Op-ed by Irwin Redlener in The Hill
President Trump has approved a landmark, 30-year civil nuclear deal with Saudi Arabia, reportedly without the “gold standard” restriction that has long barred U.S. partners from enriching uranium or reprocessing plutonium — the two pathways to a bomb.
The irony is hard to overstate. The same administration that went to war with Iran to stop its uranium enrichment program may now hand Riyadh a foothold toward the very capability it bombed Tehran to deny.
Lawmakers have called it out. Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass) and colleagues have demanded the administration hold the line. Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Calif.) asked why a president waging war to stop Middle East proliferation would turn around and facilitate it for the sake of a lucrative contract.
Whatever the deal’s final shape, it lands at a moment when the architecture of nuclear restraint is failing — and when much of the arms control community’s attention is drifting toward the virtually unattainable goal of total abolition of the world’s nuclear arsenals.
