Do you keep track (loosely) of nuclear proliferation? I feel sometimes that there’s something odd about me, the way I am constantly keeping my ear to the ground about the various governments that are building these horrible monstrous things designed to destroy us all in a bath of light and fire.
The US government, certainly, talks a false game. Right now, it’s lecturing the world about how Iran is a threat, because: nuclear weapons. Meanwhile, it has been floating what seemed to be a series of trial reaction-pieces to see if anyone got upset about the US’ proposal to teach the Saudis nuclear techniques proliferate to Saudi Arabia. The story is that the Saudis are deeply concerned about global warming.
[arabnews]
The reason I refer to this as a “trial balloon” is because it seems almost as though the US and the Saudis just wanted to publicize the idea and see if Israel freaks out. There is no other regional power that is in a position to complain, though Russia might raise some objections on purely geopolitical grounds. Naturally, everyone is going to pretend that this is not about nuclear weapons, in spite of the rather obvious fact that “teaching nuclear technology” has always been a code-phrase for implementing a complete fuel cycle, including – especially including – enrichment.
A “research reactor” sounds like no great big deal. Perhaps you’re thinking of something like the reactor that Fermi and his students built by hand in an unused room under a stadium. You’d be forgiven for thinking that, because that’d be what a small research reactor would look like.
OK, let’s do an experiment. Pause for a second and review in your mind what you’ve heard (if anything) about a Saudi research nuclear reactor. Then decide, based on what you can think of:
Does a Saudi nuclear reactor exist?
[france24]
“It’s a small reactor that is essentially designed for research and development,” said Laura Rockwood, head of the Vienna Center for Disarmament and Non-Proliferation, in an interview with FRANCE 24.
The language I keep seeing around the thing is that it’s still a proposal, in 2019. I.e.:
Having spent over a decade looking for partners willing to share their nuclear technologies and know-how, Saudi Arabia now hopes to start building its first two nuclear power reactors in 2020, according to the US-based Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS).
US, Russian, South Korean, Chinese firms have been short-listed by Riyadh and are hoping to clinch the multi-billion-dollar contracts. With the lucrative tenders in mind, President Donald Trump’s administration has quietly approved six authorisations for US companies to do nuclear work in Saudi Arabia, the Daily Beast reported last month, in a move that has prompted sharp criticism in the US.
[ First, let me offer some crisis management publicity advice to the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) – change your name. And don’t change it to the Department for Atomic Energy Science and Humanism (DAESH) ]
My answer would be a great big “huh?” Because I am thinking that it’s a topic under discussion. Right? You don’t discuss whether or not to build a reactor when you are currently building a reactor and it looks like this: [guard]
Sure, it’s itty-bitty compared to one of the RBMK reactors at Chernobyl, but that doesn’t look like a “reactor under construction.” It doesn’t look like a reactor that is “under consideration” either. It looks like a fait accompli.
Presenting the world with a new nuclear fait accompli seems like a dirty trick, and it’s got Trump/Kushner’s fingerprints all over it. After all, a great deal of money is involved. You can bet that the Saudis are paying top dollar for this project and the political top-cover that comes with it. [haaretz]
U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry has approved six secret authorizations by companies to sell nuclear power technology and assistance to Saudi Arabia, according to a copy of a document seen by Reuters on Wednesday.
What happened to the cries of “mad mullahs”? Remember when it was deemed reasonable to say that muslims are such crazy bastards that they’d be willing to face obliteration if it meant getting a single nuclear strike on Tel Aviv? Never mind that the Pakistanis, who are also muslims, haven’t appeared to care – a regional power that is aligning itself for a nuclear sprint would be Iran, circa 2000. The US and its allies have been levying brutal sanctions on Iran for a decade, for doing what the Saudis are doing. It’s as if the Iranians didn’t pay the right tax, or something.*
The difference is that the Saudis threw their money toward the US, and did some outreach. Around the same time, in 2018, Saudi Arabia officially deprecates holocaust denial [washingtonins] and Mohammed Bin Salman visits Washington on a weapons-shopping tour, supported by massive public relations portraying him as progressive … for a Saudi monarch. [guard] The Saudis even paid top dollar to get old faithful lapdogs like Tony Blair to hire on as publicity consultants and say nice things about Bin Salman. Then, there was the awkwardness of Bin Salman taking personal revenge on a journalist – a journalist who was covering and exposing the publicity campaign – there was a great deal of money and pride at stake. Following that public relations disaster, the top-drawer PR firms Bin Salman had hired all ran to distance themselves. But there has not been any hue and cry about how someone as impulsive and vindictive as Bin Salman might not be the right person to have nuclear weapons.
Did you know that the government can secretly authorize things like that, with no public review at all? Neither did I – “civilian oversight” means jack shit in a democracy where the right hand can keep secrets from the left. [Not that the US is a democracy, I’m just engaging in hyperbole] “Plotting against mankind” sums it up rather neatly. I assume that the Israelis got something – something big – in return for giving this project the green light; maybe it was the movement of the embassy, or the annexation of more Palestinian land.
(* The US history with Iran can be summarized as: “you did not bow to our authoritah!” and most of the consequences flow from that. The Iranians took some CIA stooges hostage and embarrassed the US; they will never be allowed to live that down until they let the US install a puppet government atop them.)
I snorted tea out of my nose when I read that, so, er, thanks.
I disagree. If the Saudis have a reactor ready to top out imminently, they’ve been working on it (as in conceptualising, designing, hazard assessing, redesigning, specifying, ordering, manufacturing, shipping, laying down and constructing) for a good deal longer than Trump’s been in the White House. An industrial reactor for any decent sized chemical plant (and a power station is a chemical plant) is not something you just get off Amazon. A nuclear reactor even more so. Just writing the operating procedures could take a year. Sorry, but whatever’s coming to completion here has to have been initiated on Obama’s watch.
And if you think it’s possible to build a reactor quicker than that, you’re right, obviously. You can spend money like crazy and cut the timescale. But the Iron Triangle for nuclear reactors is more of an iron bar – you can have it quick, or you can have it safe. Pick one. And if you’re intending operating it in your own country, with your own (security vetted) citizens (and not, say, imported cheap labour from the Phillipines, like you do when you want a stadium built or something), you really really want it safe. And that takes time, enough time that Obama can’t realistically escape some responsibility for it.
It’s much worse than that – first, they nationalised their oil industry, then they kicked out the US stooge who’d been imposed to ensure that it remained under Western control anyway. That’s unforgivable.
The Saudis and the Israelis generally seem to get along OK these days.
But, but Jake! Obama was the Peace Prize Preznit. And he was so much better than that mean ol’ Trump.
I like to remind the Demobots that many of the most heinous foreign policy activities of the past decades (Latin America, Afghanistan, etc.) were initiated by the Saintly Peanut Farmer.
sonofrojblake@#2:
I disagree. If the Saudis have a reactor ready to top out imminently, they’ve been working on it (as in conceptualising, designing, hazard assessing, redesigning, specifying, ordering, manufacturing, shipping, laying down and constructing) for a good deal longer than Trump’s been in the White House.
You’re right. I didn’t think about the time-lines well enough.
Noam Chomsky said something to the effect that Obama was one of the most imperialist presidents, ever, he was just very low-key about it. As usual, Chomsky is right. Obama did an amazing head-feint with all that hope and change stuff. I voted for him because he said he’d close Gitmo and get the US out of Iraq and Afghanistan. Ha. I hate Obama – he’s a real shitberg. But he’s still not as bad as Trump.
Dunc@#3:
It’s much worse than that – first, they nationalised their oil industry, then they kicked out the US stooge who’d been imposed to ensure that it remained under Western control anyway. That’s unforgivable.
The oil companies have a long memory! The reason (other than imperial eminent domain) Venezuela has always been on the US shit-list is because they threw out the US oil companies (and made their own). Sorting out who owned what and when is difficult in both Iran and Venezuela but there’s a consistent trend and it’s a very ugly one.
I saw something (the exact memory escapes me) that made a strong case for the invasion of Iraq being predicated not on weapons of mass destruction, but in fact on Saddam’s plans to start selling his oil in Euros instead of USD.
I can’t help thinking that when children the world over are taught history in a couple of hundred years’ time, it will be generally agreed that from about 1970 onwards (give or take a decade) the USA were the baddies. No contest. (Previous title holders will have been the Germans (most of of the 20thC) and before that the British (most of the 19thC).)
There were a number of factors involved in the attack on Iraq, and it’s hard to say which were the most significant… At the end of the day, there were (and still are) wider geopolitical considerations in play. To quote PNAC: “While the unresolved conflict with Iraq provides the immediate justification, the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein.”
I suppose one could argue that interest in nuclear power doesn’t necessarily mean interest in nuclear weapons – several countries with nuclear power plants have no nukes and no interest in them. On the other hand, given the nature of the government of Saudi Arabia and its ambitions for expanding its regional power, it is right to be extremely suspicious. Certainly, the official attitude of the USA toward Saudi Arabia has been in sharp contrast to the attitude toward Iran for the last 40 years.
(Although, despite US hostility toward Iran, the US has inadvertently helped Iran expand its regional influence with its bungled involvement in Iraq and, to a lesser degree, Syria.)
springa73@#9:
I suppose one could argue that interest in nuclear power doesn’t necessarily mean interest in nuclear weapons – several countries with nuclear power plants have no nukes and no interest in them.
I suppose that if a country was developing power applications, they could get enriched uranium on the open market (as long as it’s not highly enriched) – the “research reactor” implies that they are interested in the entire fuel cycle, which means they want to enrich.
One other point I forgot to make, which I definitely should have (this stuff has been in mind for a while now, and when it all tumbled out, I lost a few bits) Saudi Arabia has not signed on to any of the IAEA inspection regimes. IAEA has not been allowed anywhere near the site.
No freakout. Amazing.
You could. However we know for certain that the Saudis have an interest in nuclear weapons. They have frequently asserted that they would pursue nuclear weapons if Iran acquired them. It’s also been repeatedly reported, by several credible sources, that they have heavily invested in Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program on the understanding that they would have access to off-the-shelf warheads any time they want them.
SoRB at #2, boy are you right about the safe or quick! But it think it is necessary to consider that the people we are talking about might be willing to sacrifice safety if they were willing to construct a reactor relatively quickly (and relatively under the radar). The people we are talking about include Saudi Arabia, the US, Russia and even Israel, as long as enough money/grease hits the right hands.
That’s not a nuclear reactor. Do you see any nuclear fuel lying around? That big metal chamber? It’s, err, it’s just the kettle. A really big kettle. Sure, it could be *repurposed* as a nuclear reactor, probably quite quickly, but only if the international community are ok with that. But right now it’s just a conference center for hosting a really big group of traveling Brits who really, really, like really, like tea.
(Fermi challenge: if you filled an average nuclear reactor pressure vessel once a day with water and used it to brew tea: what weight of loose tea leaves would you require; how many Brits could you serve, assuming each drinks 4 250ml mugs per day.)