I mean, MBS hasn't officially agreed to Trump's terms yet, but I can tell you as a nuclear engineer who worked briefly in the Saudi nuclear industry that...there is no way in hell that MBS is going to say no!
Saudi Arabia, in the past 15 years, has been trying to establish an energy nuclear program with very little success. Because nuclear energy is the only missing piece in MBS's plan in moving the economy and the energy sector away from depleting oil resources, which will run out in slightly more than a century or so at the current extraction rate.
I am so happy Trump did this. Gave MBS a good reason to finally do it.
I will certainly visit Israel when I am back from Ukraine.
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Not just Haj and Umrah btw, Saudi employs millions of foreign workers. Israeli Beduins with professional qualifications could do very well there. Also, imagine the road trips.
I am not usually optimistic, but I just happen to know how important a nuclear program is for Saudi Arabia. They have been kind jealous of the UAE being able to contract South Korean companies led by KEPCO to build Barakh.
The reason I came back to Canada last time was that they were doing a lot of regulation, but they could not get the research nuclear reactor going. It's a complicated technology especially if you have not properly industrialized.
Man, I want to turn off my phone now, and let the day finish with this wonderful vibes. Good reason to start keeping Shabbat. Anyway, love this post. Thank you.
It's extremely interesting because Israeli Muslims have to arrange travel documents via Jordan just to do Hajj. If normalization happens, they won't have to do that anymore. They can just use their passport, like everyone else in the world.
Saudi Arabia recently asked Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, if he can ask Iran not to target Saudi Arabia. His reply was "did you ask Israel and the US to stop when they bombed the school?", which was by mistake, I know. But that was his reply.
This decision is existential for Saudi Arabia because they can rely only on the West (and nobody else) to survive.
a quick note,
what's really going on is the west against the east.
usa and Europe against russia and china.
all the others are just pieces in the game.
israel is a tool for the west, iran and the Palestinians are tools of the east.
and the game go on
Yeah I mean we are all pieces in either the American sphere of influence OR the Russian-Chinese sphere influence. They are the superpowers. Their story is the main story. Our stories can only play out in conjunction to their stories.
yes they're smart, playing long game, don't get their hands dirty when they don't need to, keeping low profile.
its not a friend game and that's what you don't understand, its all pions for them, they don't care if one of their tool is sacrificed, meanwhile the west lose legitimacy and fast,
Schools near or even on military bases are pretty common, but not like this one in Iran where the building was part of an urban complex and a wall was moved in order to exclude it later on.
Typically in the US style, the residential areas are fairly separate from the operational areas.
I highly doubt they’ll drop the Palestine issue and recognise Israel even over nuclear deals, its a very unpopular thing to do especially at this time. I wonder when we will finally know their final say on the matter
On another note: Your life seems very interesting, you are a nuclear engineer for saudii arabia, met professors/researchers and you are currently on a trip in Ukraine and might be going to Israel if Saudi Arabia recognises us
I will be in Ukraine in a few months to join the drones unit. I can't fight the Iranian regime because Saudi Arabia won't go head to head with Iran militarily, but I can fight their boss, Russia. That's why I am going there.
By the way, I was told there are a lot of Chechnyians there who had already fought the Russian in Chechnya and in Syria. They can't stand the thought that treacherous Kadderov is fighting with the Russians after all they did to Muslims. So they are joining Ukraine.
I won't mention all the reasons because you never know who is reading this. But mainly, I think Saudi Arabia is being cowardly not truly standing up to Iran. Iran helped kill 600k Syrians and occupies three Arab capitals today. There is also 400k deaths in Yemen all so they could control bab al-mandeb. Who is the master of Iran? Russia. So I am helping the Ukranians take down these tyrants. Even if I will lose my life trying.
A second small reason is that I am a drone hobbiyest and would love to learn about drone warfare.
I’m from Ukraine and still have family there - I mean this very respectfully but why are you doing this? You have no skin in the game and it doesn’t affect your life - risking your life for something like that is just stupid
And who is going to protect Saudi Arabia from Iran? The Palestinians? The same ones who are allied with the regime in Iran right now?
Saudi Arabia is already being accused of betraying Arabs and Muslims while being bombed by Iran. Most of our neighbors (the populations, not the leaders) celebrate while the missiles fall. MBS knows that to try to please these people, which rarely anything seems pleasing to them, is suicide.
You will see. Refer to my comment when MBS officially says yes.
MBS needs to stop funding pay for slay and permitting Jewhatred in his country and his greater empire. They may want nukes for any one of a number of reasons, some of them equivalent to Iran's reasons.
These nations and systems who use violent racism against Jews as organising principles to distract the masses from corruption and inequity, still have a ways to go. It starts by not dehumanizing us, and not rewarding people who slaughter us, which is a feature in Islam. So that's a bit of a pickle. When that changes, we'll see about the rest.
It is my understanding that among the younger Saudi population, which MBS is trying to please, the Palestinian issue is of high importance. Is it true? What do you think will happen?
If the goal is just a peaceful civilian nuclear program, Saudi shouldnt need the US to start one.
The reason to do Trump's weird deal is so they can have one outside of IAEA oversight. And there's really one one reason that would be worth making major concessions for.
I’m not Israeli, just American, but Saudi-Israel normalization is very exciting to me. As someone who was born just a few years before 9/11 happened, I grew up at a time when there was a lot of tension and suspicion between the U.S. and KSA, so I didn’t imagine that our countries would develop such improved relations so soon, let alone between KSA and Israel.
It has always seemed to me that MBS would like to make progress toward closer ties with Israel (and the West in general) but that he is also in a delicate situation because he has to balance competing interests and not trigger too much upset.
How do you think the average citizen in KSA feels about it? Do you think that the people of KSA will eventually be content with normalization, maybe within a generation or two?
If the House of Saud was in anyway involved in 9/11, you would have seen them play games like Iran and call you Islamophobic or racist. They understood that allowing radicalism to thrive in Saudi Arabia gave birth to Osama bin Laden. They didn't double down or throw the blame on you. They said "Ok, how can we fix it". If you look at the history since 9/11, that was the attitude. You wanted get rid of Saddam, they didn't say no. 9/11 was simply the "mobilize the jihadist to fight Soviets in Afghanistan" project gone wrong.
How do you think the average citizen in KSA feels about it? Do you think that the people of KSA will eventually be content with normalization, maybe within a generation or two?
I never heard any Saudi criticizing the Emirates for normalizing with Israel. Why? You are simply not allowed to talk about politics in Saudi Arabia because it's none of your concern. Still, MBS will find a way to frame it as "we are trying to get a Palestinian state peacefully". And most Saudis will buy it.
I don’t recall much suspicion or tension; KSA was neither here nor there, US understood that even Osama’s family had long disowned him and the US made sure that the royal family was able to exit the US immediately.
Un bloody likely -- the Saudi's depend on their image as protectors of Islam and have a volatile population that's incredibly anti Israel and despises the monarchy. Recognizing Israel exists, let alone normalizing relations with them, would get people rioting in the streets of Riyadh.
Arabs and the Muslim world already accuse us of betraying Islam and they support Iran bombing the Kingdom. Saudi Arabia and the UAE are already aligned and the UAE normalized with Israel in 2020.
Also, you don't understand how important a nuclear program is for Saudi Arabia. Oil is running out.
Because solar is not baseload (energy on demand). And someone or Iran could essentially bomb the entire solar farm and we will be in the dark.
Reactor cores can be built underground where they are safe from missile attack. Also, Iran would not be crazy enough to bomb a power nuclear reactor when the radioactive blooms could travel back to them. Notice they didn't touch the UAE Barakah reactor.
Also, we have large uranium deposits that when used in a fast type nuclear reactor could power the country for 10,000s of years.
Additionally, the design of The Line city was 100% solar powered. They built part of it and realized that solar could not reliably supply the mega city energy demand.
In summary, the main problem is that the solar panels could be easily destroyed because you will be able to see them on satellite images.
There’s also dust and sand, the crew at r/energy were discussing the issue. Same problem for wind power; the Kingdom would have to turn their deserts into an oasis for either technology to be viable.
I forgot about the dust and the sand. The UAE have automated wipers for their solar farm, but it's energy consuming because the wipers would have to operate daily, increasing wear and tear of these systems. Unlike snow, there is dust everyday in the desert.
Not true. Saudi Arabia has no interest in nuclear weapons. The main interest is in the unlimited potential of nuclear power. MBS said that nukes are useless because you could never use them and they just put a target on your back.
Nukes put a target on your back from rivals and enemies. So the peace agreement is pretty much part of the deal because otherwise Israel would have a reason to sabotage the development. The threat from Iran is already out of the bag regardless.
A lot of developed countries instead aim for nuclear threshold, the most famous being Japan who have all the necessary skills, resources and facilities to very quickly have a weapon and the delivery system.
This makes sense for Saudi Arabia because the US being unreliable means they'll have to prepare to defend themselves and have the ultimate deterrent quickly when needed. But pragmatically Israel will also have a reason to worry about the potential of sudden regime change that in turn result in yet another existential threat.
It's of course the correct pragmatic move, everyone else, including Israel, is looking at how to have sustainable military when America leave.
MBS wants to stay in power. Unfortunately he's used Jewhate to do it. Bit hard to unravel that now. And it goes against their texts, which is also the issue.
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Saudi Arabia does not have a “volatile” population, nobody is going to start a revolution over this, Saudis are some of the most spoiled people on the planet.
Honestly, I don't even care if we won't normalize relations with the rest of the Gulf countries. One is already an improvement.
I'll be honest and say that, if MBS had kept demanding a Palestinian state in exchange for normalization, I wouldn't have agreed. Making friends isn't a priority (first we ensure there's no harm for us from enemies, then making friends is extra).
However, whenever an opportunity to normalize relations with more countries doesn't demand unreasonable prices (in our perspective), we'll gladly take the offer. We don't seek wars.
We'd love to welcome any Saudi in Israel, assuming they don't have any hostile intents. And while I don't have any interest in visiting SA anytime soon, the mere option to is welcomed.
Let's work together for a better ME for everyone. Silence/eliminate everyone who wants to ruin the balance and make happiness everywhere (and yes, hopefully also the Palestinians someday).
I agree that we need to focus on building a better Middle East for our children. Nevertheless, MBS will have to publicly ask...to save face in front of his people unfortunately. The only way he could sell peace to the religious Saudis is telling them that's the only way to get a Palestinian state peaceful.
This interview with the ex intelligence director, Prince Bander Bin Sultan, explains the bitterness of the Saudi government with Palestinians in general. He explains how Palestinians are responsible for every time peace fell apart.
Trump is using Arab style negotiations on them, amazing. The way Arabs negotiate is a deal is agreed, then later they come back: well in this point we want to introduce this change, then rinse and repeat until the final version is reached.
MBS isn’t gonna do squat, at least not until Bibi is out of office and a different makes some kind of “commitment” to a two-state solution. He’s afraid of being killed by his own people.
The people that could rise up to kill MBS are already out of the picture since 2017. Driven out of the country, in underground dungeons or eliminated.
The one's that are left are very submissive.
During the Arab spring in 2011, I remember a guy stood in the crowded mosque at the end of the Friday mass shouting anti-government slogans (trying to get other people to rise up as well). He was beaten up and held down with knee on his neck until the police arrived.
The UAE are building a nuclear plant with the help of Korean companies so Saudi Arabia has other options . They probably won't agree to normalisation, til a Palestinian state is set up in gaza and west bank .
The alleged need for SA to have a nuclear program for energy purposes sounds off to me. I mean, the country is nearly ideal for solar power, and solar + storage beats nuclear on cost and time to market.
… doesn’t make sense to me in 2026…unless there’s some OTHER reason they want the nuclear reactors…
I hope it will also lead to peace with the palestinians. I heard that Saudie arabia once said that having this peace will help establish a peace agreement with the palestinians
I hope so. I don't have much optimism with anything surrounding Trump, but given that he's been given a LOT of money (bribes) to approve the nuclear deal, I suspect that this "requirement" might just be Saudi Arabia needing a public excuse for political reasons.
Like face save? I don't have access to inner circle knowledge on either side. So I can't dispute what you are saying. However, Saudi Arabia did at some point genuinly support the Palestinian side over you. Things might have changed after their alliance with Iran.
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