Friday, August 16, 2019

Is President Trump Laying The Ground For A Nuclear Arms Race In The Gulf

Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman shakes hands with US President Donald Trump, at the G20 leaders summit in Osaka, Japan, June 29, 2019 [Handout via Reuters]

Luciano Zaccara, Al Jazeera: Trump is laying the ground for a nuclear arms race in the Gulf

Trump's mismanagement of the nuclear issue in the Middle East is damaging the international nonproliferation regime.

Over the past three months since the Trump administration imposed severe sanctions on Iran, which have significantly curbed its oil exports and exacerbated its economic crisis, tensions in the Gulf have escalated. Commercial vessels have been attacked, oil tankers seized and drones shot down. Despite these escalations, both sides are holding back and at least in the short-term, an open conflict so far seems unlikely.

In the long-term, however, the highly-problematic approach that the United States has adopted towards the nuclear issue could have devastating consequences. Two recent developments point in that direction.

Read more ....

WNU Editor:  Long before President Trump was on the scene a number of Middle Eastern countries had .... or still have .... a nuclear weapons program. Israel was the first. Iraq under Saddam Hussein wanted nuclear weapons (we know what happened there). Syria's nuclear facilities were bombed by Israel before the Syrian war. Egypt abandoned its program to develop nuclear weapons. Iran has had a nuclear program since the 1990s. And now Saudi Arabia wants one.

5 comments:

Heber said...

SAudi Arabia already has a nuclear program, it just that it lent to Pakistan this whole time and nobody talked about it. What do you think that Pakistan by itself had the money to begin the program all those years ago?

Anonymous said...

Heber is right.

Word on the street is that at least one of the nukes made by Pakistan are 'owned' by Saudi Arabia.

Juvie arsonist Obama threw accelerant on the the nuclear arms race with Iranian nuclear deal. Obama beat his chest about his great deal and then the Saudis let everyone know they have nuclear capable missiles. They two incidents are related.

Anonymous said...

As the poster above me commented, KSA has had nukes built and sitting in storage in Pakistan for a couple decades now. Their doctrine doesn't call for them to actually be shipped to the kingdom until Iran achieves breakout capability.

Bob Huntley said...

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Hans Persson said...

Israel was Frensh.

The Frensh is responsible for most of the things in ME, not the US. People seems to forget this.