A nuclear Iran would pose an additional threat to American interests: the threat of further nuclear proliferation. A great many of Iran’s neighbors fear that once Iran acquires nuclear weapons it will pursue an aggressive foreign policy. Consequently, if or when Tehran crosses the nuclear threshold, other Middle Eastern states may seek nuclear weapons of their own to deter an Iranian attack, covert or overt. Those outside the region considering whether to acquire nuclear weapons might even draw the lesson from the Iranian case that the penalties for developing a nuclear weapon would be less than they feared.
Since the Second World War, the United States has had an interest in limiting the number of countries with nuclear arsenals because proliferation increases the number of potentially dangerous states with unquestionably dangerous weapons. However, we have been famously inconsistent in applying that principle. The United States has been willing to accept a half dozen or more countries—including Britain, France, and India—acquiring nuclear weapons because Washington did not see them as dangerous. In contrast, the United States actually tried to dissuade Israel from going down the nuclear path.1 One of the strongest justifications for toppling Saddam Husayn’s regime was that he was a dangerous, aggressive, and hard-to-deter leader, and was (mistakenly) believed to be close to acquiring nuclear weapons. Moreover, because others saw him as dangerous, Saddam’s acquisition of nuclear weapons would have been a major spur to further proliferation.
The country most likely to follow Iran down the nuclear rabbit hole is Saudi Arabia.2 Since before the Iranian Revolution, Riyadh has been a rival of Tehran. Since then, and since the fall of Saddam Husayn, the Saudis have seen themselves as Iran’s principal opponent. Saudi Arabia is the leader of the Arab world, particularly as it confronts Persian Iran. As the home of Mecca and Medina, Saudi Arabia is also the champion of the Sunni world against Iran, the great Shi’i power. Of equal importance, the Saudi royal family, the Al Sa’ud, are (with some notable exceptions) fearful of change—especially violent change—worrying that it will destroy their enviable existence. The behavior of the Saudis stands in contrast to Iran’s determination to undermine or overthrow the status quo. Across the region and beyond, the Saudis back one group while the Iranians back its rival, regardless of the venue: Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, the Palestinian territories, Afghanistan, Bahrain, and points beyond.
The Saudis may exaggerate Iran’s capability to hurt them, but they are not necessarily wrong about Tehran’s malign intent. The Iranians have tried to overthrow the Al Sa’ud before. In 1981, 1982, 1986, and most notably in 1987, Iran sent agents to the Hajj in Mecca to start riots meant to provoke an all-out revolution in the Kingdom. The 1987 incident resulted in the deaths of more than four hundred people, including eighty-five Saudi police.3 In 1987, in the midst of the Iran-Iraq War, the Iranians attempted to mount a major naval operation to destroy Saudi oil facilities in the Gulf, which was only aborted by the unexpected intervention of the U.S. Navy.4 Tehran created a Saudi version of Hizballah in the 1990s, which it used to attack the Khobar Towers housing complex in Dhahran—an attack that killed nineteen American military personnel and injured 372 others. In 2011, as noted earlier, Tehran apparently tried to kill the Saudi ambassador to Washington.
Iranian subversive efforts are frightening to the Saudis because Shi’a constitute about 10–15 percent of the Saudi population. Saudi Sunnis practice a fundamentalist version of Islam that has little sympathy for Shi’ism—typically branding the Shi’a as heretics. Consequently, the Saudi Shi’i community is the target of both persecution and prejudice. This persecution has made Saudi Arabia’s Shi’i population prone to protest and revolt, and receptive to Iranian support. Worse still for Riyadh, the Saudi Shi’i population is overwhelmingly concentrated in the Kingdom’s Eastern Province (ash-Sharqiyya, literally “the east” in Arabic), where Saudi oil production is concentrated. The Shi’i have an outsized presence in Saudi Aramco, the world-class organization that runs the Kingdom’s gigantic oil industry. In 2012, a computer virus infected thirty thousand Aramco computers. The Saudis are convinced that the virus was made in Iran and introduced into the Aramco system by a Shi’i employee. The damage was limited, but it terrified the Saudis—and the global oil market, reliant as it is on the Kingdom’s exports.5
The Saudis also seem to have a straightforward way to acquire nuclear weaponry. Throughout the 1970s and ’80s, Riyadh bankrolled the Pakistani nuclear program and Saudi financing was critical to Islamabad’s success. No one believes that the Saudis did that selflessly.6 When I worked as a Persian Gulf military analyst for the CIA, we used to say informally that somewhere in the basement of Pakistan’s Kahuta nuclear plant there is a nuclear weapon that has stenciled on its side, PROPERTY OF THE KINGDOM OF SAUDI ARABIA. There have been periodic reports of a nuclear agreement between Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, most notably in 2003.7 Whether that is true or not, whether the Saudis have some claim on specific Pakistani nuclear weapons, is known only to the highest levels of the Pakistani and Saudi governments. However, there should be no question that the Kingdom’s support for the Pakistani program gives Riyadh some claim on Pakistan. The Saudis may be able to take delivery of a weapon long promised by the Pakistanis. They might be able to buy one, providing Islamabad with needed capital in return for one or more weapons.8 Given Saudi oil wealth, Riyadh might even be able to buy a bomb elsewhere, such as North Korea, if the Pakistanis demur.
Consequently, Saudi Arabia is the most likely candidate to acquire nuclear weapons if Iran does.9 In private, Saudi officials have repeatedly warned American officials and former officials (including this author) that if Iran crosses the nuclear threshold, Saudi Arabia will follow—and nothing will stop them.10 They will not live in a world where Iran has a nuclear weapon and they do not. Prince Turki al-Faisal, the former Saudi intelligence chief, has gone so far as to repeat that warning in public.11 In 2011, Turki announced, “It is in our interest that Iran does not develop a nuclear weapon, for its doing so would compel Saudi Arabia, whose foreign relations are now so fully measured and well assessed, to pursue policies that could lead to untold and possibly dramatic consequences.”12
That sounds ominous, and the risk of Saudi proliferation is real. But there are still a lot of “buts.” First, it is not entirely clear what Iran’s crossing the “nuclear threshold” means, whether the Saudis would know it, and at what point they would act. Because the Iranians may be willing to halt their nuclear program once they have achieved a breakout capability, it may not be clear to outsiders for some time—perhaps years—exactly where the Iranian program stands. If Iran is willing to stop short of fielding an arsenal, the Saudis may feel less compelled to match them. Indeed, Saudi Arabia’s response may be the most compelling reason for Iran to stop short of crossing that threshold, potentially far more persuasive than additional international sanctions in restraining Iran.
Riyadh is also a signatory to the NPT, and it has taken its commitment (indeed, all of its treaty obligations) more seriously than the Iranians. Although Israel has become far more comfortable with the Saudis in recent decades, Jerusalem has never forgotten Saudi support and even participation in the various Arab-Israeli wars. Moreover, the Israelis fear that someday the House of Sa’ud may fall and any accumulated weapons will end up in the hands of far more radical successors or violent factions in an Arabian civil war. In addition to Israel’s influence in Washington, American policymakers themselves have long opposed Saudi acquisition of a nuclear capability. In the 1980s, when the Kingdom acquired nuclear-capable intermediate-range ballistic missiles from China, the U.S. government weighed in heavily with Riyadh to ensure that no nuclear warheads would accompany the missiles.13
The Saudis are often more subtle and creative than others give them credit for. They may not take the obvious path and buy a nuclear weapon itself. There are many ways that they could create ambiguity and make Iran (and others) wonder whether they had acquired a nuclear capability without declaring that the Kingdom had joined the nuclear club. Riyadh could build a nuclear plant of its own and begin to enrich uranium, perhaps even hiring large numbers of Pakistanis and other foreigners to do so quickly, in the same manner as the Iranians have. A favorite scenario of Israeli intelligence is that one day after Iran crosses the nuclear threshold, satellite imagery of Saudi Arabia would reveal the presence of a half dozen nuclear-capable Pakistani F-16s at a Saudi air base. Pakistan has long contributed military support, equipment, and even whole formations to Saudi defense, so a Pakistani air presence would not be extraordinary. Yet everyone would wonder whether the F-16s had brought nuclear weapons with them and the Saudis could simply ignore the question. Neither the Iranians nor anyone else would know, but Tehran would have to calculate that Riyadh had in effect acquired a nuclear weapon. Yet there would be no proof that the Kingdom had done so and therefore no particular basis to impose sanctions or otherwise punish the Saudis.
Only slightly less likely to proliferate than the Saudis are the Emiratis. Although the Iranians have never tried to overthrow the UAE government (to our knowledge), the depth of fear and hatred in Abu Dhabi for the Islamic regime in Tehran is no less than in Riyadh. In 1971, Iran seized three small but strategically located islands from the UAE located in the midst of the shipping channel through the vital Strait of Hormuz. This has been a source of enmity ever since. Moreover, the UAE leadership shares the Saudi preference for the status quo and has seen Iran’s efforts to stir up upheaval across the region as the greatest threat to their own interests.
To demonstrate their concern about Iran’s nuclear program, the UAE has done something clever, but also potentially ominous. In 2008, the UAE announced it was developing its own nuclear industry to support a civilian nuclear energy program.14 There is good reason for the Emiratis to pursue nuclear energy: the less that the UAE consumes its own oil production in powering its own economy, the more it will be able to export its finite hydrocarbon resources. However, the UAE has chosen to develop its own nuclear program within all of the guidelines of the NPT. Abu Dhabi’s point in doing so has been to make clear that it is possible to develop a civilian nuclear program in conformity with the NPT as a way of highlighting the falsity of Iran’s claims.
Of course, the UAE’s program may serve another rationale. Although the Emiratis take care never to say so in public, in private they make clear that their program is not just a foil, but a warning to Iran.15 If Abu Dhabi ever wanted, it could use its civilian program as the foundation for a nuclear weapons program, and Emirati officials will sometimes confirm in private that they want the Iranians to believe that if Tehran crossed that nuclear threshold, so too would the UAE.
Yet the UAE’s procession down this path is also not a certainty, even if the Iranians do weaponize. Like Saudi Arabia, the UAE has not acquired nuclear weapons, even though its strategic circumstances have created powerful incentives for them to do so for a decade or more. The same set of counterpressures that operate on the Saudis affect the UAE, and perhaps to an even greater degree. The UAE is smaller than Saudi Arabia, its oil production is much less than that of the Saudis, and its income is more tied to international finance than the Kingdom’s, all of which makes it more difficult for Abu Dhabi to defy the international community than it is for Riyadh.
The Emiratis have another consideration, and that is Saudi Arabia itself. The dirty little secret of the Gulf region is that all of their governments are suspicious of one another. All have grievances, irredentist claims, and long-standing grudges against one another. And all of the small Gulf emirates have some fear of their massive Saudi neighbor, just as they rely on Riyadh as their leader and principal voice on the world stage. Riyadh and Abu Dhabi have been working in lockstep in recent years, but the Emiratis must still worry that the Saudis will not want to see them acquire a nuclear weapon of their own. Riyadh’s perspective may well be that if any Gulf state gets a nuclear capability to balance Iran’s, it should be Saudi Arabia itself, and not its “little brothers” in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). That may be the greatest constraint on the UAE: Abu Dhabi might be willing to ignore international protests, even sanctions (which it could assume would be much weaker than those imposed on Iran, because no one fears the UAE). But it probably will not be willing to defy a demand by Riyadh to cease and desist, because the Saudis have the capacity and potentially the willingness to take action in the UAE.
Egypt, another country often mentioned as a potential proliferant should Iran cross the nuclear threshold, is probably the least likely of the candidates to follow Iran down the proliferation path.16 Egypt had an extensive nuclear development program of its own in the 1970s. It first delved into the nuclear realm in 1955, when Cairo inaugurated a civilian atomic energy program. At that time, the Egyptian military leadership suggested that Egypt begin research into nuclear weapons, but President Gamal ‘Abd al-Nasser turned them down.17 Six years later, Nasser changed his mind. On December 21, 1960, Israeli prime minister David Ben-Gurion confirmed that Israel was building a nuclear reactor at Dimona. In response, Nasser ordered a full-blown Egyptian effort to develop nuclear weapons. He insisted that Egypt would “secure atomic weapons at any cost.”18
From 1961 to 1967, Egypt tried to make good on Nasser’s pledge. Cairo tried purchasing them from the Soviets, in 1964 and again in 1965, but was rebuffed on both occasions.19 Simultaneously, the focus of Egypt’s indigenous nuclear program shifted from civilian power to weapons. Egypt began negotiations to augment its nuclear facilities to pursue a weapons capability. Cairo signed agreements with Yugoslavia, China, France, and India, and also negotiated with the Soviets, West Germans, and British for nuclear-related research and manufacturing capabilities.20
Yet Egypt never acquired a nuclear weapon. After the 1973 October War, President Anwar as-Sadat discontinued the program. He did so because the effort was a drain on Egypt’s economy, it became unnecessary strategically when peace with Israel became a real alternative, and because Sadat felt that a good relationship with the United States—with all of the economic, political, and military aid it promised—was more important. The Americans insisted as a condition for improved relations that Egypt abandon its nuclear aspirations.21
This history casts an important shadow on the notion that Iran’s acquisition of nuclear weapons would prompt Egypt to follow. Israel is Egypt’s neighbor. It smashed Egyptian armies repeatedly between 1948 and 1973. Losses to Israel resulted in the overthrow of King Farouk’s government in 1952, and threatened Nasser’s regime in 1956 and again in 1967. Nasser feared the same in 1969, during the War of Attrition. These threats prompted Egypt to try to acquire a nuclear arsenal in the first place.
If this compelling strategic and political threat was not sufficient to cause Egypt to acquire nuclear weapons—even after so much time, effort, and money spent trying to do so—it seems unlikely that Egypt would do so in response to an Iranian nuclear capability. Iran is much farther away. Unlike Israel, it poses no threat to Egyptian territory, only a minor threat to the safety of Egyptian citizens, and not much more of one to the Egyptian government. Today and for the foreseeable future, Egypt’s own internal economic, social, and political problems are likely to prove a far more compelling priority for the new Egyptian government than an abstract threat from Iran. Since coming to power in 2012, Egypt’s new president, Muhammad Morsi, has exchanged visits with his Iranian counterpart and his spokesmen have been talking about warming relations. This statecraft hardly suggests that the new Egypt sees Iran as a threat.
Former Egyptian autocrat Husni Mubarak believed Iran was one of his greatest foes. He saw Iran’s hand in every unfortunate event to befall Egypt, including the failed assassination attempt against him in Addis Ababa in 1995. There were few greater foes of Iran among the Arabs than Mubarak, and he joined any effort that promised to hamstring the Islamic Republic. During Mubarak’s rule over Egypt, Iran’s nuclear program accelerated—enough to galvanize the Saudis, Emiratis, and other Arab states to action. And Mubarak openly admitted he was uncomfortable with Iran’s nuclear pursuit, warning in a 2009 interview that “[a] nuclear armed Iran with hegemonic ambitions is the greatest threat to Arab nations today.”22 Despite that, Mubarak saw no need to bring back Egypt’s nuclear program to try to match Tehran. If Mubarak did not feel the need for a nuclear weapon to defend against Iran, it is hard to imagine that his successors would, at least in the near term. One Israeli assessment posits that Egypt would be more likely to redouble its demands for a Nuclear-Weapons Free Zone in the Middle East than to try to obtain nukes of its own in the event Iran goes nuclear.23
Over time, this position may change. If Iran’s acquisition of a nuclear capability results in nuclear dominoes falling across the region, and several more Middle Eastern states acquire nuclear weapons, Egypt may begin to feel otherwise. Egypt’s desire to lead the Arab world could make Cairo feel that it must acquire nukes to command the prestige to play that role. Indeed, if the Saudis have a nuclear arsenal, the Egyptians may feel that they have to have one just to match the Al Sa’ud. Likewise, if a new, stable Egyptian state emerges from the postrevolutionary rubble, Cairo may feel that it can afford to do so and, in a more nuclearized Middle East, that there will be fewer penalties for doing so. Even in this case, however, it is important to note that Egypt would be trying to acquire a nuclear capability to match its Arab brothers more than to confront its Persian rival.
Perhaps the most complicated case for proliferation arising from Iranian acquisition of nukes is Turkey.24 If it seems more likely than not that Saudi Arabia would try to acquire a nuclear capability of some kind, and that Egypt would probably refrain, Turkey could go either way.
Turkey has an important rivalry with Iran. There is a quip, usually attributed to the late Egyptian diplomat Tahseen Bashir, that in all the Middle East there are only three nations—Egypt, Iran, and Turkey—and all of the rest are mere “tribes with flags.” Just as Egypt seeks to be the leader of the Arab world, so too does Turkey see itself as one of the great powers of the region, as does Iran. This perception is especially keen after Turkey’s reemergence on the Middle Eastern scene under Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Erdogan’s foreign policy is often described as “neo-Ottoman,” reflecting the conscious desire on Ankara’s part to play a leading role across the Middle East. Just as Iran seeks to dominate southwest Asia, so too does Turkey. And like Egypt, there is reason to suspect that if Iran were to acquire nuclear weapons, Turkey would desire to do the same if only to match Tehran’s newfound status.25
Turkey’s sense of threat from Iran goes beyond this abstract contest for leadership. Turkey shares a border with Iran—as well as an unhappy Kurdish population that would prefer to be independent. Yet Iran has at times supported Kurdish PKK terrorists against Ankara.26 Moreover, although Turkey’s official ideology is secularism, it is a Sunni nation with a Sunni Islamist government. The rising tide of Sunni-Shi’a animosity also affects Iranian-Turkish relations, and shapes specific differences on policy matters. In Syria, Turkey backs the Sunni opposition while Iran just as staunchly backs the Shi’i/Alawi regime. Turkey sees the civil war in Syria as a critical threat to its national security, and Iran’s support for the regime infuriates Turkey. But Iran is just as enraged by what it sees as Turkey’s efforts to extirpate Iran’s last ally, Asad’s Alawi regime. In Iraq, Turkey backs Mas’ud Barzani’s Kurdistan Democratic Party and sees itself as a protector of Iraq’s Sunni Arab community. Iran, of course, is the patron saint of all of Iraq’s Shi’i groups and the two compete both directly and by proxy there. In almost every arena of conflict, Turkey lines up on one side and Iran on the other. As a result, Iran’s potential acquisition of nuclear weapons does concern Turkey.27
However, Turkey also faces a series of countervailing pressures. First is the state of Turkey’s economy. Turkey’s reemergence as a critical regional and even global power rests on the foundation of its economic revival. That revival in turn has been a product of internal Turkish reforms, engineered by the Erdogan government, that made possible enhanced trade with the Middle East, with Europe, with the United States, and with the Far East. This economic revival is intertwined with critical political reforms. Ankara cannot afford to jeopardize these trade ties for fear that it will undo both Turkey’s economic progress and political amity. Pursuing nuclear weapons could do just that.
Although under Erdogan Turkey has tried to be neither East nor West, neither wholly of Europe nor wholly of the Middle East, but something beyond and above both, its ties to Europe and the wider West remain of great importance. The European Union is Turkey’s number-one import and export partner, with total trade amounting to €120 billion in 2011. Turkish trade with the EU constituted 42 percent of all Turkish trade in 2010, and the United States added another 5.4 percent. Nothing else comes close in terms of importance to the Turkish economy. By comparison, Iran accounted for only 3.6 percent of Turkish trade that same year.28 The cornerstone of Turkish security remains its membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) alliance, which further ties Ankara to Europe and the United States. From Iraq to Syria to the Balkans to the Caucasus, Ankara has tried to address its foreign policy and security needs through the mechanisms of NATO and the Western alliance.
Turkey will be sensitive to Western and international reactions when it considers a nuclear arsenal, if Iran obtains one.29 Ankara will have to weigh how important it is for Turkey to stand toe-to-toe with a nuclear-armed Iran, or to avoid jeopardizing its crucial security and economic ties to the West. Moreover, those same ties will likely make it easier for Turkey to abjure the nuclear path. As a NATO member, Turkey can be confident that it has the full support of the United States and Europe if there is any threat to Turkey’s security. Rather than acquire a nuclear deterrent of its own, Ankara can decide that it already is defended by a nuclear arsenal—America’s (and France’s and Britain’s, for that matter)—an arsenal far more intimidating to Iran than anything that Turkey might ever build. That, and all of the other benefits that Turkey receives from its NATO membership, are likely to make it an asset that Ankara will be loath to discard.
A comprehensive study of Turkey’s nuclear policy by the Turkish think tank the Centre for Economics and Foreign Policy Studies (or EDAM) in 2011 concluded that Turkey was unlikely to develop nuclear weapons of its own in response to Iran’s moves. In their words:
A Turkish decision to proliferate would seriously complicate its international standing, undermine its economic resurgence and seriously damage relations with the United States and its other NATO allies. Moreover, any Turkish move towards weaponization would draw a harsh rebuke from the United States and would likely be met by an American proposal to strengthen security guarantees, as well as the threat of sanctions if Turkey were to continue its weapons efforts. Given Turkey’s non-nuclear history and its long-standing reliance on the NATO security guarantee, it is hard to imagine a scenario where Turkey would simply cast aside its long-standing non-nuclear policy in favor of an independent weapons capability. As a whole, Turkish actions and statements suggest that Ankara will remain committed to the NATO security guarantee, while developing indigenous capabilities to increase its intelligence, surveillance and information management capabilities.30
Just as the events of the Arab Spring have the potential to exacerbate the impact of a nuclear Iran on the instability of the region, so too is there an important interaction between nuclear proliferation and the tumultuous changes that began in 2011. The internal transformations racking the Arab world are likely to dampen proliferation concerns in the short term, but could turn around and amplify them later as stable new Arab states emerge from the chaos.
The events of the Arab Spring were not about foreign policy and international security, and are not likely to be about those issues for some time to come. The revolts sweeping the region since 2011 (2009 in the case of Iran) originated in the economic, political, and social stagnation of the Muslim Middle East.31 All of their governments—the new and the old—are focused on addressing those problems in ways that they never had before. Where the ancien régimes were overthrown, their successors are trying to pull together new, workable alternative systems. If they succeed, they will have to confront the residual economic and social dilemmas. Foreign policy issues, even on matters where their publics care passionately, like the Israeli-Palestinian dispute—have figured low as priorities. That is likely to remain so for some time to come.32
The surviving autocracies, largely monarchies, have continued to pay much greater attention to foreign affairs, particularly the threat from Iran and the Sunni-Shi’a split, which reinforces the greater likelihood that they (in the form of Saudi Arabia and perhaps the UAE) might choose to acquire a nuclear capability to match Iran. Yet even they are being forced to pay far more attention to their internal political, economic, and social dynamics than in the past. Especially for troubled monarchies such as Jordan and Bahrain, but also for the Saudis, who have the same set of internal challenges, the survivors have less time, energy, and resources to put into foreign policy because they have to devote so much more to domestic matters.
Domestic demands should dampen the ardor of these states to make a major investment in nuclear weapons, at least until their internal problems have been addressed. However, this same dynamic could produce a different set of outcomes over the longer term. One particular aspect of the Arab Spring that could make proliferation a greater problem over time is the emergence of Arab public opinion as a driving force in Arab politics. The Arab autocracies were never quite as inured to popular sentiment as often claimed, and they would take action in response to public pressures (or prejudice) on foreign policy matters to avoid antagonizing their populations unnecessarily, given their much greater interest in preserving public quiescence on domestic matters. A good example of this tendency was the increasing Arab discomfort with the U.S. sanctions and air strikes on Iraq in the late 1990s, a tendency driven by a combination of Saddam’s bribes and popular distaste—principally the latter in the Gulf states, which were immune to Saddam’s payoffs.
The political upheavals in the Arab world since 2011 have made public opinion a critical factor in Arab foreign policy moving forward. The new democracies will be far more sensitive to public attitudes. Even the remaining autocracies (and the new illiberal democracies that may emerge instead of true democracies in places such as Iraq or even Egypt) will likely be more deferential to popular sentiment for fear of triggering a revolt against themselves. Now that everyone knows that Arab publics will not remain passive forever, all of the governments will have to work much harder to keep them from rising up again.
Arab public opinion is not necessarily more anti-Iranian than that of their elites, and in some ways, it is less so. All public opinion, however, tends to be fickle. It is also susceptible to the siren song of demagogues. As time passes, the leaders of the various Arab states may find it harder to cope with the internal problems that gave rise to the revolutions in the first place, and some of those leaders may choose to try to divert rising popular unhappiness to an external scapegoat. While Israel and the United States are both potential (and traditional) candidates for that role, so too are Iran and Shi’ism. And if Iran becomes the scapegoat of choice, some of these leaders may decide to push for a nuclear capability—or suggest that one is needed—to confront the scapegoat. (Of course, the same could be true if Israel is the preferred distraction, as it has been in the past.) Indeed, some might even see in North Korea’s nuclear history a hope that pursuing nuclear weapons could secure additional economic aid that would help with domestic problems.
The effects of the Arab Spring relate to nuclear proliferation—and the Iranian nuclear issue—in one other potentially unhappy way. As we have seen in the Middle East and as is the case with most revolutions, for many years after the fall of its old regime, a country may be consumed by instability and frequent changes of government. If such states still manage to acquire nuclear weapons their instability will be a cause for alarm, raising the fear that their nuclear arms might fall into the hands of terrorists. Saudi Arabia is the state most experts and policymakers fear will experience revolutionary instability, and it is not out of the question that it would do so after acquiring a nuclear capability of some kind in response to Iran’s acquisition of the same. A revolution or civil war in Saudi Arabia would be bad enough because of the potentially catastrophic impact this would have on the global energy market. The addition of nuclear weapons to that mix could make that scenario the worst of all possible worlds.
America’s interest in nonproliferation in the Middle East also has a component that transcends our narrow interests in the region. The United States has always feared a more general threat to global security from the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD), a fear based on two different concerns. The first of these is that the more states that have WMD, the greater the likelihood that such weapons will fall into the hands of terrorists (or other dangerous individuals) or be used accidentally. This fear is statistical: the more countries with a nuclear arsenal, the greater the probability that one or more will fail to safeguard them properly, the greater the probability that one or more will choose to sell a weapon or give one to terrorists, and the greater the probability that political instability (and even governmental collapse) will lead to “the worst weapons” falling into the hands of “the worst people,” as President George W. Bush warned. Now that North Korea and Pakistan have nuclear weapons, and Iran is making considerable progress in the same direction, these fears are not idle.
The other fear relates to the tendency of nuclear proliferation to cause more nuclear proliferation. In a number of cases, one country’s possession of nuclear weapons has convinced another to do the same. America’s acquisition of the first nuclear weapons caused the Soviets to develop their own. To deter both superpowers, China decided to acquire its own nuclear arsenal. Fearing the Chinese, the Indians concluded that they too had to have a nuclear weapon, which in turn propelled the Pakistanis down the same path. The more Middle Eastern states acquire nuclear weapons, the more likely that others, inside the region and out, may feel the need to do the same.
Historically, the greatest incentive for countries to refrain from acquiring nuclear weapons has been the threat of sanctions and other forms of punishment. Since 1945, a number of countries have started down the path of acquiring nuclear weapons but ultimately chose not do so. Egypt, Sweden, Switzerland, Australia, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Brazil, and Argentina all discontinued nuclear programs before they had acquired a weapon. In every case an important element in their decision to do so was the potential price they believed they would pay in terms of international opprobrium, if not formal sanctions.33
Consequently, the more that countries are able to acquire nuclear weapons (or other WMD) without incurring heavy penalties for doing so, the more that it could convince others that it would be worth it for them to do so as well. Already, Israel, India, and even Pakistan are widely seen as having crossed the nuclear weapons threshold without paying much of a price.34 Moreover, the more states that have successfully proliferated in the face of international pressure not to do so, the less international pressure that can be expected to be applied against the next state to try, potentially eroding the entire nonproliferation regime over time.
In contrast, there are three well-known cases in which a would-be proliferator paid a terrible price. Saddam’s Iraq was invaded to prevent it from acquiring nuclear weapons. Qadhafi’s Libya faced harsh sanctions to compel it to give up its nuclear and other WMD programs and then, after it did so, the regime was overthrown with help from the United States and its allies. North Korea succeeded in acquiring nuclear weapons, but only because it cut itself off from the rest of the world and suffered terrible privations for doing so. These three examples have cooled the ardor of many other states that might otherwise have wanted nuclear weapons.
Given this three-versus-three lineup, Iran looks like the rubber match. Yet, more than just being the final game in a best-of-seven series, the outcome with Iran is important because of the unusual public commitment that all the great powers have made to this crisis. Although their preferred tactics vary, all of the great powers have stated that Iran should not be allowed to acquire a nuclear weapons capability. In January 2012, China’s then-premier Wen Jiabao stated that the Chinese government “adamantly opposes Iran developing and possessing nuclear weapons.”35 The following month, Russian president Vladimir Putin stated, “We’re not interested in Iran becoming a nuclear power. . . . It would lead to greater risks to international stability.”36 It is also why both Beijing and Moscow have voted for six UN Security Council resolutions demanding that Iran halt its program.
In light of this unusual consensus among the great powers that Iran cannot be allowed to acquire nuclear weapons, if Tehran were nonetheless able to do so, it could send an unhelpful signal to other would-be proliferators. If the world is not willing to stop Iran—whose acquisition of nuclear weapons has been universally condemned—who is going to stop Japan? Or South Korea? Or Brazil? Or Argentina? Those countries could all assume that they would face far less international opposition than Iran as they are seen as so much less threatening than Iran. Consequently, supporters of nuclear nonproliferation fear that if Iran defies the international community and acquires a nuclear weapon, it could represent a very serious blow to nonproliferation efforts more generally. Some even fear that it could spell the end of the NPT as a tangible restraint on nuclear proliferation.