From the Wall Street Journal

OPINION

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Why Is Bush Helping Saudi Arabia Build Nukes?

Here's a quick geopolitical quiz: What country is
three times the size of Texas and has more than 300 days of blazing sun
a year? What country has the world's largest oil reserves resting below
miles upon miles of sand? And what country is being given nuclear
power, not solar, by President George W. Bush, even when the mere
assumption of nuclear possession in its region has been known to
provoke pre-emptive air strikes, even wars?

If you answered Saudi Arabia to all of these questions, you're right.

Last month, while the American people were becoming
the personal ATMs of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting
Countries, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was in Saudi Arabia
signing away an even more valuable gift: nuclear technology. In a
ceremony little-noticed in this country, Ms. Rice volunteered the U.S.
to assist Saudi Arabia in developing nuclear reactors, training nuclear
engineers, and constructing nuclear infrastructure. While oil breaks
records at $130 per barrel or more, the American consumer is footing
the bill for Saudi Arabia's nuclear ambitions.

Saudi Arabia has poured money into developing its vast
reserves of natural gas for domestic electricity production. It
continues to invest in a national gas transportation pipeline and
stepped-up exploration, building a solid foundation for domestic energy
production that could meet its electricity needs for many decades.
Nuclear energy, on the other hand, would require enormous investments
in new infrastructure by a country with zero expertise in this complex
technology.

Have Ms. Rice, Mr. Bush or Saudi leaders looked
skyward? The Saudi desert is under almost constant sunshine. If Mr.
Bush wanted to help his friends in Riyadh diversify their energy
portfolio, he should have offered solar panels, not nuclear plants.

Saudi Arabia's interest in nuclear technology can only
be explained by the dangerous politics of the Middle East. Saudi
Arabia, a champion and kingpin of the Sunni Arab world, is deeply
threatened by the rise of Shiite-ruled Iran.

The two countries watch each other warily over the
waters of the Persian Gulf, buying arms and waging war by proxy in
Lebanon and Iraq. An Iranian nuclear weapon would radically alter the
region's balance of power, and could prove to be the match that lights
the tinderbox. By signing this agreement with the U.S., Saudi Arabia is
warning Iran that two can play the nuclear game.

In 2004, Vice President Dick Cheney said, "[Iran is]
already sitting on an awful lot of oil and gas. No one can figure why
they need nuclear, as well, to generate energy." Mr. Cheney got it
right about Iran. But a potential Saudi nuclear program is just as
suspicious. For a country with so much oil, gas and solar potential,
importing expensive and dangerous nuclear power makes no economic sense.

The Bush administration argues that Saudi Arabia can
not be compared to Iran, because Riyadh said it won't develop uranium
enrichment or spent-fuel reprocessing, the two most dangerous nuclear
technologies. At a recent hearing before my Select Committee on Energy
Independence and Global Warming, Secretary of Energy Samuel Bodman
shrugged off concerns about potential Saudi misuse of nuclear
assistance for a weapons program, saying simply: "I presume that the
president has a good deal of confidence in the King and in the
leadership of Saudi Arabia."

That's not good enough. We would do well to remember
that it was the U.S. who provided the original nuclear assistance to
Iran under the Atoms for Peace program, before Iran's monarch was
overthrown in the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Such an uprising in Saudi
Arabia today could be at least as damaging to U.S. security.

We've long known that America's addiction to oil pays
for the spread of extremism. If this Bush nuclear deal moves forward,
Saudi Arabia's petrodollars could flow to the dangerous expansion of
nuclear technologies in the most volatile region of the world.

While the scorching Saudi Arabian sun heats sand dunes
instead of powering photovoltaic panels, millions of Americans will
fork over $4 a gallon without realizing that their gas tank is fueling
a nascent nuclear arms race.

Rep. Markey (D., Mass.) is chairman of the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming.