The Biden administration is hoping to pull off a historic diplomatic feat, resolving multiple, ancient fractures in the Middle East in one stroke. The knife to cut through this regional Gordian knot, in the administration’s view, is Saudi Arabia.
It’s an unlikely and potentially dangerous endeavor that could jeopardize the 56-year-old Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, celebrating its birth on July 1. What the administration is proposing is a juggling act, with many diplomatic balls in the air at once.
The administration’s plan begins by getting Israel to sign off on a Palestinian state in return for Saudi recognition of and rapprochement with Israel. Presumably the rest of the Moslem Middle East will then end its historic opposition to Israel’s very existence.
What’s in it for the Saudis? Separately (but clearly in lockstep), the State Department and the Saudis are wrestling over a deal that would give Saudi Arabia nuclear technology, as the world transitions away from oil. Crude oil transformed Saudi Arabia from a dusty non-entity in the 1920s into the dominant nation in the Middle East. Oil’s days may be waning and nuclear is what the House of Saud demands in return for the Israeli gambit.
As the New York Times reported last year, the Saudis are pressuring Washington to move forward on the nuclear deal by hinting at cozying up to China and its robust nuclear endeavor.
That complex political and policy prestidigitation is difficult. Why would it win support from Israel? Jerusalem’s existential threat isn’t from Saudi Arabia or its fellow travelers. The big threat is Iran, father of Hamas and Hezbollah, and a finger-snap away from the bomb (thanks in part to prior feckless U.S. approaches to regional diplomacy).
What’s more, the “two-state solution” with a separate Palestine is anathema to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his hard liners. In January (with the war in Gaza in full swing), the NYT reported from Israel that Netanyahu said, “My insistence is what has prevented — over the years — the establishment of a Palestinian state that would have constituted an existential danger to Israel. As long as I am prime minister, I will continue to strongly insist on this.”
Now toss this new ball into the air: the Saudis want uranium enrichment technology as part of the nuclear package from the U.S. Riyadh is concerned more about Tehran than Jerusalem although Israel already has the bomb. The bitter-to-the-bone enmity between Riyadh and Tehran goes back decades. Saudis claim they want enrichment technology to process their own low-grade uranium into reactor fuel. That’s dubious.
The Associated Press reported May 17 that it has obtained an International Atomic Energy Agency report showing that Iran has increased its stockpile of uranium enriched to 60%, an easy jump to 90% required for bombs, to 313.2 pounds since the last report in February, an increase of 45.4 pounds.
At a recent Senate committee hearing, Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) said, “Saudi officials have insisted that a deal must include the U.S. construction of a uranium enrichment facility inside its territory. Let me ask you this: would the construction of an enrichment facility inside Saudi Arabia, as currently stipulated and requested by Saudi officials as an element of a potential normalization deal with Israel, be detrimental to our nonproliferation objectives in the region?”
Murphey’s own answer is “yes.” If the Saudis get enrichment, he says, “then the UAE will want that ability, Qatar will want that ability, and it will impact Iran’s decision-making as well….They’re not just going to stand down and allow for Saudi Arabia to have the deal with the United States that they don’t have.”
Earlier, Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) wrote Biden, “Although I strongly support and would eagerly welcome a rapprochement between Israel and its Arab neighbors, including a two-state solution, I have deep concerns about the reported military and nuclear contours of a U.S.-Saudi deal. I fear that Saudi Arabia — a nation with a terrible human rights record — cannot be trusted to use its civil nuclear energy program solely for peaceful purposes and will instead enrich uranium and seek to develop nuclear weapons.”
In a commentary for The Hill May 18, Washington non-proliferation experts Andrea Stricker and Henry Sokolski wrote, “Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman has openly said that Riyadh will obtain nuclear weapons if Iran does, meaning he might eventually pilfer or misappropriate U.S. technology for nuclear weapons.”
They noted that Washington “granted Iran domestic uranium enrichment under the 2015 nuclear deal known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), torpedoing prior UN resolutions demanding Tehran cease that practice.”
Some have suggested a “responsible” gift of enrichment technology: a grace period before the House of Saud can spin up the centrifuges. Stricker and Sokolski note, “One proposal is even stunningly similar to the JCPOA: Restrain Saudi enrichment for 10 years before lifting all restrictions.
“Congress must not be fooled. These proposals, much like the JCPOA, merely kick the can down the road on creating another Middle Eastern state on the cusp of nuclear weapons.”
–Kennedy Maize
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