Clinton Warned on Iran Buildup : Diplomacy: President-elect tells Saudi king he shares concerns over Gulf tension. Exchange shows how foreign policy could divert attention from U.S. economic issues.

Amid indications that Iran has embarked on a major rearmament effort, President-elect Bill Clinton spoke by telephone Tuesday with Saudi Arabia’s King Fahd and discussed concerns that “new hostile powers” could pose a mounting threat to the Persian Gulf region, a top aide said.

The conversation appeared somewhat more specific than the get-acquainted chats between Clinton and other world leaders and reflected what aides described as growing recognition that foreign policy problems could command some of the attention that the incoming President had hoped to devote to economic issues.

Fahd was said to have warned specifically that Iran’s new military buildup could jeopardize its neighbors’ security. Clinton was said to have responded with unusual directness in assuring Fahd that he shared the monarch’s concerns “about the possibility of new hostile powers in the Gulf region.”

At the same time, the Bush Administration, which moved Tuesday morning to intensify pressure on allies to halt militarily useful shipments to Iran, warned that the Islamic state represented a potential danger to “peace and security” in the region.

With a newly aggressive posture, Iran has alarmed the Saudis and other Persian Gulf nations in recent weeks, first by seizing a small island that both it and the United Arab Emirates have claimed and then by purchasing Soviet submarines that could threaten shipping in Gulf waters.

Iran has also begun efforts to purchase scores of fighter aircraft, bombers and tanks from the former Soviet Union as well as missiles from China and North Korea, according to U.S. officials. According to U.S. sources, intelligence reports circulated within the Administration in recent weeks have said that Iran could become the dominant power in the region before the end of the decade.

In the week since his election, Clinton has been careful to stress that foreign policy remains the purview of President Bush, and his aides emphasized Tuesday that his comments about Iran reflected the stance of the current Administration.

They also stressed that Clinton, who spent the day within the barricaded confines of his governor’s mansion, addressed the issue only at Fahd’s behest and only to make clear that he shared the Saudi leader’s concerns.

But accounts of the conversation with Fahd, whose nation’s strategic interests helped to draw the United States into war two years ago, served as a reminder of the foreign policy challenges that could confront the new Administration.

George Stephanopoulos, chief Clinton spokesman, told reporters at a midday briefing here that the President-elect told Fahd he is “committed to the security of the Gulf and Saudi Arabia.” Prince Bandar ibn Sultan, a nephew of the Saudi monarch and the nation’s ambassador to the United States, acted as interpreter, Stephanopoulos said.

Apart from the new threat posed by Iran, aides in recent days have identified a series of festering foreign issues among those likely to require Clinton’s attention. They include the possible collapse of the Middle East peace conference, the possibility of a trade war with Europe and the breakdown of arms-control agreements with former Soviet republics.

In an interview, Stephanopoulos said that those issues had not “thrown us off track in any way” from a plan to devote principal attention to the economy. “It’s just that you have to pay attention to everything,” he said.

The broadening focus has nevertheless prompted the Clinton camp to arrange to receive its own written version of the daily national security briefing prepared for the President, aides said.

In addition to holding his first conversation with Fahd, Clinton was said by aides to have conducted introductory telephone talks with the leaders of Greece and France and with President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt. Sources said that the latter call was hastily added to his schedule after some advisers grew concerned that his call to Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin a day earlier be balanced by calls to the Arab side amid new strains in the Mideast peace process.

Stephanopoulos also told reporters that Clinton probably will go to Washington next week and might meet with President Bush to discuss foreign policy. But he continued to stress that Clinton intended to defer to the White House on foreign policy matters until he takes office next January.

In particular, the spokesman told reporters that Clinton would welcome any new effort by the outgoing Administration to keep the Mideast talks on track, including a potential return to the region by White House Chief of Staff James A. Baker III. As secretary of state, Baker played an instrumental role in bringing the parties to the bargaining table.

Clinton otherwise spent Tuesday focused on matters more directly related to his transition to power. He was briefed by transition director Warren Christopher about a conference-call with chairman Vernan E. Jordan Jr. and other members of the Washington-based board advising the President-elect on key decisions and was said to be nearing an announcement of the stringent new ethics guidelines to be imposed upon his new Administration.

Among other restrictions, the rules are expected to prohibit top Administration officials from doing business with government for a full five years after they leave office. That rule may complicate the transition process by dissuading some office-seekers from accepting high-level appointments.

Another rule is expected to impose a six-month lobbying ban even on those officials who take part only in Clinton transition operations.

Jordan, a Washington lawyer, currently serves on the boards of directors for a number of large firms, including R.J. Reynolds, the tobacco conglomerate. That association has made him the target of criticism from a number of anti-smoking organizations but a Clinton spokesman dismissed the complaints Tuesday by noting that Jordan would conduct no business with any of the boards for the duration of the transition.

Concerns over Iran’s military prowess were heightened Tuesday by the comments of State Department spokesman Richard Boucher, who warned darkly that the build-up could be “potentially destabilizing for the region.”

Boucher described Administration efforts to curb sales of weapons and sensitive technology to Iran as no more than an effort by the United States to “harmonize” with its allies.

On other pressing foreign policy fronts, Clinton was said to have spoken only generally in his conversation with French President Francois Mitterrand about their nations’ differences on trade issues, which threaten to erupt into a full-blown economic confrontation.

There have been separate signs that Russia and the Ukraine have begun to back away from agreements reached with the Bush Administration last year to reduce their inventories of strategic nuclear weapons. Stephanopoulos offered no comment on that new challenge, but said that Clinton is likely to speak by telephone to Ukrainian President Leonid Kravchuk later in the week.