Addressing the United Nations on Wednesday, King Salman laid the diplomatic groundwork for a Saudi Arabian nuclear weapons program.
In a fiery speech, Salman suggested that peaceful compromise with the Islamic Republic of Iran is folly. He lambasted Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs, its terrorist campaigns, and its proxy activity in Lebanon and Yemen. Salman then explained that “our experience with the Iranian regime has taught us that partial solutions and appeasement did not stop its threats to international peace and security.” This lament of “partial solutions” and “appeasement” is intended as a clear rebuke of the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, also known as the Iran nuclear agreement. But it’s more than that. It’s a warning that unless Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs are more actively restrained, Riyadh will develop its own programs.
But if Salman was the messenger, the source of this harder-edged tone is the king’s son, Mohammed bin Salman. As crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman will take over when his ailing father dies. And the prince has made it clear that more aggressive efforts to counter Iran will form the centerpiece of his foreign policy.
To that end, Mohammed, who now supervises the foreign policy portfolio, has engaged Chinese nuclear scientists toward the development of a Saudi nuclear program. This recent development reflects a shift away from the traditional Saudi nuclear strategy of relying on Pakistan to deliver nuclear weapons and know-how, if Riyadh comes to judge it necessary. That approach allowed the Saudis a measure of confidence that they could deter Iran, but in a way that mitigated Washington’s concern over nuclear proliferation in the Middle East. That the crown prince has now altered course toward a more overt nuclear capacity will be a major challenge for Joe Biden, should he win the presidency. After all, Biden’s returning of America to the JCPOA will only fuel Mohammed’s belief that Saudi Arabia needs its own nuclear program.
Some will suggest that Saudi nuclear ambitions can be corralled by more overt U.S. security guarantees and by the more active constraint of Iran’s own nuclear agenda. But I believe those assertions are misguided. The Saudis share Israeli sentiments that the JCPOA is just a roundabout way for Iran to reach a nuclear weapons capacity. Certainly, the JCPOA’s absent ballistic missile safeguards play to that understanding. Yet, the real issue here is how the crown prince views nuclear weapons. For the young leader who seeks a multidecade rule as the desert kingdom’s most transformative leader ever, the ability to produce nuclear weapons at short notice is a critical one. Those weapons wouldn’t simply serve as consolidation against his paranoia of being perceived as weak by Iran. The development of a Saudi nuclear program would serve another, far more ideologically important counterpoint to the explicit security concern.
Namely, in providing Mohammed bin Salman with the tangible means to claim technological equilibrium with his primary Islamic competitor. I cannot overstate how important this point is. As the keeper of the Kaaba (Islam’s holiest site) and the de jure leader of Sunni political Islamic thought, the crown prince views Shia Iran as his primary competitor as well as his primary nemesis. The ideological impetus for this understanding reaches back at least 1,340 years to the Battle of Karbala. A last stand by Shia hero Husayn ibn Ali against a far larger Sunni imperial army, that battle forms the centerpiece of Shia resistance narratives. It is the lifeblood, ideologically, of the Khomeinist theological teachings adopted by Iran. In turn, it fuels Iran’s desire to one day subjugate Saudi Arabia under the Shia flag. This is why, for Mohammed bin Salman, historical ideology and modern security converge in a nuclear program. The crown prince will not allow his kingdom to either become, or be perceived to have become, subordinate to Iran.
Those who believe King Salman’s speech was just standard fare rhetoric are likely to be surprised in the coming years.
