Is Giving Saudi Arabia Nukes a Good Idea?

Is America about to help Saudi Arabia get the nuclear bomb? It certainly looks like it. America will help Saudi Arabia establish a civilian nuclear program, under a deal called the 123 Agreement, which the United States and Saudi Arabia announced July 24.

Why does Saudi Arabia need nuclear energy? It has the second-largest oil reserves anywhere on Earth. And if that runs out, the country is literally a desert—it could have plenty of solar energy.

Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman gave away the real reason in 2023, when he told Bret Baier that if Iran gets a nuclear bomb, “we have to get one.” Since the 2010s, it has apparently been giving Pakistan financial sponsorship of its nuclear program. And Donald Trump’s deal as it stands noticeably opts Saudi Arabia out of International Atomic Energy Agency monitoring, something previous deals with Iran and North Korea maintained.

The deal wouldn’t give Saudi Arabia a bomb on day one. It allows uranium enrichment at least two years down the road, and even then only after U.S. government approval. But it is a major step forward.

Some argue that if Saudi Arabia will flirt with getting a nuclear weapon anyway, then America’s best option is to jump in as Saudi Arabia’s primary nuclear partner—to at least stop hostile powers from exploiting an opening. Jane Darby Menton with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace claims the 123 Agreement for President Trump is “part of an ambitious plan to revive the ailing U.S. nuclear industry and regain competitive ground vis-à-vis Russia and China ….” The Royal United Services Institute claims the 123 Agreement allows the U.S. to “help mitigate the risk of greater Russian or Chinese influence in a critical sector” like exporting nuclear technology.

Narrowly, given the circumstances, it may seem like President Trump’s move is the smartest the U.S. could make. As a quid pro quo, Saudi Arabia may even be forced to recognize Israel or offer some other diplomatic breakthrough. But it is worth stepping back to get the big picture of exactly who the U.S. is dealing with.

Is Saudi Arabia Trustworthy?

Decades ago, Saudi Arabia had a reputation as one of the strictest countries in the Middle East in terms of Islamic law. Women had to wear an abaya—a long, black cloak—in public. Its particular variant of Islam, Wahhabism, used to be one of the main inspirations for Islamist terrorists. Osama bin Laden came from Saudi Arabia. The country only introduced general tourist visas in 2019. Its ruler has always had absolute power. Saudi Arabia is one of the relatively few countries left with no functioning legislature; the closest it has is an advisory body to the king.

However, under Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman—who has governed the country under his father King Salman since 2017—the kingdom’s reputation has significantly changed. Foreigners are now allowed as general tourists. Women can hold high office and dress as they please, even in Western swimwear. Alcohol consumption is slowly being tolerated. Cities like Riyadh and Jeddah are becoming playgrounds of the rich like Dubai and Doha already are. The kingdom even held a public joint military exercise with Israel in 2022. All the while, it remains one of the world’s biggest oil exporters, funding vanity projects with its massive export revenue. This includes purchasing icons of Western culture, like Portuguese football superstar Cristiano Ronaldo to play for a Saudi team, or Leonardo da Vinci’s rediscovered painting, the Salvator Mundi.

In short, at least on the surface, Saudi Arabia seems almost Westernized.

Saudi Arabia has also become the dominant Arab country opposing Iran’s rise. The two countries have backed opposing sides in civil wars in places like Yemen, Lebanon, Syria and Bahrain. Saudi Arabia enacted an economic blockade against Qatar, arguably Iran’s closest friend in the Arab world.

All this makes Saudi Arabia appear to be the perfect candidate for the U.S. to prop up against Iran. And the nation has had an unusually close relationship with President Trump for years. Saudi Arabia was the first country he ever visited as president in 2017. His family, including his son-in-law Jared Kushner, has accomplished massive business dealings in Saudi Arabia.

But does this mean Saudi Arabia can be trusted with a nuclear weapon?

Context

Saudi Arabia is not a democracy. Its human rights record has been atrocious for decades. Saudi Arabia is not siding with the U.S. and Israel because it shares their values; it is siding with them because it shares their fear of Iran. Fear of mutual threats combined with leverage has always defined the Saudi-American relationship. Since President Richard Nixon’s administration, Saudi Arabia has agreed to sell its oil in U.S. dollars in exchange for security guarantees.

Top-level dealings aside, what do the Saudi people think of these arrangements?

The Washington Institute for Near East Policy released a poll in August 2025 that revealed just how anti-Western the average Saudi outlook is. Thirty-five percent of respondents said it was important for Saudi Arabia to have good relations with the U.S., as opposed to 65 percent for China and 57 percent for Russia. Only 21 percent said President Trump’s policies toward Saudi Arabia were good “on the whole,” while an amazing zero percent believed so for the policies of President Joe Biden. A previous poll suggested 40 percent said they held positive views of Hamas immediately after its Oct. 7, 2023, terror attack against Israel. Another survey suggested 54 percent of Saudis in 2020 had a negative opinion of the peace accords between Israel and other Arab states.

It’s common knowledge that Osama bin Laden was Saudi. So were almost all of the 9/11 terrorists. And it is an open secret that the Saudi government had some level of complicity in the 9/11 attacks. Most analysts don’t think the king or his top decision-makers were in on the conspiracy. But how far up the complicity goes is still an open question.

Crown Prince Mohammed’s opinions don’t reflect the Saudi people as a whole. He only has those sympathies because of strategic concerns rather than any love for Western values. If those strategic concerns change, then his opinion can change. And he happens to rule a country in arguably the most unstable part of the world that regularly suffers civil wars, terror group take-overs and unrest.

In short, even under Crown Prince Mohammed, Saudi Arabia is one of the last countries America should trust anywhere near nuclear weapons.

Crown Prince Mohammed said regarding an Iranian bomb: “If they get one, we have to get one.” If this happens, what happens next?

Prophetic Perspective

A passage in Psalm 83 illuminates where a Saudi bomb could lead. It describes an alliance of Middle Eastern peoples assembled “that the name of Israel may be no more in remembrance” (verse 4). Prophetically, this includes the modern State of Israel but also the U.S. The alliance’s composition is: “The tabernacles of Edom, and the Ishmaelites; of Moab, and the Hagarenes; Gebal, and Ammon, and Amalek; the Philistines with the inhabitants of Tyre; Assur also is joined with them …” (verses 6-8).

Neither biblical nor secular history records an alliance of this scope forming to blot Israel out of memory. Because of this, Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry has labeled this a prophecy for our day. But it makes little sense unless one knows the modern identities of these ancient peoples. Mr. Flurry explained this in a January 2021 article:

Based on biblical and historical research and with God’s inspiration, Herbert W. Armstrong gave a good general idea of which nations these peoples correspond to today, equating the Ishmaelites with Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states, the Hagarenes with Syria, the Philistines with the Palestinians, Gebal and Tyre with Lebanon, Moab and Ammon with Jordan, and Edom and Amalek with Turkey. … Notice too that Assur, or Assyria, is on this list. This refers to modern-day Germany.

Prophecy says Saudi Arabia will not be aligned with America. The Saudis hate America and what it represents. Prophecy also says this won’t be apparent on the surface.

Verse 3 reads: “They have taken crafty counsel against thy people [including America], and consulted against thy hidden ones.” Mr. Flurry commented in his article: “While it seems that these nations are moving away from radicalism and violence, we must look beneath the surface. After all, this prophecy reveals that they will take ‘crafty counsel’—subtle and shrewd dealing.”

This prophecy is in tandem with another in Daniel 11:40-43, which shows Germany establishes this alliance in part to counter another bloc led by Iran. Specifically it says Germany will invade Iran “like a whirlwind” from the neighboring regions. Daniel 12:1 shows this crisis will escalate into a nuclear World War iii—with America and Israel becoming victims. (Request a free copy of Mr. Flurry’s book The King of the South to learn more.)

Mr. Flurry writes in The King of the South:

This word [whirlwind] has an unusual emphasis on terror! Will this terrifying whirlwind be nuclear? It certainly will be terrorizing! And it is about to explode in the Middle East. Finally the terrorists themselves will be terrorized! …

Soon that whirlwind will start rotating and whirling against the king of the south with increasing speed, like a well-armed—probably nuclear-armed—vortex!

Saudi Arabia doesn’t have to gain the nuclear bomb for this to play out. But in light of Bible prophecy, Saudi Arabia’s rivalry with Iran and how serious it is for any country to gain nuclear weapons, this development warrants extremely close attention.

To learn more, request a free copy of The King of the South.