Trump approves nuclear agreement that may allow Saudi Arabia to enrich uranium

[00:00:00]Let's go to treat a parsi now. He is the co-founder and executive vice president of the Quincy Institute. He's also an expert in Middle East geopolitics frequent guest in the program.

[00:00:10]Um, there are two parts to this issue nuclear power in Saudi Arabia and unchecked enrichment in Saudi Arabia.

[00:00:17]Um, which is concern concerning to you?

[00:00:21]>> Well, I mean, I think this deal has many many problems with it particularly when you take a look at it in the larger context that is happening right now. The United States according to the Trump administration is trying to prevent the Iranians from having nuclear technology.

[00:00:36]Now they're offering the same technology to the Saudis who have incidentally told American decision makers according to the WikiLeaks that they would pursue a nuclear weapon if the Iranians were to have one. So they've actually even declared an interest in it. At the same time, the Obama agreement did accept enrichment in Iran grudgingly, but it imposed significant inspections on that program by the IAEA international inspections. This proposal would not have any international inspections but would only be inspected by the United States which would really set a very bad precedent. It undermines the entire non-proliferation regime.

[00:01:19]So it's very difficult for me to see how the United States can give the Saudis this and then go and have a negotiation with Iranians if those talks ever resume and expect to be able to get the Iranians to accept either no enrichment or even a moratorium on enrichment for a couple of years and then expect them to agree to even stronger inspections than was in the JCPOA while they're offering the Saudis a completely different deal with none of those inspections.

[00:01:47]>> Trita, you know the old saying from Ronald Reagan trust but verify. 15 of the 19 hijackers in the September 11th terrorist attacks Saudi citizens.

[00:01:56]Now while the 9/11 Commission report found that the Saudi government did not fund Al-Qaeda, when the FBI released that video in 2024, it complicated the findings. The question, how did Saudi Arabia go from 9/11 to now getting a nuclear deal with the United States?

[00:02:14]>> Well, over the years the Saudis have managed to become an increasingly important country in the world. The United States is very worried that the Saudis will move closer to the Chinese because of their tremendous wealth, because of their oil weapon. And as a result, all of these other concerns frankly have been put aside. There's been lawsuits against the Saudis by family members 9/11 survivors who or victims and in in those cases during the Biden administration, the Biden administration intervened to protect the Saudi government and which presumably was because they wanted to protect the larger relationship which that presumably is because of the larger geopolitical importance to Saudi Arabia has particularly in the context of China.

[00:02:56]So so unfortunately you have a situation which the Saudis have leveraged. That however does not mean that a deal of this kind was required or necessary. And incidentally, it should also be said that Biden administration laid groundwork for this. Towards the end of its term it was actually offering something along these lines to the Saudis but it couldn't really get it over the finishing line.

[00:03:17]But even then that the Biden administration recognized the dangers of this so they were even investigating proposals such as having American troops present at these sites in order to protect the site from the Saudi from a potential Saudi takeover or even having mechanisms that would have the the site be blown up remotely if something was going to happen there that was unacceptable to the US. But if you have to think about proposals of that kind, perhaps that's a red flag that this is a really dumb idea to begin with.

[00:03:47]>> Krithika, should the American public trust the Saudis?

[00:03:52]>> Well, in this case we have to keep in mind the Saudis are do have a close relationship with the United States and if there is a deal, you know, there should be the type of inspections regimes etc. that would make it go back to exactly what you said, trust but verify or mistrust and verify.

[00:04:09]But again here we're talking about a system that is subpar compared to the international inspections and even if the US itself believes that those inspections are sufficient for the US, it's also happening in a larger context in which more and more countries are starting to look at nuclear weapons seriously because of the fact that the United States and Israel bombed Iran twice in the middle of negotiations and really made it very clear that the reason why not North Korea has not been bombed is precisely because it did have nuclear weapons and the Iranians didn't.

[00:04:40]So in that context, undermining the inspections regime of the IAEA by striking a deal that would have none of those inspections take place, I think is profoundly dangerous.

[00:04:50]>> The treaty of the president continues to tout fossil fuels, even rolling back those tax credits for electric cars and and solar power from the Biden administration. What does it say that the world's largest exporter of fossil fuels is now saying it needs nuclear power?

[00:05:07]>> I mean look, the the reason why the Saudis are pursuing this is mostly been in order to make sure that if the Iranians had it, the Saudis would have it as well. It's not because the Saudis believe that they are in dire need of nuclear technology or nuclear energy, particularly mindful of the fact that they have tremendous capacity for solar energy and things of that nature. So and again I think it goes back to what I said earlier on, we are now in a context in which many countries who for long had forsworn not to pursue nuclear weapons are having open debates as to whether that is a path that they need to go and Saudi Arabia is probably not an exception.

[00:05:46]>> Does this make Israel now more complicated a deal between Israel and Saudi Arabia?

[00:05:53]>> Well, I think a deal between Israel and Saudi Arabia would be the type of a normalization that Trump first established between the Emirates and the Israelis and that the Biden administration really tried to establish between the Saudis and Israel is no longer in the cards in the first place because of what the Israelis have done in Gaza. Nevertheless, a key leverage to be able to get back to that point was precisely that the United States would not give these things to the Saudis until there was also a deal between the Saudis and the Israelis.

[00:06:21]That is now also been undermined, but I think that is a lesser point. The greater point from the Israeli standpoint is that they never wanted a deal with the Saudis that entailed the Saudis getting nuclear technology because now Saudi Arabia has a pathway to a nuclear weapon and that fundamentally changes Israel's security environment.

[00:06:40]>> Is this a rush? And And the reason I bring it up is Congress still has to sign off. Um, do you see this deal making it through both houses? And do you see this deal making it through both houses if there should be a change in one of the houses following the November midterms?

[00:06:55]>> I think there will be significant opposition to it, but I also think that this was really not on the radar of a lot of members of Congress. So, as a result, it's not clear to me exactly what the landscape looks like. I know that towards the end of the Biden administration, it was a question mark as to whether they could get it through the House and the Senate. Uh, knowing very well that uh, the non-proliferation risks and considerations were very, very weak. It seems like it's even weaker now, but also a different situation in Congress, but after the midterms, it certainly would be more difficult to see that the Democrats would agree to such a deal, particularly if this is going to give Trump a win. So, that's the political dimension of it. The non-proliferation dimension of it is very difficult to sell this deal to Congress.

[00:07:40]>> Trita Parsi with the Quincy Institute.

[00:07:42]Trita, as always, we thank you.