-

No Saudi prolif

No capabilities Too controversial and destabilizing Committed to economic reforms Official opposition Lippman 11 [Thomas, senior adjunct scholar at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington. His career in journalism at the Washington Post included four years as the Washington Posts Middle East bureau chief, three years as the Posts oil and energy reporter and a decade as the newspapers national security and diplomatic correspondent, he traveled extensively to Saudi Arabia, 8 5-11, Saudi Arabias Nuclear Policy, http://www.susris.com/2011/08/05/saudi-arabia%E2%80%99s-nuclear-policy-lippman/]

It is highly unlikely, however, that Saudi Arabia would wish to acquire its own nuclear arsenal or that it is capable of doing so. King Abdullahs comments should not be taken as a dispositive statement of considered policy. There are compelling reasons why Saudi Arabia would not undertake an effort to develop or acquire nuclear weapons, even in the unlikely event that Iran achieves a stockpile and uses this arsenal to threaten the Kingdom.

Money is not an issue if destitute North Korea can develop nuclear weapons, Saudi Arabia surely has the resources to pursue such a program. With oil prices above $90 a barrel, Riyadh is flush with cash. But the acquisition or development of nuclear

weapons would be provocative, destabilizing, controversial and extremely difficult for Saudi Arabia, and ultimately would be more likely to weaken the kingdom than strengthen it. The kingdom has committed itself to an industrialization and economic development program that depends on open access to global markets and materials; becoming a nuclear outlaw would be fatal to those plans. Pursuing nuclear weapons would be a flagrant violation of Saudi Arabias commitments under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), and would surely cause a serious breach with the United States. Saudi Arabia lacks the industrial and technological base to develop such weapons on its own. An attempt to acquire nuclear weapons by purchasing them, perhaps from Pakistan, would launch Saudi Arabia on a dangerously inflammatory trajectory that could destabilize the entire region, which Saudi Arabias leaders know would not be in their countrys best interests. The Saudis always prefer stability to turmoil. Their often-stated official position is that the entire Middle East should become an internationally supervised region free of all weapons of mass destruction. No Saudi prolif decades away from even having the capacity Hoodbhoy 11 , professor of physics at Quaid-i-Azaam University in Islamabad, interviewed by Jess Hill, Australian
Broadcasting Corporation, 7/1/2011 HOODBHOY: Saudi

Arabia doesn't have the technological capacity, and in particular the highly skilled technicians, engineers and scientists who would be required to start a nuclear program, whether that be nuclear-power generation or making the bomb itself. So, obviously, they would look for expatriates and
they would try to get them from all over the world, they could try and get people from people from ex-Soviet Union countries, you would get Russians, and more than anybody else, they would try to get Pakistanis, because Pakistan has a fair amount of experience in dealing with nuclear issues. It has a nuclear-power program, but it's got even more expertise in terms of the bomb. JESS HILL: Now there was a report a few years ago, I think in 2003, that Saudi Arabia and Pakistan had entered a kind of pact for cheap oil on Pakistan's side and for nuclear weapons to the Saudis. Is there any evidence to suggest that Saudi Arabia and

Pakistan already have an agreement like this? PERVEZ HOODBHOY: None at all. I don't believe that any kind of formal agreement exists. It may well be that there's a wink and a nod here and there, but that's it. Now when

Pakistan tested nuclear weapons in 1998 it was subject to sanctions and the Saudi help, in terms of the oil given to Pakistan, was key in helping Pakistan survive those days. Now Saudi Arabia may have hinted at that time that it too would like nuclear weapons but then, given how closely aligned it is to the United States, I don't think that there was any kind of formal agreement at that time either. JESS HILL: Now you say that Saudi Arabia may turn to Pakistan for expertise; is there any likelihood that Saudi Arabia

could go to Pakistan for a fully finished nuclear weapon? PERVEZ HOODBHOY: No, that certainly is not
the way that they would go about it. JESS HILL: Now Saudi Arabia's also a signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty; what legal and political problems would it face if it went ahead with publicly pursuing a nuclear weapon? PERVEZ HOODBHOY: I don't think the NPT would be any kind of a barrier in terms of getting nuclear power plants, and once you get nuclear power plants you are well ahead in the quest for the bomb. After all let's remember that Iran, too, is a member of the NPT and yet it does seem to be pursuing enrichment and, well, at some point, it may even want reprocessing. JESS HILL: What do you think is the likelihood that Saudi Arabia will acquire nuclear weapons? PERVEZ HOODBHOY: I don't see there's any immediate possibility

of Saudi Arabia acquiring nuclear weapons. Certainly not going to be able to buy them off the shelf from Pakistan or from any other country, however, what it is seeking to put into motion is a

process which at the end of a decade, or maybe two decades, could result in a capacity to make the bomb.