Inside US-Saudi nuclear deal: Why Pakistan is biggest loser
The US has signed a 30-year civilian nuclear cooperation agreement with Saudi Arabia, allowing for potential domestic uranium enrichment under American oversight. This deal shifts regional power dynamics, significantly reducing Pakistan's strategic leverage as the only Islamic nation with an atomic arsenal.
Why it matters
The agreement alters the nuclear landscape in the Middle East and South Asia, potentially triggering a regional arms race and signaling a shift in US geopolitical alliances.
The nuclear map of the Middle East and South Asia is set to be redrawn after the US signed a historic 30-year civilian nuclear cooperation agreement with Saudi Arabia, opening a potential pathway for domestic uranium enrichment on Saudi soil under American technical oversight.It is a move driven as much by US president Donald Trump's worldview and domestic politics as by the administration’s long-term design to lock Saudi Arabia into an American-led security architecture while keeping China and Russia out of the kingdom’s atomic future.While Washington frames the move as a triumph of commercial strategy and security integration, the broader regional fallout paints a starkly different picture.Above all, Pakistan emerges as the ultimate strategic loser.For decades, Islamabad enjoyed a unique position of leverage as the custodian of the Islamic world’s only operational atomic arsenal.
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