At the start of June 2023, United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited Riyadh to negotiate a package of concessions for normalising relations with Israel with the Saudis. However, the negotiations now seem like a distant dream after the Hamas attack on October 7 and the brutal retaliation of the Israeli state against the Gazan people.
Under Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS), the Saudis reportedly wanted the United States to develop a “nuclear Aramco” modelled like the Kingdom’s oil and gas company, which has helped build its wealth.
Given the predicted reduction in fossil fuel consumption in the coming decades to combat climate change, Saudi Arabia might become a civilian nuclear energy powerhouse and a global exporter of nuclear products and technology.
From Oil To Atomic Energy
However, the Saudi request had another side. The Saudis invited the Americans to jointly manufacture and monitor uranium enrichment, a requirement for nuclear fuel manufacturing in power reactors.
In 2018, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman said the Kingdom had over 5% of world reserves. Based on leaked internal records, the Guardian assessed the Kingdom’s “inferred deposits” at 90,000 mt in 2020 or 1.4% of world reserves.
Saudi Arabia has no nuclear power generation but plans to add 17 GW by 2040 and put two 3.2 GW reactors online within a decade.
The monarchy has been in talks with China to develop nuclear technology and with the US under former President Donald Trump to win a “123 agreement” to obtain American technology. The agreement restricts uranium enrichment in weapons.
A “nuclear Aramco” is part of the new Saudi agenda. The Kingdom wants to defend its ‘Vision 2030’ strategy to diversify Saudi energy income towards atomic energy.
The game-changing March 2023 resumption of diplomatic relations between Riyadh and Tehran had cascading consequences across the Middle East.
Gulf governments like the UAE, Oman, Jordan, and possibly Egypt are now eager to enhance relations with Tehran.
The Saudis helped Syria, Iran’s ally, enter the Arab League in May 2023. This is another step in Riyadh’s effort to keep erstwhile rivals close.
However, enriching uranium is essential to nuclear weapons projects. From that perspective, the Kingdom may want to deter its archrival, Shi’ite Iran, which is rapidly becoming a nuclear threshold country.
Iran’s Supreme Leader warned a few days ago that the West could not stop Iran from attaining nuclear capabilities.
The Saudis have known Iran’s nuclear plans for years. As early as 2018, MBS said, “If Iran develops a nuclear bomb, we will follow suit as soon as possible.”
The Saudi leader has watched with dismay as Washington and Europe have permitted Tehran to progressively develop domestic nuclear weapons for two decades. Saudi Arabia wants to tap into its vast uranium fields like Iran did to protect itself.
MBS sees recent claims of a revived United States-European Union push to reach another nuclear agreement with Iran as a sign of Western weakness.
If ratified, such an agreement would certainly leave Tehran just a decision away from building an explosive nuclear device at its convenience.
In 2019, MBS got a warning from Tehran on the use of Iranian drones to attack Saudi manufacturing plants and arm Houthi militants in Yemen with similar weapons.
He witnessed little Western response to that attack and near inactivity over Iran’s provision of deadly drones and other armaments for the Ukraine conflict.
The Saudis say the Americans are focusing more on Russia’s belligerence in Europe and China’s aggression in Asia than the Middle East.
A Risky Asian Nuclear Zone
As of 2023, Saudi Arabia relies almost entirely on fossil fuels. Riyadh has announced its plans to build a nuclear infrastructure to meet the Kingdom’s expanding electrical needs.
It has openly worked with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) thus far. MBS intends to exploit Saudi desert uranium resources.
Saudi Arabia expected and relied on a “nuclear umbrella” from Washington to defend it from significant threats, extending United States nuclear deterrence to its longtime Middle Eastern partner.
The Saudis have also invested heavily in the Pakistani nuclear weapons effort, knowing that Islamabad would have to hand over bombs to Riyadh if asked.
The “nuclear Aramco” concept signals a major shift in Saudi nuclear policy toward in-house deterrence.
Saudi civil and possibly military nuclear capability remains years away. However, the scary scenario of a nuclear-weapon zone across Asia, from North Korea to China, Pakistan, India, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Israel, seems closer than ever.
Meanwhile, additional Middle Eastern nations are developing nuclear weapons. With Russia, north of that zone, Asia would have a continuum of non-democratic (or semi-democratic) states with WMDs, mutual rivalries, and the capacity to disturb regional stability.
The rules-based world order based on the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty’s split of nuclear and non-nuclear states would also be threatened.
This catastrophe could have been avoided if the Saudis felt safer against Iran and trusted the international community to defuse Tehran’s nuclear ambitions.
Increased pressure on Tehran can help stop and possibly reverse Iran’s reckless pursuit of nuclear weapons.
The international community should use stronger sanctions, tighter control on nuclear-related materials and equipment, punitive measures against the regime’s leadership, and a credible military option to destroy the Iranian nuclear project’s infrastructure. After the Gaza conflict, the threat of nuclear instability in the Middle East looms closer than ever.