Author Topic: Iran nuclear deal changes Middle East alliances as Saudi Arabia rebels against US  (Read 468 times)

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Offline flowers

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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iran/10474143/Iran-nuclear-deal-changes-Middle-East-alliances-as-Saudi-Arabia-rebels-against-US.html

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Nawaf Obaid, a counsellor to Prince Mohammad bin Nawaf, the Saudi Ambassador to London, accused America of dishonesty. "We were lied to, things were hidden from us," he said. "The problem is not with the deal struck in Geneva, but how it was done."

The response, said Mr Obaid, would be a "new defence doctrine" based on containing Iran.

 Saudi Arabia "will be there to stop them wherever they are in Arab countries", he said. "We cannot accept Revolutionary Guards running round Homs [in Syria]."

His comments reflect Saudi fears that America's overtures towards Iran could upset their own traditionally close alliance with Washington. Although Saudi Arabia has great wealth, its military strength is limited and its 75,000-strong army is barely a fifth of the size of Iran's - forcing the country to rely on America as the ultimate guarantor of its territorial security.

"There is no absolute replacement for the US for Saudi Arabia as it casts around for allies, but there is a longer term project of looking to spread its focus," said Daniel Levy, the Middle East director of the European Council for Foreign Relations.

Reflecting official opinion, Arab News, a Saudi newspaper, on Monday carried the main headline: "Nuclear deal sparks Iran hegemony fears."

Saudi Arabia's worries are shared by Israel, which also believes that America is naive about the Iranian threat.

But William Hague, the Foreign Secretary, told MPs that the Geneva agreement ensured that "elements of Iran's nuclear programme that are thought to present the greatest risk cannot make progress".

He added: "If Iran implements the deal in good faith as it has undertaken to do, it cannot use these routes to move closer towards obtaining a nuclear weapons capability."

He urged other countries to support the deal and warned against the consequences of undermining it. "We would discourage anybody in the world, including Israel, from taking any steps that would undermine this agreement," he said.

Opposition to it remains a potential threat in the US, despite President Barack Obama's strong endorsement. In Washington, leading senators are preparing legislation that would restore the sanctions eased under the Geneva deal, if Iran reneges.

Meanwhile the final text of the accord called into question a statement by John Kerry, the US secretary of state, after the talks concluded, when he said: "The first step does not say that Iran has a right to enrichment."

In fact the document says that under the final comprehensive settlement beign aimed at, Iran would have a "mutually defined enrichment programme".

For now, Iran may continue enriching uranium with its 10,000 operational centrifuges, providing it does not exceed the five per cent level needed for nuclear power stations, or add to the overall stockpile.

This suggests that Mohammad Javad Zarif, the Iranian foreign minister, was summarising accurately when he said: "This recognition is there - that Iran will have an enrichment programme."

Hawks in the US Congress are also suspicious of the secret diplomacy that paved the way for the agreement. Oman hosted covert meetings between Iranian and US diplomats and Mr Kerry himself visited Oman in December 2011, one year before becoming secretary of state.

"The White House thought they could strong-arm everyone else into a bad deal, which is why there is now very little in trust in Congress that the president will hold Iran's feet to the fire," said a senior Republican Senate aide. "That's why the consequences of failing to follow through on this deal – tougher sanctions – needs to be enshrined in law."

Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, on Monday claimed that his influence during the two rounds of talks had prevented an even worse deal from being signed. "The international pressure which we applied was partly successful and has led to a better result than what was originally planned - but this is still a bad deal," he said.


Offline EC

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But William Hague, the Foreign Secretary, told MPs that the Geneva agreement ensured that "elements of Iran's nuclear programme that are thought to present the greatest risk cannot make progress".

He added: "If Iran implements the deal in good faith as it has undertaken to do, it cannot use these routes to move closer towards obtaining a nuclear weapons capability."

This from a supposed conservative. He always was a useless bugger - his time as party leader was catastrophic.
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