RIYADH, Dec 6, (Agencies): Former Saudi intelligence chief Prince Turki al-Faisal, voicing alarm about Iran’s nuclear programme, has said the leadership should consider acquiring nuclear weapons to counter threats from Tehran, and from Israel.
The prince, seen as influential though no longer holding public office, noted that Israel is widely assumed to have a nuclear arsenal and that Iran, Riyadh’s arch-rival in the Middle East, is believed by many to be developing such weaponry.

“If our efforts, and the efforts of the world community, fail to convince Israel to shed its weapons of mass destruction and to prevent Iran from obtaining similar weapons, we must, as a duty to our country and people, look into all options we are given, including obtaining these weapons ourselves,” he told a conference in Riyadh on Monday.

The remarks were covered in the Saudi press on Tuesday.
Prince Turki has argued for a nuclear-free Middle East in previous speeches, but is now also pushing the idea that the conservative Islamic kingdom might enter an atomic arms race if Iran, its bitterest regional rival, became a nuclear power.

Few analysts believe Riyadh, the world’s top oil exporter and a key ally for the United States, is likely to embark upon a weapons programme in defiance of US calls for restraint. But Turki’s remarks signal the extent of concern over non-Arab Iran’s military ambitions among Arab Gulf countries.
In his speeches, the prince has always repeated Saudi Arabia’s official policy that the crisis over Iran’s nuclear programme can only be solved through diplomacy and he has repeatedly warned against a military confrontation.

However, Turki has been more outspoken in public than other leading Saudis against what Riyadh sees as Iranian expansionism in the Middle East. US diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks showed the kingdom’s leaders discreetly urging Washington to take stronger measures, including military action, against Iran.
In June, a British newspaper quoted Turki as telling NATO officials that Saudi Arabia would have to develop nuclear weapons if Iran, its adversary in a confrontation that opposes Shi’ite and Sunni Muslim forces, succeeded in acquiring them.
Iran, like Saudi Arabia a signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), insists its nuclear programme is exclusively for generating electricity. It has suffered heavy sanctions from international powers demanding it halt activities that they believe are intended for military purposes.
Israel, which has a policy of neither confirming nor denying that it has nuclear weapons, says it would not sign up to a ban until there were a comprehensive regional peace that included Iran, Saudi Arabia and others. That is a position effectively endorsed by Washington, Israel’s most important ally.
Saudi Arabia is estimated to spend as much as 10 percent of national income on its armed forces. It is also exploring the possibility of setting up its own nuclear power programme to reduce its consumption of oil, freeing up more crude for export.

Prince Turki’s remark was designed to send chills through Washington and its allies: simply echoed Western fears about a runway arms race in the Middle East if Iran ever moves toward a nuclear warhead.
But it also reflects the hardening views among the Gulf Arab states that they must rely on themselves — and not just Western protection — as the showdowns with the Islamic Republic deepen.
In Kuwait, authorities are pressing ahead with several cases against alleged Iranian spies. Bahrain’s rulers claim an Iran-linked cell sought to attack the Saudi Embassy and other key points.
The United Arab Emirates is close to finishing an oil pipeline that would connect directly to Indian Ocean shipping lanes and bypass the choke point of the Gulf’s Strait of Hormuz, where Iran shares controls with Oman. The US, meanwhile, is proposing selling 600 “bunker-buster” bombs and other munitions to the UAE to counter what the Pentagon described as “current and future regional threats.”
In meetings last week, Gulf envoys agreed to study proposals to pool their military forces into a region-wide command in an apparent reply to Iran’s expanding land and sea powers.
“Iran represents the sum total of the fears for the Gulf leaders and they have decided they need to act decisively,” said Theodore Karasik, a security expert at the Dubai-based Institute for Near East and Gulf Military Analysis.

Gulf Arab states are desperate for Western help to derail Iran’s nuclear advances. Iran, however, says it will never give up its nuclear program — which it claims is only for power and research — as a point of national pride and regional sway. That stance has likely only hardened as the Arab Spring uprisings threaten the regime in key ally Syria and as sanctions chip away at Iran’s economy.
Gulf support, meanwhile, is considered critical for the West to help enforce stronger economic pressures on Iran following a report last month by the UN’s nuclear watchdog agency that the Islamic Republic conducted secret weapons-related tests and could be on the brink of developing an atomic weapon.
“(Gulf states) are terrified of Iran and they are determined to reinforce the notion in Washington and the West that Iran is the boogeyman,” said Christopher Davidson, an expert on Gulf affairs at Britain’s Durham University.
They need little help to sell that point these days.
Iran’s relations with Britain are on life support after protesters in Tehran last week stormed the British Embassy and a compound for diplomatic workers. Other European nations — including key Iranian trade partner Germany — recalled their ambassadors in solidarity.
Iran shows no signs of easing its defiance, though.
Iranian state media said the country’s powerful Revolutionary Guard has put itself on higher readiness. It’s an apparent bit of bluster after Iranian forces claimed to have shot down an advanced US surveillance drone near its eastern border with Afghanistan. It’s unclear whether the wreckage of the RQ-170 craft — if it’s in Iranian hands — could yield important information about its stealth systems or reconnaissance equipment.
Last month, Iran also claimed it arrested 12 “agents” with links to the CIA and Israel’s Mossad spy agency. Officials have given no further details to back up the report. But it could signal stepped-up probes into suspected clandestine cells after a devastating Nov 12 blast at a military site that killed at least 21 people, including Gen. Hasan Tehrani Moghaddam, who was in charge of the country’s missile program.
Iran has called the explosion an accident, but that hasn’t squelched widespread speculation of possible sabotage to set back Iran’s missile program. Iran has already pointed its finger at alleged Israel and US involvement in the slayings last year of at least two scientists involved in nuclear research.
For Gulf states, there is a growing sense that Iran’s bravado masks some obvious worries about being an overall loser in the Arab Spring. Saudi Arabia and Qatar have led calls for Arab League pressure on Syrian President Bashar Assad — one of Tehran’s most important allies in the region — in response to his brutal crackdown on dissent.
“The situation in the region is not in Iran’s favor,” said Mustafa Alani, an analyst at the Gulf Research Center. “So, for Iran, it may be time to remind the Gulf countries that Tehran is still capable of destabilizing the region.”
Iran aimed one sharp warning at European-led proposals for trying to choke off Iran’s oil exports. A statement this week from Iran’s Foreign Ministry suggested crude oil prices could more than double to a record $250 a barrel if the flow was cut from OPEC’s third-largest producer — which supplies fast-growing China with about 10 percent of its current energy needs.
The Iranian threat did little to rattle markets. But the Gulf’s oil security was clearly on the minds of officials at a major petroleum gathering this week in Qatar.
Qatar’s Amir, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, opened the conference Monday by trying to calm any jitters over growing friction with Iran.
“I want to point to the numerous assurances by oil and gas exporting countries of their commitment to maintain the flow of these two resources to the consumers, and to exert every effort to fulfill this especially during crises,” he said.

Drone
US military officials said Monday they are concerned that Tehran may have an opportunity to acquire information about the classified surveillance drone program after one of the stealthy aircraft crashed in Iran while patrolling in western Afghanistan.
But experts suggested that even if the Iranians have found parts of the unmanned spy plane, they can probably glean little from it. Because it likely fell from a high altitude, there may be very few large pieces to examine.
The RQ-170 — known as the Sentinel — has been used in Afghanistan, particularly along the border, for several years. The US Air Force has just “a handful” of them, said defense analyst Loren Thompson, with the Virginia-based Lexington Institute.
“I think we’re always concerned when there’s an aircraft, whether it’s manned or unmanned, that we lose, particularly in a place where we’re not able to get to it,” Navy Capt John Kirby, a Pentagon spokesman, told reporters Monday.
US officials have acknowledged that the military lost control of one of the stealthy drones while it was flying a mission over western Afghanistan. Iran’s official IRNA news agency has said that Iran’s armed forces shot it down.
US officials have rejected that claim, saying there are no indications the Sentinel was shot down. In either case, officials said this would be the first Sentinel lost by the US.
Analysts, however, played down any serious impact of the drone — or pieces of it — falling into Iranian hands.
“This is an aircraft that evades radar because of its shape and because of the special material used,” said Thompson. “It won’t enable the Iranians to build a stealthy unmanned aircraft.”

Sanctions
Australia Tuesday expanded sanctions against Iran to restrict business with the country’s petroleum and financial sectors as concern mounts over Tehran’s suspected nuclear weapons programme.
Britain, Canada and the United States slapped fresh sanctions last month on Iran following a UN agency report that strongly suggests the country is researching nuclear weapons.
The European Union followed suit by expanding a blacklist against Iranian firms and individuals, although Iran has dismissed the UN report as baseless.
Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd said Australia’s new measures targeted entities and individuals involved in Iran’s ballistic missile and nuclear programmes, and underlined Canberra’s mounting worries.