U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter will travel to Saudi Arabia as part of the Obama administration’s efforts to convince skeptical allies in the region about the benefits of the Iran nuclear deal, National Security Adviser Susan Rice told Reuters in an exclusive interview on Wednesday. Carter’s trip had not been announced previously.
Although Saudi Arabia has publicly welcomed any deal that would put a stop to Iranian nuclear enrichment, various media reports indicate that Saudi officials and Saudi media are wary of the ramifications, which may be wide-reaching and could alter the balance in several of the region’s hot spots.
King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Naif.
In a column written in the London-based Arabic news website Elaph, former chief of intelligence and ambassador to the United States Prince Bandar bin Sultan said the nuclear deal “will wreak havoc in the Middle East.”
The actual implications of a deal may not be known for some time.
“[I]t’s inevitable that the agreement, announced Tuesday in Vienna, will have broader consequences and one of them could be a buildup of conventional arms in the Middle East,” David Welna writes for NPR.
Secretary Carter will also visit Israel, whose President, Benjamin Netanyahu, has publicly denounced the deal, which includes as its signatories the United States, Russia, China, France, UK, and Germany.
“There is just no debating that it is a complete disaster for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu,” writes Zack Beauchamp in Vox. “This deal is a huge policy failure for Netanyahu, who in recent years has staked ever more of his legacy and political reputation on stopping it — even at the cost of setting back Israel’s relationship with the United States. Now he has nothing to show for it but a giant political embarrassment that his opponents on the right and left are already using against him.”
Netanyahu was vociferous in his opposition to the deal immediately after it was signed.
“Israel is not bound by this deal with Iran,” he said in a televised address, according to the Guardian. “Iran continues to seek our destruction and we will defend ourselves.”
[State Department photo/ Public Domain]
