Standoff with Iran prompts a nuclear deal with Saudi Arabia
WASHINGTON— Trump administration agrees to work with Saudi Arabia develop a civil nuclear programIt’s a turning point after years of efforts to prevent the spread of nuclear technology in the Middle East.
The announcement comes after President Trump vowed to continue waging war against Iran over its own nuclear ambitions. on wednesday, the president warned he would target a bridge or power plant That amount increases for each commercial ship Iran fires on in the Strait of Hormuz, after it threatened earlier this week to strike a new facility Tehran is building to hide its ongoing nuclear work.
The Saudi deal has raised surprise and immediate concern in Washington, where lawmakers are expected to vote on the issue, as well as in nuclear power Israel, which has long feared a nuclear arms race would grip the region.
The Saudi nuclear program has long been associated with a dispute over Iran’s nuclear work, and successive US administrations have said it goes beyond civilian purposes. After Iran struck a nuclear deal with world powers in 2015, Saudi Arabia promised to match any nuclear capabilities Tehran was allowed to retain.
In the decade since, U.S. officials have tried to prevent Saudi Arabia from developing its own program, fearing it would fuel nuclear competition in the Middle East. But it has become a consistent and central negotiating point between the two allies.
Both the Trump and Biden administrations ultimately offered to support a limited, monitored program as part of a broader deal to normalize relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel, hoping that a diplomatic breakthrough would reduce the risks of an arms race.
But the deal secured this week left skeptics in Washington and the region uncertain what the United States was getting in return.
The deal comes after Trump told reporters this week that the purpose of restarting the war with Iran was to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons; This is a problem that has plagued the international community since the turn of the century.
US presidents have long tried to prevent Middle Eastern countries from acquiring technologies that could be used to create weapons of mass destruction. The invasion of Iraq in 2003, due to false claims about Saddam Hussein’s weapons programs, caused Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi to abandon his nuclear work. Over the next two decades, the United States and Israel also targeted Syria’s nuclear and chemical weapons programs under Bashar al-Assad.
But Iran’s slow progress toward a nuclear weapons capability, enriching uranium to near weapons level with no clear goal, civilian or scientific, has led other countries in the region to question whether they will need similar capabilities to counterbalance a historic enemy. It is widely believed that Israel has its own nuclear weapons, seeing the Islamic Republic and its nuclear program as an existential threat.
Hours after the nuclear deal was announced Wall Street MagazineThe White House has remained mum on the details, and Trump administration officials were stunned when asked for answers by lawmakers and reporters.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters while traveling in Manila. aware of the newsbut was deferred to the White House pending further public information.
When pressed about the risks of such a deal, Rubio said he would not “express a direct opinion on the deal” but that the United States “will not enter into any agreement with any country in the world that would create a risk of nuclear proliferation.”
The White House confirmed the agreement Wednesday afternoon.
In Washington, US Ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz told members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee that he had not yet seen the agreement with Saudi Arabia.
The agreement, which will last 30 years and include American companies developing the program, is expected to be submitted to Congress for review. Lawmakers will consider the deal as they grow increasingly uneasy about the Trump administration’s handling of the sprawling war on Iran that Trump and Israel launched, arguing for the need to eliminate Tehran’s capabilities to produce nuclear weapons.
As the war entered its fifth month, Trump continued to defend the military effort and dismissed the notion that the war was unpopular among Americans who felt its economic effects.
“Americans are not against war,” Trump told reporters on Wednesday. “Americans don’t want high gas prices, but they’re not against war either.”
Trump’s remarks came as he was en route to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware to participate in the honorable transfer of US soldiers killed in battle. When asked what he would say to families who lost loved ones, Trump said he would tell them they were loved.
“All I’ll say is, we love you. We love your child, and that’s what they are for. They’re their children. No games, no nothing,” Trump said. “This is their child and all you can do is pour your heart out.”
Earlier in the day, Trump said the United States would destroy a bridge or power plant in Iran every time it opened fire on a ship in the Strait of Hormuz, a vital waterway for global energy supplies.
Trump’s threat to target bridges and power plants could signal a new escalation that could affect civilians in the region.
Hassan Ghashghavi, a member of the National Security and Foreign Policy Committee of the Iranian Parliament, on Tuesday denied Trump’s claim that Iran had requested negotiations, saying in a statement on channel X that this was “in no way consistent with the facts.”
“It looks like Trump should be looking for better ways to get out of the quagmire he’s gotten himself into,” he wrote. “Repeated lies no longer bring even short-term market relief.”
Nebih Bulos, a Times writer in Beirut contributed to this report.
