By Trisha Roy
Saudi Arabia will develop nuclear weapons if its arch-enemy Iran does so, the kingdoms crown prince said in remarks released on Thursday, raising the prospect of a nuclear arms race in a region already riven with conflict. 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, Prince Mohammed bin Salman told CBS in an interview that will air in full on Sunday. The Sunni Muslim kingdom has been at loggerheads with revolutionary Shiite Iran for decades. The countries have fought a long-running proxy war in the Middle East and beyond, backing rival sides in armed conflicts and political crises including in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen.
The Saudi-Iran conflict
Prince Mohammed, who also serves as Saudi’s defence minister, said last year that the kingdom would make sure any future struggle between the two countries is waged in Iran, prompting Iranian threats to hit back at most of Saudi Arabia except the holy cities of Mecca and Medina.
Riyadh has criticised the 2015 deal between world powers and Tehran under which economic sanctions on Iran were lifted in return for the Islamic Republic curbing its nuclear energy programme. U.S. sanctions will resume unless President Donald Trump issues fresh waivers to suspend them. The strategic rivalry is heating up because Iran is, in many ways winning the regional struggle. In Syria, the Iranianand Russiansupport for President Bashar al-Assad has largely routed rebel groups backed by Saudi Arabia. The Sunni kingdom is trying desperately to contain the rising Iranian influence, and the militaristic adventurism of the kingdom’s young and impulsive Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman; the country’s de facto ruler, is exacerbating regional tensions.
This is in many ways a regional equivalent of the Cold War, which pitted the US against the Soviet Union in a tense military standoff for many years. Iran and Saudi Arabia are not directly fighting but they are engaged in a variety of proxy wars around the region. Syria is an obvious example while in Yemen, Saudi Arabia has accused Iran of supplying ballistic missiles fired at Saudi territory by the Shia Houthi rebel movement, the incident which heightened the war of words between the two countries.
A possible nuclear arms race?
The international community has long been concerned that Iran’s development of nuclear weapons could spark a nuclear arms race in the Middle East, a key factor in the decision to reach a diplomatic settlement with Tehran over its nuclear program in 2015. The Crown Prince also doubled down on his comparison of Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei to Adolf Hitler in an interview, saying the two both had dangerous expansionist goals. When asked about the Crown Prince’s comments, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Qassemi said they didn’t warrant a response. “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,” he said, according to Press TV, an Iranian state-run news outlet.
Shia Muslim majority-Iran and Sunni-majority Saudi Arabia have been adversaries for decades, but the proxy battle between the two has taken a new turn since the Crown Prince’s rise. He has overseen Riyadh’s participation in Yemen’s civil war, where Iranian-backed Houthi rebels, who are Shia Muslims, are fighting the Saudi-backed fledgeling government. Salman’s comments are likely to renew concerns about what happens if the US President Donald Trump follows through on his campaign promise to scrap the pact, which was negotiated by the Obama administration. Trump decertified the Iran deal late last year, declaring it not in the interest of the United States, but has not pulled out of the agreement altogether. He has continued to extend a waiver that keeps sanctions against Tehran from kicking back in. Trump and his nominee to be the next US Secretary of State and current CIA Director Mike Pompeo, are vocal critics of the Iran nuclear deal, which essentially gave Tehran sanctions relief if it agreed to international supervision of its nuclear program and ceased all efforts to develop nuclear weapons.