John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY ALAN MACLEOD IN MINTPRESS
NUCLEAR TECHNOLOGY FOR SAUDI ARABIA AND THE SAUDIS' BIG MILITARY SPENDING
“U.S. President Donald Trump’s energy secretary, Rick Perry, has secretly approved the sale of nuclear power technology and assistance to Saudi Arabia
“Already seven of the 10 countries in the world with the highest military budgets are in the Middle East. The development of nuclear weapons in Saudi Arabia has many speculating that it could mark the beginning of an even more dangerous era for the war-torn region.”
It has long been said that the Saudis financed a lot of Pakistan's nuclear work with the secret understanding that some Pakistani nuclear bombs or warheads would be available to the Saudis upon request in a time "need."
The most interesting thing about all the immense Saudi arms efforts – aside from suggested possible nuclear ones, the conventional forces expenditures are just huge now relative to the size of the country – is the way Israel raises no objection to any of it.
This important fact goes generally overlooked, but it the clearest evidence of a secret special relationship between Israel and Saudi Arabia. I’m not sure it would extend into the nuclear realm, but as for now, Saudi ambitions about nuclear weapons are just that, ambitions.
This tolerance and friendship between Israel and Saudi Arabia have grown up since the days of 9/11 and the Saudis' desperate efforts to earn credibility and a safe friendship with an angry United States. Years of violent dirty work in Syria and Yemen and other places plus financing American dirty operations all over have produced this result.
Complete acceptance, even close embrace, of Israel is part of the new situation. This is kept pretty quiet because the conservative, religious ordinary population of Saudi Arabia would have a difficult time with it. Especially after the decades when the Saudi press and officialdom told them just how awful Israel was.
But they are now in fact very close allies. In a way, it shouldn't be surprising because the two states have much in common. A wealthy, wealthy privileged class. Being viewed as usurpers by many in the Middle East, the House of Saud took over Arabia not that many years before Israel's creation, and it was done with the compliance of the same imperial power that played a role in Israel's creation, Great Britain.
Also, both now share a desire to see the Middle East “reborn” (Condoleezza Rice actually used that word for the screams and explosions of America’s wars there) for their comfort and convenience, no matter how much bloodshed it entails, the Crown Prince having literally arrested a great part of Saudi Arabia’s old order, threatened them, and shaken them down for countless billions of dollars. And we all know when it comes to threats the Crown Prince is a man of his word, his having killed many people at home and abroad. He shares that quality with Netanyahu, giving them a kind of “blood brothers” bond with each other. The rebirth is an American project to turn the region into something secure for imperial interests, especially for America’s major colony in the region.
Defense of the current bloody Crown Prince by Netanyahu and Trump, and they are enthusiastic defenders of this psychopathic man, is of course related to that set of circumstances. He is their man in Saudi Arabia, one proved capable of using violence and desiring their approval, and they want to keep it that way. Never mind all that silly stuff about rights and justice. “Only suckers believe in that” would be the true private response of a Netanyahu or a Trump or a Crown Prince.
