SAUDI PRINCE WARNS IRAN ON NUCLEAR WEAPONS.

A well-known Saudi prince has given a broad hint to senior US and British military leaders that Saudi Arabia will be forced to acquire nuclear weapons of Iran does so, according to a report in Britain’s Guardian newspaper.

Prince Turki al-Faisal, believed to be a prospective foreign minister, made the disclosure at a closed meeting held at RAF Molesworth, one of three British bases used by American forces since World War II. It is now a NATO intelligence center dealing with the Mediterranean and Middle East.

“Iran (developing) a nuclear weapon would compel Saudi Arabia...to pursue policies which could lead to untold and possibly dramatic consequences,” the prince was quoted as saying.

“If they successfully pursue a military program, we will have to follow suit.”

Guardian correspondent Jason Burke said he did not specifically say Saudi Arabia would acquire nuclear weapons of Iran does. But he quoted a senior Saudi adviser as telling the Guardian it would be “inconceivable that there would be a day when Iran had a nuclear weapon and Saudi Arabia did not.”

The report lends weight to a WikiLeaks disclosure last year of diplomatic cables stating that Saudi King Abdullah privately warned Washington in 2008 that if Iran developed nuclear weapons, “everyone in the region would do the same, including Saudi Arabia.”

A former intelligence chief and former ambassador to Washington, Prince Turki was reported to have called the loss of life in Syria during the current uprising against President Bashar Al Assad as “deplorable.”

“The government is woefully deficient in its handling of the situation,” he said, but added that President Assad “will cling to power till the last Syrian is killed.”

The Guardian said Saudi officials in Riyadh were “not keen” on demonstrators ousting governments, but “even less keen on killing and massacres.”

The Guardian said it had obtained a transcript of Prince Turki’s speech, in which he warned that military strikes to prevent Iran from producing nuclear weapons would be “counterproductive.” He said sanctions against the Tehran regime were working.

The prince was reported to have said that an alternative to military strikes would be to “squeeze” Iran’s profits from oil, something the Saudis could do with their spare pumping capacity.

The newspaper said Saudi Arabia is reported to have an “option” on acquiring Pakistan’s nuclear capability, in event of Iran getting the bomb, in return for Saudi financing of Pakistan for several decades.

Prince Faisal was reported to have made clear that Saudi Arabia was using its vast oil wealth to minimize potential ill-will toward Riyadh among populations whose authoritarian rulers have been backed by Saudi Arabia.

It has spent $2.5 billion since 2006 in Lebanon to counter Syrian influence and the Shia Hezbollah movement, and Prince Turki said several billion more will go to Palestinians. Saudi Arabia also has offered $4 billion in aid to Egypt. He said that stands “in stark comparison to the conditional loans that the US and Europe have promised.”

Before his downfall, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak enjoyed strong support from Saudi Arabia.

Prince Turki was reported to have reiterated a long-standing Saudi appeal for a nuclear-free zone in the Middle East, embracing Iran and Israel and enforced by the United Nations Security Council.

He also touched on the troubles in Yemen and said that country’s more remote tribal areas had become a safe haven for terrorism comparable to Pakistan’s tribal areas.

(Ray Moseley is a London-based former chief European correspondent of the Chicago Tribune and has worked extensively in the Middle East.