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.”
