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1NC- RELATIONSC) DECLINE IN US-SAUDI RELATIONS CAUSES SAUDI ARABIA TO GET NUKES FROM CHINA, INCREASING TENSIONS WITH ISRAEL Thomas W. Lippman , member of the Council on Foreign Relations and former Middle East correspondent and a diplomatic and national security reporter for The Washington Post, 2/9/08 “Nuclear Weapons and Saudi Strategy” http://www.saudi-us-relations.org/articles/2008/ioi/080209-lippman-nuclear.html So let us suppose that Saudi Arabia’s currently testy relationship with the United States deteriorated to the point where the Saudis no longer felt they could rely on Washington’s protection. If the Saudis could no longer assume that the armed forces of the United States are their ultimate weapon against external threats, might they not wish to acquire a different ultimate weapon? With that in mind, could not a reasonable case be made in the Saudis’ minds for the development of an alternative security relationship, and perhaps a nuclear agreement, with another major power should relations with the United States deteriorate? A possible candidate for such a role would of course be China, a nuclear power that has a close relationship with Saudi Arabia’s ally Pakistan and a growing need for imported oil. Sufficiently remote from the Persian Gulf not to pose a direct threat to Saudi Arabia, and no longer part of any international communist movement, China could theoretically be an attractive partner. This is not to say that Saudi Arabia is actually seeking such a relationship with any country other the United States, but to be unaware of any such outreach is not to exclude it from the realm of possibility. The Saudi Arabian armed forces have never developed a coherent national security doctrine that could provide a serious basis for acquisition and deployment planning, let alone for a decision to acquire nuclear weapons. But to summarize the reasons why Saudi Arabia might pursue such a course: it is a rich but weak country with armed forces of suspect competence; outmanned by combat-hardened, truculent and potentially nuclear-armed neighbors; and no longer confident that it can count on its American protector. Even before the Iraq War, Richard L. Russell observed in a 2001 essay arguing the case for Saudi acquisition of nuclear capability that “It would be imprudent, to say the least, for Riyadh to make the cornerstone of [its] national-security posture out of an assumption that the United States would come to the kingdom’s defense under any and all circumstances.” [3] It might be even more imprudent now. “From Riyadh’s perspective,” continued Russell, “the acquisition of nuclear weapons and secure delivery systems would appear logical and even necessary.” Those “secure delivery systems,” Russell argued, would not be aircraft, which are vulnerable to ground defenses, but “ballistic-missile delivery systems that would stand a near-invulnerable chance of penetrating enemy airspace”— namely, the CSS-2s. Military experts say it is theoretically possible that the missiles could be made operational, modernized, and retrofitted with nuclear warheads acquired from China, Pakistan or perhaps, within a few years, North Korea. Any attempt to do so, however, would present immense technical and political difficulties — so much so that Saudi Arabia might emerge less secure, rather than more. Even aside from the fact that such a nuclear program would place Saudi Arabia in the category of global nuclear outlaw along with North Korea and, by then, probably Iran, the acquisition of warheads would encounter strenuous opposition from the United States and Israel. Having watched Washington’s reaction to Pakistan’s nuclear tests in 1998, the Saudis are well aware that US law requires economic and military sanctions against nuclear proliferators. And whereas Pakistan and India had friends in Congress, willing to help them escape the network of mandatory sanctions, Saudi Arabia does not. If an angry Congress cut off Saudi Arabia from future purchases of US military equipment and Israel threatened a pre-emptive strike, the Kingdom’s position would be precarious to the point of untenability. 1NC- RELATIONSD) NUCLEAR SAUDI ARABIA LEADS TO ISRAELI STRIKE American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise “Potential Threats To Israel: Saudi Arabia” 2007 http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Threats_to_Israel/Saudi_Arabia.html The Saudis have accumulated one of the most modern militaries in the Arab world. Although there is minimal threat to Israel from Saudi Arabia on its own, the Saudis have participated in previous Arab-Israeli wars, and the prospect that it could do so again, this time with its state-of-the-art weapons arsenal, must be taken seriously. An additional risk that cannot be dismissed is the possibility of a hostile, anti-western regime taking over the country. The Saudis also bankroll military purchases by some of Israelis more direct adversaries, such as Syria. Saudi Arabia has amassed one of the region’s most advanced militaries. Israeli military assessments must account for the Saudi air force because the quality of Saudi aircraft and aerial missiles are on par with Israeli models, directly impacting on Israel’s vital qualitative military edge. Saudi Arabia has reportedly transferred much of its advanced F-15 fighter-jet fleet to the Tabuk air base in violation of the kingdom's promises not to do so. As part of the Carter Administration's effort to persuade Congress to approve the controversial sale of F-15s to the Saudis in 1978, U.S. Secretary of Defense Harold Brown said in a letter to Congress that the planes would be based elsewhere in part because they would be too vulnerable at Tabuk. From this advanced base, the jets could reach Israel's southern border in about six minutes. The United States requested that the Saudis return the planes to their original bases, but they have so far refused to do so. Consequently, Israel has had to increase its monitoring of Saudi Arabia. In December 2005, Britain and Saudi Arabia signed a memorandum of understanding to increase Britain’s involvement in modernizing the Saudi armed forces and to engage in joint training and exercises. In July 2006, Saudi Arabia is expected to sign a multibillion dollar contract with BAE systems in Britain, which would include the replacement of British-made Tornado jets with perhaps as many as 72 new Eurofighter Typhoon jets. The new fighter, which would not be delivered until 2008, had previously been sold only to countries involved in manufacturing the planes — Britain, Germany, Italy, Spain and Austria. In 1981, the United States sold sophisticated AWACS radar planes, a controversial decision that was opposed by many members of Congress and only approved after some restrictions were placed on how the AWACS would be equipped and where they would be based. In 2007, Boeing announced it signed a contract to enhance the AWACS' capabilities by installing a secure, jam-resistant, digital data link that allows military aircraft, ships and ground units to exchange tactical pictures with each other in near real time. Nuclear Ambitions? Concern is growing that Saudi Arabia may also be interested in pursuing a nuclear option, particularly in light of rival Iran's secret nuclear weapons development program. Nevertheless, the International Atomic Energy Agency approved a deal June 16, 2005, that keeps nuclear inspectors out of Saudi Arabia. The IAEA approved the deal despite serious misgivings about such arrangements in this era of heightened proliferation fears. The Saudis qualified for a “small quantities protocol, ” which frees countries from reporting the possession of up to 10 tons of natural uranium – enough to make a bomb – or up to 20 tons of depleted uranium, depending on the degree of enrichment, and 2.2 pounds of plutonium. E) ARAB-ISRAELI WAR LEADS GLOBAL NUCLEAR WAR John Steinbach. "Israeli Nuclear Weapons: A Threat to Peace." 3 Mar. 2002. http://www.converge.org.nz/pma/mat0036.htm Meanwhile, the existence of an arsenal of mass destruction in such an unstable region in turn has serious implications for future arms control and disarmament negotiations, and even the threat of nuclear war. Seymour Hersh warns, "Should war break out in the Middle East again,... or should any Arab nation fire missiles against Israel, as the Iraqis did, a nuclear escalation, once unthinkable except as a last resort, would now be a strong probability."(41) and Ezar Weissman, Israel's current President said "The nuclear issue is gaining momentum (and the) next war will not be conventional."(42) Russia and before it the Soviet Union has long been a major (if not the major) target of Israeli nukes. It is widely reported that the principal purpose of Jonathan Pollard's spying for Israel was to furnish satellite images of Soviet targets and other super sensitive data relating to U.S. nuclear targeting strategy. (43) (Since launching its own satellite in 1988, Israel no longer needs U.S. spy secrets.) Israeli nukes aimed at the Russian heartland seriously complicate disarmament and arms control negotiations and, at the very least, the unilateral possession of nuclear weapons by Israel is enormously destabilizing, and dramatically lowers the threshold for their actual use, if not for all out nuclear war. In the words of Mark Gaffney, "... if the familar pattern(Israel refining its weapons of mass destruction with U.S. complicity) is not reversed soon- for whatever reason- the deepening Middle East conflict could trigger a world conflagration." RELATIONS HIGH NOWUS-SAUDI RELATIONS HIGH- ECONOMIC ISSUES ARE A MAJOR PART Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, February 2008 “Background Note: Saudi Arabia” http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/3584.htm U.S.-SAUDI ARABIAN RELATIONS Saudi Arabia's unique role in the Arab and Islamic worlds, its possession of the world's largest reserves of oil, and its strategic location make its friendship important to the United States. Diplomatic relations were established in 1933; the U.S. embassy opened in Jeddah in 1944 and moved to Riyadh in 1984. The Jeddah embassy became a U.S. consulate. Meanwhile, a U.S. consulate opened in Dhahran in 1944. The United States and Saudi Arabia share a common concern about regional security, oil exports and imports, and sustainable development. Close consultations between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia have developed on international, economic, and development issues such as the Middle East peace process and shared interests in the Gulf. The continued availability of reliable sources of oil, particularly from Saudi Arabia, remains important to the prosperity of the United States as well as to Europe and Japan. Saudi Arabia is one of the leading sources of imported oil for the United States, providing more than one million barrels/day of oil to the U.S. The U.S. is Saudi Arabia's largest trading partner, and Saudi Arabia is the largest U.S. export market in the Middle East. In addition to economic ties, a longstanding security relationship continues to be important in U.S.-Saudi relations. A U.S. military training mission established at Dhahran in 1953 provides training and support in the use of weapons and other security-related services to the Saudi armed forces. The United States has sold Saudi Arabia military aircraft (F-15s, AWACS, and UH-60 Blackhawks), air defense weaponry (Patriot and Hawk missiles), armored vehicles (M1A2 Abrams tanks and M-2 Bradley infantry fighting vehicles), and other equipment. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers had a long-term role in military and civilian construction activities in the Kingdom. The U.S., as part of the Gulf Security Dialogue with individual Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) members, has announced plans to sell advanced, primarily defensive, military equipment to GCC members, including Saudi Arabia, to support the efforts of these countries to increase their capacity for self-defense. In August 2003, following the U.S.-led war in Iraq in March and April 2003, the United States withdrew its troops stationed in Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia’s relations with the United States were strained after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in which 15 of the suicide bombers were Saudi citizens. In May 2003, a terrorist organization directly affiliated with al-Qaida launched a violent campaign of terror in Saudi Arabia. On May 12, suicide bombers killed 35 people, including nine Americans, in attacks at three housing compounds for Westerners in Riyadh. On November 8, 2003 terrorists attacked another compound housing foreign workers from mainly Arab countries. At least 18 people, including 5 children died in this attack, and more than 100 were injured. On May 1, 2004 terrorists killed two Americans in the Yanbu oil facility in the western part of the country. On May 29, 2004 terrorists killed one American and wounded several others in attacks on an official building and housing compound in al-Khobar in the Eastern Province. On June 6, terrorists shot and killed a BBC journalist. On June 9 and June 12, 2004 terrorists killed Americans Robert Jacobs and Kenneth Scroggs. On June 18, 2004 terrorists kidnapped and beheaded American Paul Johnson. On December 6, 2004 terrorists attacked the U.S. Consulate in Jeddah, killing five consulate employees. Terrorists also targeted and killed other foreign nationalities during this time. Saudi security services have waged an active counterterrorism campaign that has largely neutralized this terrorist organization, though sproradic instances of terrorism still occur. In May 2006, terrorists attempted to attack the important ARAMCO oil-processing facility near Abqaiq. In February 2007, four French nationals were killed in western Saudi Arabia in a suspected terrorist attack. Saudi Arabia is an important partner in the campaign against terrorism, providing assistance in the military, diplomatic, and financial arenas. Counterterrorism cooperation between Saudi Arabia and the United States increased significantly after the May 12, 2003 bombings in Riyadh and continues today. In February 2005, the Saudi government sponsored the first ever Counter-Terrorism International Conference in Riyadh. 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