Saudi-US nuclear deal sparks fear of arms race across the Middle East

For two decades, oil-rich Saudi Arabia has sought nuclear technology. Now an agreement with Washington to formalize Riyadh’s goal, however, has sparked concern that the deal, coupled with the messy aftermath of the war between Washington and Tehran, could plunge the region into a new arms race.

The most controversial part of the agreement – reportedly granting Saudi Arabia a future option to enrich uranium on its own soil with less oversight from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), that’s garnered the strongest reactions from Iranian, Israeli and American commentators.

But in Tehran, where the United States and Israel launched a war in February to destroy Iran’s nuclear program, a move that raised the possibility of Tehran changing its doctrine to build a bomb, some officials actually welcomed the possibility of a new arms race, effectively asking: Why should the Saudis have nuclear capabilities when we can’t?

“Naturally, if an arms race were to take hold in this region, we would have more freedom of action than anyone else,” Iran’s Interior Ministry spokesperson Ali Zeinivand told reporters on Wednesday night according to state-affiliated media. “America has a history of discrimination; in one place it says that some countries should have nuclear programs and in another place, it says that they should not.”

An Iranian hardline newspaper, Hamshahari, said Washington has “double standards” and accused Riyadh of playing a role in the September 11, 2001 attacks on the US.

“While targeting Iran’s peaceful nuclear program and launching an all-out war in the region (it is now) granting a fundamentalist Islamic country that played a role in the September 11 attacks the right to enrich nuclear weapons with the risk of nuclear proliferation,” the paper said.

While 15 of the 19 9/11 attackers were Saudi citizens, the Kingdom has consistently denied any government involvement in the attacks. The US has long said its strategic partner had no role in the attacks and that al Qaeda acted on its own in hijacking four commercial airplanes and flying them into the Twin Towers in New York City and the Pentagon.