Report: Hold the line on enrichment

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The United States faces two nuclear questions in the Middle East that have quietly fused into one. The first is whether Iran, after years of escalation, concealment, and enrichment far beyond any civilian need, will be permitted to retain a domestic enrichment capability under a negotiated ceiling.

The second is whether Saudi Arabia will receive American civil-nuclear cooperation on terms that permit — or leave the door open to — sovereign enrichment and reprocessing. These are not separate files. Iran sets the precedent; Saudi Arabia is the test case; the rest of the region is watching.

The proper American position is not simply no bomb. It is no sovereign fuel-cycle pathway —no domestic enrichment and no domestic reprocessing — anywhere in the region, for adversary and partner alike. Enrichment and reprocessing are the two technologies that compress breakout timelines, erode American leverage, degrade the regional security environment, and invite a regional hedging race. A framework that grants Iran “civilian enrichment” to close a deal hands
Riyadh the precedent to demand the same, and the demand will not stop at Riyadh.

The recommended posture is a U.S.-anchored regional fuel-cycle framework: guaranteed American or allied fuel supply; no sovereign enrichment or reprocessing, which provide the material for nuclear weapons; U.S.-controlled back-end disposition or recycling; full-scope IAEA safeguards and the Additional Protocol as the floor, not an optional extra; and the United Arab
Emirates “gold standard” applied consistently to every U.S.-supported civilian program in the region. This keeps Saudi Arabia inside the American strategic camp, protects Israel, strengthens the Abraham Accords, preserves U.S. nuclear-export leadership against Russian and Chinese competition, and denies Iran the nuclear legitimacy it seeks.

 Hold the line on enrichment