He failed to articulate a persuasive argument for the Iran war and now a poorly negotiated deal with Riyadh has only compounded the danger, writes Foreign Editor David Pratt
AMONG his many controversial traits, a tendency toward double standards sits high on the list.
If ever confirmation of this were needed, just cast your mind back to April, when US president Donald Trump reiterated that in Iran: “There will be no enrichment of uranium.”
On the face of it, Trump’s message appeared clear cut and to that end, the US-Israel war against the Islamic Republic was – along with regime change – aimed at preventing Tehran from possessing an atomic bomb.
But fast forward just a few months and Trump appears now to have done a deal with Iran’s great rival, Saudi Arabia, that could, say some experts, put it on a trajectory to enrich its own fuel for nuclear reactors.
So far, so typically Trump, some might argue. But as if such duplicity were not bad enough, Trump then added another characteristic of his fickle decision-making thinking by insisting that the Saudi deal was conditional on Riyadh normalising relations with Israel.
“The Civil Nuclear Deal (There will be no enrichment of material!) being made between the United States Department of Energy and Saudi Arabia, which pertains only to non-military use such as the ones that Iran and UAE (and others) already have, will be approved, but is totally subject to Saudi Arabia joining the very respected and successful Abraham Accords,” Trump posted on his Truth Social platform last Thursday.
Trump’s intervention, insisting that the deal was subject to recognition of Israel arriving as it did some 16 hours after the initial announcement, appeared to come as late news to the Saudis.
For years now the Gulf kingdom has long insisted that its country will not establish formal relations with Israel until there is a clear path for Palestinian statehood, which Israel’s government staunchly opposes.
It came as late news too, it would appear, to US energy secretary, Chris Wright and his team at the Washington Energy Department who some American media reports suggest jumped the gun in announcing the deal, triggering the social media backlash from Trump.
Trump, so the media speculation goes, added on the “normalisation” with Israel condition to teach Wright and his team a lesson for getting ahead of themselves.
Whatever the truth behind such internal bickering, the Saudi deal now appears somewhat in limbo, though should it go ahead as planned, it will renew fears that Trump is triggering a Middle East nuclear arms race.
It’s not that there is anything new in US nuclear co-operation deals with countries in the region. But back when America first made such a deal with the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in 2009, the safeguards and conditions surrounding the deal were, according to US officials at the time, “gold standard”.
For starters, the Emiratis had to forgo domestic uranium enrichment and reprocessing and sign up to the Additional Protocol, a follow-on to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which provides for tough inspections.
All these conditions were met, leaving the UAE with four reactors that now supply 25% of the country’s electricity.
By contrast, however, Trump’s proposed deal today with the Saudis – should it go ahead – lacks the same rigorous constraints, even if he has insisted that there would “be no enrichment,” a remark in itself that remains unclear, say experts.
For its part, Saudi Arabia says its intentions are peaceful, but while the Gulf kingdom has been a stable monarchy for a long time now, it also has a history of Islamist-inspired extremism.
Governments, as we know, can change, not least in the Middle East, leaving open the question as to who might control a Saudi nuclear program in years to come.
But as The Economist recently detailed, currently there’s no doubt that the desert nation has good reason to pursue a civil nuclear programme.
Sweltering temperatures strain its grid, and the country burns crude oil to meet soaring demand, a dirty and wasteful way to produce electricity, while nuclear power would free up more oil for export.
But over the past 15 years, senior Saudi leaders, including crown prince Mohammed bin Salman, have also repeatedly warned that should Iran successfully develop a nuclear weapon, Riyadh reserves the right to do the same.
Saudi Arabia has also rejected the so-called “gold standard” commitment never to enrich uranium at home or reprocess the spent fuel from a reactor.
Likewise, it opposes more rigorous monitoring and inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
While US officials have been at pains to point out that any new agreement provides enough monitoring, critics say it is inadequate for investigating suspected nuclear activities that don’t involve the US.
The extent of concern among some in America over the vague details of Trump’s deal was summed up last week by a twitchy editorial in The Wall Street Journal (WSJ).
“Why does Saudi Arabia need to enrich uranium on its home soil? The answer isn’t complicated: it doesn’t unless it would like to establish the rudiments of a nuclear-weapons program as a contingency. The more difficult question to answer is why the Trump administration is going along with it,” The WSJ observed.
THE most obvious answer to this is the profit that Trump envisages for American companies. Analysts say the deal, estimated to be worth tens of billions of dollars, is designed to give American companies a central role while shutting out other foreign competitors, including China and Russia.
Westinghouse Electric and its AP1000 flagship technology reactor would be among the biggest beneficiaries.
But Trump has political motives too, for his war on Iran in turn provided an excuse for Tehran to attack its great Saudi rival and the US military bases on its soil as well as petroleum installations and other infrastructure.
This in turn damaged relations between Trump and the Saudi crown prince, who possesses the kind of monarchical power that the US president has a soft spot for, and some say covets.
As The Economist wryly summed it up: “It is typical Trump: a flawed deal as compensation for an incompetent war.”
The whole affair has only dangerously further complicated matters in the region, say Middle East observers. In the UAE’s case, for example – the first recipient of a US nuclear co-operation deal – there could well be some frustration at what it sees as a more permissive Riyadh agreement.
Both Abu Dhabi and Dubai, after all, were also on the receiving end of Iranian drones and missiles, and the UAE just might in future seek to establish a nuclear weapons capacity of its own.
Elsewhere in the region, Turkey, already a powerful military nation and Nato member, will also be looking on, and as the same recent critical WSJ editorial pointed out “and we know how this president (Trump) loathes to say no to Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan”.
All this comes too before the profound implications for Israel. What’s important to recognise here is that the deal with Saudi Arabia has its origins in the Biden administration, which held out nuclear co-operation as a reward if the Saudis were to join the Abraham Accords and recognise Israel. All that looked imminent before the war in Gaza began in 2023, but no longer.
The fact that the initial announcement of the deal contained no mention of Saudi-Israeli rapprochement instantly set off political alarm bells in Israel, the only nuclear-armed country in the Middle East, even if it has never confirmed or denied this.
For its part, given such a position, Israel’s nuclear facilities remain outside International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards. That didn’t stop senior Israeli officials from expressing anger and fear over news of the US-Saudi deal, with many Israeli politicians taking to social media to voice their concerns regarding the agreement.
Some, like Avigdor Lieberman, leader of the right-wing opposition Yisrael Beytenu Party, insisted that it harms Israel’s security interests and signalled yet another failure of Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“Saudi Arabia’s civilian nuclear programme will end with nuclear weapons and will lead to a frantic arms race throughout the entire Middle East,” warned Lieberman.
“The State of Israel must state clearly and unequivocally: we will strongly oppose this,” Lieberman added, urging Israeli action in the US Congress to block the deal.
Meanwhile, Yair Golan, leader of the The Democrats Party, accused Netanyahu directly, saying the prime minister “both lost normalisation with Saudi Arabia and enabled its nuclear capabilities”.
According to The Times of Israel, Trump’s belated announcement of a normalisation condition in the deal “calmed some nerves,” but the deal, it said, “still gives Israel much to fret about”.
Israel, the paper said, could live with a strictly civilian Saudi nuclear program that does not include uranium enrichment on Saudi soil.
“If the Saudis are eventually allowed to enrich on their own soil, as the Iranians did until 2025, then it stands to reason that other Sunni powers will want similar arrangements. How much more dangerous is a Middle East – especially for Israel – with Egypt, Turkey, and Algeria enriching on their own soil?” the paper warned in its analysis.
Meanwhile, the office of Israel’s prime minister Netanyahu, keen to quieten critics, welcomed the announcement, saying: “As president Trump has said, Saudi Arabia’s joining of the Abraham Accords would be a historic leap forward for peace in the Middle East.”
So much for Israel’s concerns, but Trump’s announcement and perceived cosying up to Riyadh will not go down well in Iran and is almost sure to harden Tehran’s position as to its own nuclear ambitions.
When the deal was announced, many observers both in Iran and beyond were quick to point out the inherent hypocrisy in that the Trump administration was now prepared to give Saudi Arabia the very things they were bombing Iran for.
Speaking last week, Iran’s Interior Ministry spokesperson Ali Zeinivand said that the US had a history of allowing some countries to pursue nuclear programmes while denying the same right to others.
Stressing that Iran remains committed to its legal obligations and does not seek nuclear weapons, Zeinivand warned that “if an arms race begins in the region, our hands are freer than everyone else’s.”
For now, the deal must first be submitted to the US Congress for review and has to pass there. However, Trump’s new condition of Saudi-Israeli normalisation has complicated the path forward, leaving it now unclear when, or whether, the deal will be put before Congress.
Steven Cook, a senior fellow for Middle East and Africa studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, last week wrote that Trump’s demand has left the deal “in a state of diplomatic suspension”.
“This situation is likely to cause tension between Washington, which treats the president’s social media posts as official policy, and Riyadh, which has committed to a diplomatic agreement,” wrote Cook in a post published by the Council on Foreign Relations.
For the moment then, the agreement sits in a state of limo after what at first looked like a done deal before Trump’s 11th-hour normalisation amendment.
Just as Trump has failed to articulate a persuasive argument for going to war in Iran, so he has now created a poorly negotiated deal with Saudi Arabia that has set alarm bells ringing.
Writing a few days ago for the US-based magazine Foreign Policy, Azriel Bermant, associate researcher at the Institute of International Relations and a specialist in arms control issues, summed up the reaction of many regional observers to the way the deal has played out.
“It beggars belief that the United States went to war against Iran to prevent it from acquiring a nuclear weapon yet now acts in a way that is an open invitation for Tehran to weaponise,” noted Bermant. “Once again, Trump has acted with serious disregard for any long-term consequences.”
