Special to WorldTribune.com

Saudi Arabia’s investment in Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program essentially gave Riyadh the “bomb in reserve,” an aide told then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in 2010.

A newly-released email from Clinton’s private account during her time as secretary of state dated February 2010 from Clinton confidante Sidney Blumenthal details a dinner conversation between Blumenthal and Joschka Fischer, the former German Foreign Minister and Vice Chancellor from 1998-2005.

According to Blumenthal: “Fischer points out that if Iran develops nuclear weaponry the Saudis already have their own bomb. The Saudis invested in Pakistan’s nuclear weaponry partly for this eventuality; that’s their bomb in reserve.”

Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei revealed after the recent nuclear deal was concluded that negotiations pre-dated current President Hassan Rowhani’s election, and secret talks were held as early as March 2013.

“Our negotiations with the Americans are, in fact, different from our negotiations with the P5+1,” Khamenei said. “The Americans themselves asked for these negotiations and their proposals date back to the time of the tenth [Mahmoud Ahmadinejad] administration.”

In his email to Clinton, Blumenthal said Fischer hinted that negotiations may have happened as the Iranian government was recovering from protests disputing the 2009 presidential election in which Ahmadinejad was re-elected.

Ahmadinejad, a hardliner who was seen as an obstacle to the negotiations, actually turned out to support them. Blumenthal told Clinton that “according to Fischer’s intelligence, Ahmadinejad wished some negotiated settlement but was blocked. The regime has splits at the top.”

Opponents of the Iran nuclear agreement fear that it will spark a nuclear arms race in the Middle East. In May, former Saudi intelligence chief Prince Turki bin Faisal threatened to match Iranian enrichment capabilities: “Whatever the Iranians have, we will have too.”

  Sid Blumenthal told Hillary Clinton in 2010 that Saudi already had the bomb, WorldTribune.com