Saudi Arabia has vowed to develop nuclear weapons if Iran does, the country said this week. Saudi’s defense chief and heir apparent, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman said that the Kingdom would pursue nuclear weapons if Iran restarts its program, in an interview with CBS’ 60 Minutes set to air tomorrow.
“Saudi Arabia does not want to acquire any nuclear bomb, but without a doubt if Iran developed a nuclear bomb, we will follow suit as soon as possible,” the Prince said.
The Iran nuclear deal has dominated foreign policy discussion vis a vis the Middle East both in the U.S. and abroad as President Trump has indicated his unhappiness with the deal and desire to see it rescinded.
The deal was signed by Iran, Russia, China, Germany, France, the U.K. and the Obama administration in 2015. It called for a halt in Iran’s uranium enrichment program and inspections of nuclear sites by monitors, in exchange for the lifting of crippling economic sanctions by the international community.
It did not address Iran’s human rights violations, it’s sponsoring of regional terrorism or its non-nuclear ballistic missile program – flaws, President Trump says, warrant a renegotiation of the pact.
President Trump’s views on the deal are among the chief reasons he fired Secretary of State Tillerson this week and nominated CIA Director Mike Pompeo to take his place. Tillerson strongly supported the U.S.’ involvement in the pact, while Pompeo has been highly critical it.
“We got along actually quite well but we disagreed on things,” the President said of Tillerson this week. “When you look at the Iran Deal, I think it’s terrible. I guess he thought it was OK. I wanted to either break or do something, and he felt a lit bit differently. So we were not really thinking the same.”
“With Mike…we have a very similar thought process. I think it’s going to go very well.”
Tillerson had been working with other nations to develop an ancillary agreement aimed at easing some of Trump’s concerns. Trump waived economic sanctions against Iran in January, but vowed not to extend them again. The next opportunity to do so comes in May.
The Iranian government has said it will not accept any changes to the deal, nor will it allow the nuclear pact to be connected with any other issues. Iran “will not accept any change in the deal, neither now nor in the future,” and will “not take any action beyond its commitments,” the Foreign Ministry said in a statement earlier this month.
It is unclear what effect Tillerson’s departure will have on the working group.
Pompeo, should he be confirmed, will be stepping into a situation of heightened tensions between Saudi Arabia and Iran. The Crown Prince likened Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei to Adolf Hitler in the 60 Minutes interview for his pursuit for regional hegemony.
“He (Khamenei) wants to create his own project in the Middle East very much like Hitler who wanted to expand at the time. Many countries around the world and in Europe did not realize how dangerous Hitler was until what happened, happened. I don’t want to see the same events happening in the Middle East,” Salman said.
The Iranian Foreign Ministry, in response, called Salman naïve and delusional. “He is a delusional naive person, who never talks, but with lies and bitterness, and has no idea of politics, but to use untimely strong words due to lack of foresight,” spokesman Bahram Qassemi said.