The 'Saudi Nukes' Saga

Media attention to the matter has been waxing and waning for a numbers of years now, but only in a rather submissive and off the cuff way. Could something really be cooking in this regard? Let's see.

At the beginning of November 2013, early reports surfaced that the Saudis might be trying to develop  nuclear capabilities. Hence, on Nov 6/7 The Guardian, the BBC and the Daily Mail carried articles raising a number of flags suggesting alleged Saudi efforts could be receiving assistance from Pakistan, whose nuclear program, the Sauds reportedly financed. However, two weeks later, Zachary Keck responded that there was no way the Pakis would sell the Saudis the bomb.

A little less than two years later, March 26, 2015, the Saudi Ambassador to the United States went on air on CNN to deny any allegation of capability and even intent:

On June 11, just as the Saudi Ambassador to the United Kingdom was telling The Telegraph that "all options are on the table", no less than Fareed Zakaria penned an Op-ed for the Washington Post debunking the rumours, and arguing that Saudi could never even dream of getting nukes, because just too primitive. Zakaria followed up with a GPS take on CNN to reinforce those points. However, asked to comment on these views, John Burgess, a former US Foreign Service Officer with experience of the Middle East, underscored the aforementioned Saud-Pak connection (June 20, 2015). In June 2015, Zachary Keck even evoked a potential North Korea connection??

Fast-forward to 2016: in an interview with The Independent in January, the Saudi foreign minister is evasive and ambivalent regarding Saudi intentions to acquire nuclear weapons, and on the 20th day of February, Duane Clarridge a former Senior CIA officer drops the bombshell: The Saudis already HAVE SEVERAL nukes:

Six days later, the confirmation: SAUDI ARABIA HAS NUCLEAR WEAPONS, and they've had them for about two years. Approximatively, this would mean they obtained them around February 2014. Comparing timelines, it is likely, therefore, that the November 2013 early reports had picked up on something serious. 

For further reading, Norman Cigar of the Strategic Studies Institute published an interesting book: Saudi Arabia and Nuclear Weapons: How Do Countries Think about the Bomb?  was released in March 2016.

Turkey's EU Accession bid unwinding?

The Austrian Chancellor Christian Kern probably used the right words when he called Turkey’s EU accession talks a diplomatic fiction. The clamour stoked by that declaration is only indicative of how thick that delusion had become.  It was however obvious that, as mentioned in our July 17 post, besides not belonging to Europe in any reasonably way- whether geographical, historical, cultural, or political- Turkey had also been drifting steadily away  from European values. With the country now on the fast track to an authoritarian metamorphosis disguised as state of emergency, it seems clear that accession is a no-go. Following the events of Incirlik, will the next step be a withdrawal or expulsion from NATO?  

Regardless, now that EU accession is finally increasingly off the table, Turkey will have to set its own path- hopefully refraining from blackmail and extortion as it has attempted to do (not without some success) with the EU. As we have observed, Turkey is the heir to a great culture and civilization. Its future course must be inspired by that cultural legacy; it must identify a plausible geographical context to unfold- the most natural being the Middle East; it must rediscover, but obviously reinterpret its history (given the disastrous epilogue of the Ottoman Empire); it must find its own sources and foundations of political legitimacy and good governance, and possibly ones that it can share with its neighbourhood, which could -and perhaps should- include Israel. 

In fact, if these two important states, plus, perhaps, Iran and Egypt, could cooperate to give birth to a Community of the Middle East that would certainly be seen as a positive development. The Europeans should obviously be at the window, hopefully supportive of Turkey's new course, as good and respectful neighbours. 

Collateral damage?

An unfortunate byproduct of regime change in Ukraine: Ukrainian Holocaust Perpetrators Are Being Honored in Place of Their Victims.