How Iran Nuclear Standoff Looks From Saudi Arabia: Mustafa Alani

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http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-02-16/how-iran-nuclear-standoff-looks-from-saudi-arabia-mustafa-alani.html


Op-Ed, Iran/Saudi Arabia: Tehran is located 811 miles (1,304 kilometers) from Riyadh. In 2010, Saudi Arabia had a defense budget of $45.2 billion and 233,500 active armed forces personnel; Iran's defense budget was $7 billion with 523,000 active armed forces personnel. Saudi Arabia does not have a nuclear weapons arsenal; the capacity of Iran's nuclear program is uncertain. Charts by Everything Type Company

The most likely victims of a nuclear armed Iran are not the U.S. or Israel, but the Gulf states -- countries that are engaged in intense competition with the regime in Tehran, but that lack the power to deter any threat or aggression with a nuclear-strike capability of their own.

That, at least, is how it looks from Riyadh and other Gulf capitals. Saudi Arabia has kept a low public profile amid the heated international debate regarding the nature and ultimate objectives of the Iranian nuclear program, and the country isn’t yet ready to back a military strike. But that reticence hides deep and genuine concern, demonstrated by the speed with which Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates pledged to fill any shortfall in global oil supplies that planned European Union sanctions on Iran’s energy exports may cause.

A complete EU boycott of Iranian oil would result in the disappearance of about 2.5 million barrels per day from the international oil market, driving up prices sharply and damping the global economy as it struggles to escape a slump.

To start with, the Saudis strongly believe that if Iran is able to militarize its nuclear program while it remains a signatory to the 1968 Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, or NPT, this would render the treaty worthless. The likely Saudi response would be to seek a nuclear capability of its own.

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1. This completely ignores the fact that KSA funded the Pak nuclear arms program, and

still effectively owns and controls its use through its close ties to the Pakistani military and most political leaders.

There is absolutely no reason for KSA or the GCC states to seek another nuclear capability, when they already have one through their proxy, Pakistan.