misfir a
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The US-Saudi nuclear deal makes no sense A few points on the shocking U.S.–Saudi nuclear deal announced. 🔺This reflects a weaker American bargaining position, not a stronger one. The broader context is China. The Biden administration pursued a nuclear deal with Saudi Arabia, as part of a broader expansion of Trump’s Abraham Accords, in part to pull Riyadh closer to Washington and away from Beijing. But Washington’s position has deteriorated since then. The credibility of the U.S. security umbrella has weakened, GCC states have become more strategically autonomous, and Saudi Arabia has gained leverage by diversifying its partnerships. The result appears to be that Washington had to offer substantially more to try to keep Saudi from drifting further toward China, while getting substantially less in return. 🔺Biden was going down the same path… The Biden administration reportedly considered similar arrangements, but its efforts were derailed by the repercussions of the October 7 attacks. Biden officials also understood the risks, although it did not prevent them from pursuing it and signalling willingness to offer Saudi major nuclear concessions. Some of the contingency ideas reportedly discussed bordered on the surreal: having American troops physically guard Saudi enrichment facilities from the Saudis themselves, or designing systems that would allow the United States to disable—or even destroy remotely—the facilities if necessary. The fact that such safeguards were seriously contemplated should itself have been a warning. If your proposal requires extraordinary mechanisms to prevent your own ally from using the technology you are providing, perhaps the proposal is fundamentally flawed. 🔺This likely weakens Washington’s negotiating position with Iran If there is eventually another U.S.-Iran nuclear agreement, today’s decision establishes an entirely new benchmark. It becomes impossible to argue that Saudi Arabia may enrich uranium while Iran cannot, although Tehran was never going to accept zero enrichment in the first place. But proposals that earlier had been entertained - such as a 5- to 10-year moratorium on enrichment - may now also be out of reach. Moreover, and perhaps more importantly, it becomes harder to insist on intrusive international inspections for Iran while accepting a far lighter non-IAEA inspection regime for Saudi Arabia. And it becomes much more difficult to portray enrichment itself as an unacceptable proliferation risk. Washington has made the type of deal it wants from Iran more complicated. Full analysis on Substack: tritaparsi.substack.com/p/the-us-saudi…
