The director of the Middle East program at Defense Priorities, Rosemary Kelanic, is skeptical that a public commitment alone would satisfy Riyadh, noting that past promises have collapsed too many times. She believes that only concrete steps toward statehood would be believable — something she does not see happening under any government led by Mr. Netanyahu.
On the current trajectory, both Mr. Gause and Ms. Kelanic suggest that Saudi Arabia’s participation in the Abraham Accords is years, not months, away if it is to happen at all. But, they say, linking the Accords to the nuclear deal is not necessarily a bad outcome.
“Offering to build enrichment facilities in Saudi Arabia is a terrible idea and should be abandoned entirely because it would give the Saudis an enormous leg-up on developing their own nuclear weapons program, and the U.S. should not help any country obtain nuclear weapons — especially not a country implicated in the 9/11 terrorist attacks and where 15 of the 19 hijackers originated,” Ms. Kelanic tells the Sun.
“If there is any country where nuclear weapons could fall into the wrong hands, it is Saudi Arabia.”
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