One likely Saudi Arabian response to the deal Iran has struck with world powers is to accelerate its own nuclear power plans, creating an atomic infrastructure it could, one day, seek to weaponise.| Gee, really? Rooters put the A team on this article... |
| Political pressure? From who? |
| And like the Paks, the Saudis won't wait for the Iranians to announce success... |
| Would that happen? Would we disown a nation that still sells the oil we need, particularly if the Medes and Persians start getting full of themselves? |
They are also split on whether international pressure via meaningful sanctions could be imposed on a country whose economy depends almost entirely on trade, but whose ability to maintain massive oil exports is critical for global energy markets.
| I'll take the latter and give the points... |
The kingdom's atomic power plans, like those of Iran, are based on the economic principle that it is better to use crude oil for revenue-generating exports to maintain social benefits than fritter it away on soaring electricity consumption. Its nuclear body, the King Abdullah City for Atomic and Renewable Energy (KACARE), recommended in 2012 that Saudi Arabia install 17 gigawatts of nuclear power but it has not yet laid out plans to do so.
Riyadh has signed nuclear energy cooperation agreements with several countries able to build reactors, but recent deals with France, Russia and South Korea go beyond these by including feasibility studies for atomic power plants and fuel cycle work. Daunting technical obstacles would still hinder any Saudi attempt to build a bomb, something that would most likely be achieved via a uranium enrichment process for which technological transfer between countries is closely regulated.
"It's very technically challenging to obtain the fissile material needed for a weapon and with the enhanced safeguard measures of the model additional protocol, the risk of detection is great," said Karl Dewey, the Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear analyst at IHS Janes.
The additional protocol is part of a stronger regime of inspections and safeguards that Iran has adopted and would likely be a condition of any Saudi nuclear programme.
At present, the United States is so closely entwined with Saudi Arabia's political and security infrastructure that it would be hard to envisage Riyadh embarking on a nuclear weapons project without Washington finding out.
Going behind Washington's back to build a nuclear bomb would cause massive ruptures in a strategic security relationship that will remain vital to Saudi Arabia despite its efforts to create alternative alliances. The pair's relationship has weakened in recent years.