports in the past and called them "irresponsible."

Saudi officials, reluctant to get drawn into direct confrontation with Iranian-backed Hezbollah militia fighters and Iranian forces fighting alongside Mr. Assad's regime, now appear to have little hope of Syrian rebels winning an outright victory over Mr. Assad. Instead, the Saudis hope that improving rebels' anti-air defenses will help strengthen the Syrian opposition in negotiations to end the four-year Syrian war.

Saudi officials fear that an outright victory by Mr. Assad's Iranian-allied government will also strengthen Shia Muslim groups in Lebanon, Iraq and Yemen that are hostile to the Saudi royal family.

"Saudis want to know exactly: where are you going with Iran?" said Khalid Al Dekhayel, former professor of political sociology at King Saud University in Riyadh. If U.S.-Iran political agreements are ahead, "What is in it for us? How is it going to affect the Syrian civil war, Hezbollah in Lebanon, Shia militias coming out of Iraq?"

Saudi royals have muted their angry rhetoric since last autumn's rift. Prince Turki Al Faisal, whose criticism of the Obama administration's policies on Iran and Syria made front-page news in December, made virtually no mention of the U.S. during a U.S. speech about Iran this month. A Saudi ambassador who wrote of Saudi Arabia breaking with the U.S. in the New York Times in December has been publicly silent since.

And Prince Mohammed took over U.S. and Syria briefs from Prince Bandar Bin Sultan, who declared in August that Saudi Arabia would go its own way on Syria.