Former State Department official on the implications of the U.S.-Saudi nuclear deal

NPR's Michel Martin talks to Daniel Benaim, a former State Department official who worked on Gulf issues, about the U.S.-Saudi nuclear deal. Transcript MICHEL MARTIN, HOST: Let's get an assessment of the U.S.-Saudi deal from someone with a deep knowledge of the region. Daniel Benaim is a former U.S. deputy assistant secretary of state who specialized in the Arabian Peninsula during the Biden administration. He's now with the Middle East Institute. Good morning. Thanks for joining us.DANIEL BENAIM: Good morning.MARTIN: So we just heard NPR's Emily Feng say Saudi Arabia has sought nuclear cooperation with the U.S. for at least a decade. Now, why is that?BENAIM: Well, you know, I understand why someone would look at this from the outside and be very quizzical that - and say that Saudi Arabia needs energy like a drowning man needs oil - needs water. But I think actually, if you look closely, what they're trying to do is transform their economy to look past the moment when the world looks to their oil. They want to build huge energy-intensive industries, data centers, desalination. And they're actually burning their own crude oil up to 1.4 million barrels a day at the height of the summ...