How to help the Saudis achieve their nuclear-powered dreams without giving them the bomb

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is offering the U.S. a deal he believes it cannot refuse. He is prepared to establish full diplomatic relations with Israel, granting the Jewish state unprecedented legitimacy in the Islamic world and handing Joe Biden a major foreign policy victory.

What the crown prince wants in return is nuclear power, including the ability to enrich uranium. This would enable Riyadh to produce fuel for nuclear reactors…or material for a nuclear bomb.

Biden should agree to significant U.S. nuclear assistance, but obviously he must reject the enrichment request. Riyadh doesn’t need enrichment to achieve its goal of becoming a nuclear electricity-producing powerhouse.

The U.S. has never shared uranium enrichment technology, even with its closest allies, Britain and France. Access to the technology remains highly restricted among the roughly 14 countries that possess it.

One Saudi proposal reportedly envisions a “nuclear Aramco,” where Washington would construct an enrichment plant on Saudi soil, perhaps on long-term leased land or on a U.S. military base. Americans would own and ostensibly operate the facility.

But the original Aramco, a joint U.S.-Saudi oil venture that Riyadh eventually nationalized, is not worthy of emulation. Its takeover provides a stark reminder that any safeguards put in place for a “nuclear Aramco” can be discarded at the crown prince’s whim.

There are also serious concerns about the Saudis' nuclear intentions. The crown prince has said he wants to match Iran’s surging enrichment capabilities, including developing a nuclear weapon if Tehran does.

That means the Biden administration cannot credibly present a U.S.-Saudi enrichment program as peaceful. To the international community, it would implicitly mean Washington acquiesced to a nascent Saudi nuclear weapons program. Housing an enrichment facility on a military base, moreover, would further militarize the plant and remove any veneer of civilian purpose.

By acquiescing to Riyadh’s demands, Washington would open a Pandora’s Box of nuclear proliferation as U.S. allies, including the United Arab Emirates (UAE), which agreed to forgo enrichment as well as plutonium reprocessing in 2009, demand similar arrangements. China and Russia could see this as an invitation to proliferate enrichment plants, compounding the problem.

Thankfully, there is a better plan that maintains Washington’s global nonproliferation policy standards while gives the Saudis what they have always prized — continued export profit and prestige in the energy field.

With the global shift from fossil fuels toward renewable energy sources, Riyadh wants to diversify with electrical power generated by nuclear reactors. The Saudis envision supplying electricity not only to the Middle East, but possibly even to continental Europe.

While this plan makes economic sense, enrichment does not. It is a costly capability to develop, whereas reactor fuel can be purchased affordably from existing suppliers.

Instead, the U.S. should offer to sell the kingdom a fleet of reactors from Westinghouse, an American company. Alternatively, the U.S. and South Korea could undertake a joint reactor venture. Seoul is already bidding on the Saudi reactor project. It has built three reactors in the United Arab Emirates and is working on a fourth.

America should also offer its nuclear safety, security, and technical expertise, while assisting Riyadh’s uranium mining and milling endeavors. Instead of enriching this uranium at home, however, Saudi Arabia would ship out the material to Europe’s Urenco consortium or the United States for nuclear fuel fabrication. Washington might also offer an assured reactor fuel supply, should the kingdom require it.

In exchange, the Saudis would need to bring into force full international safeguards with the International Atomic Energy Agency and ratify the Additional Protocol inspection agreement. Both would provide the agency with additional tools to detect and prevent diversion of nuclear material to any weapons program. These are the same restrictions to which the UAE consented in order to secure a civil nuclear cooperation agreement with the United States, so Washington should expect nothing less of the Saudis.

In securing these commitments, America would retain its “gold standard” of nonproliferation in the Middle East and prevent the spread of enrichment technology.

To seal the deal, Washington must reimpose United Nations sanctions against Iran, including a prohibition against Tehran’s uranium enrichment. This would mitigate the Saudis’ drive to match Tehran and convince the kingdom of American seriousness about reversing Iran’s proliferation efforts.

If the administration pursues such a plan, America will meet U.S., Saudi, and Israeli security objectives as well as win bipartisan support in a skeptical U.S. Congress, where Riyadh has few consistent friends.

Building a sustained U.S.-Saudi relationship that can survive shifting political winds will require compromises on both sides. A solid first step would be to assist the Saudis in developing a profitable nuclear power sector while averting further nuclear proliferation.

Anthony Ruggiero, former National Security Council senior director for counterproliferation and biodefense in the Trump administration, is a senior fellow and senior director of the Nonproliferation and Biodefense Program at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Andrea Stricker is a research fellow and deputy director of the program.