Wednesday, December 11, 2013

Speaking of Saudi Arabian Discomfort

Is Pakistan really ready to provide Saudi Arabia with nukes?

Long Saudi-Pakistani defense cooperation and Saudi financial support makes the prospect of Saudi Arabia counting on Pakistan to allow the Saudis to quickly respond to a nuclear Iran seem very plausible.

Pakistan certainly seems more than strong enough to resist Iranian pressure over the issue.

But I recently read (but lost and can't find it again) that Pakistan has turned down Saudi Arabia's request to help train (eventually) 50,000 Sunni fighters in Jordan to fight Assad. The Pakistanis, it was said, were unwilling to risk ties to Iran to oppose Syria.

If Pakistan is unwilling to train anti-Assad rebels, would Pakistan really be willing to ship nuclear warheads to equip Saudi Arabia's Chinese-made ballistic missiles?

Just how close are those Israeli-Saudi ties getting over shared worries about Iran getting?

I speculated that Israel might be able to supply weapons that can only be targeted against Iran, but if that seems way too unsafe, what if Israel pulled a deeper plan by providing functional-looking warheads that won't actually detonate, but that Saudi Arabia and (more importantly) Iran would believe are real?

And if you want a real trip into weird policy ripples, if Saudi Arabia wants nukes, and neither Pakistan nor Israel are willing to provide that capability, there is always North Korea ready to make a big deal to save their regime. North Korea is purging the pro-economic reform "China faction," after all.