Exploring Regional Responses to a Nuclear Iran

Nuclear Dominoes?

C. Hobbs, M. Moran

• Publisher: Palgrave Pivot
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781137369819
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Terrorism
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This book challenges the widely held assumption that a nuclear-armed Iran would provoke a proliferation cascade in the Middle East. Arguing that a domino effect is by no means inevitable, the authors set out a number of policy measures that could be enacted by the international community to reduce this risk.

1

The Dangers of a Nuclear-Armed Iran

Abstract: In the first chapter, we begin by setting out what is meant by a ‘nuclear-armed’ Iran. There is a certain amount of confusion around this term and, therefore, there is a need to set out clearly the various forms that a nuclear-armed Iran might take. The chapter then goes on to explore the nuances of the frequently evoked proliferation cascade and examine the logic upon which it is based. In this context, we consider issues such as security, prestige and status as we lay out the reasons underpinning the proliferation cascade argument. This largely theoretical discussion will provide a useful framework within which the individual country case studies can be examined.

Keywords: nuclear weapons, Iran, nuclear proliferation, security, prestige, NPT, nuclear terrorism

Hobbs, Christopher and Moran, Matthew. Exploring Regional Responses to a Nuclear Iran: Nuclear Dominoes? Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013. DOI: 10.1057/9781137369819.

In the past decade, the Iranian nuclear challenge has been the focus of a wave of publications, commentary and analysis. Inevitably, as the country’s nuclear programme has advanced and international efforts to halt or even reverse the programme have failed, predictions of a nuclear-armed Iran have gained momentum. James Lindsay and Ray Takeyh, for example, claim that ‘the Islamic Republic of Iran is determined to become the world’s tenth nuclear power’.¹ In this context, attention has been given to the potential dangers that a nuclear Iran would pose to international security, leading to calls for a pre-emptive military strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities. It is widely accepted that an attack would be unlikely to destroy Iran’s nuclear programme completely. However, a well-planned attack could significantly delay the country’s nuclear progress, both buying the international community time and making a strong and public statement that Iranian nuclearization would not be tolerated by the international community. Perhaps inevitably, Benjamin Netanyahu has been the principal advocate for an attack on Iran in the policy arena; the Israeli Prime Minister has long proclaimed his country’s right to defend itself from the dangers of a nuclear Iran by means of a pre-emptive strike.²

At the heart of this argument is the assumption that Iranian nuclearization would have a domino effect, provoking a proliferation cascade in the Middle East and multiplying the dangers and destabilizing effects of an Iranian bomb. The Middle East is perhaps the world’s most volatile and conflict-prone region, and the spread of nuclear weapons in this relatively confined geographical area would undoubtedly pose a significant challenge to international security. But why is a proliferation cascade assumed to be the most likely response to an Iranian bomb? What is the logic underpinning this notion of nuclear dominoes in the Middle East? This chapter will set out and explore the reasons why many policy-makers and commentators claim that Iranian nuclearization would prompt others to seek their own nuclear weapons. The analysis here will focus on three principal categories: security drivers, questions of prestige and influence, and the challenge to the NPT and the global non-proliferation regime. Furthermore, discussion regarding the potential for Iran’s nuclear programme to spark a spread of nuclear weapons in the Middle East is not limited to state actors. Commentators have also linked the debate to terrorist groups, arguing that a nuclear Iran could facilitate nuclear terrorism through the transfer of nuclear materials, technology and perhaps even weapons. In this context, the chapter will also examine the logic behind warnings of transfer to terrorists.

Before exploring the rationale behind this idea of a proliferation cascade in the Middle East, however, it is first necessary to consider what exactly a nuclear-armed Iran might look like. How would Iran choose to cross the nuclear threshold? Would the regime test a nuclear weapon? Or would Tehran attempt to follow the Israeli path of opacity? Would Iran withdraw from the NPT? At what point ‘would it be prudent to begin assuming that the country had become, for all intents and purposes, a nuclear weapon state’?³ There are a number of paths that Iran could take to the bomb, each one influenced by a range of contextual factors. For this reason, any attempts to chart these paths are highly speculative and fraught with problems. However, it is important to at least highlight the most likely options available to Iran since, clearly, the path chosen by Iran would affect the nature of the regional responses.

The nature of a nuclear-armed Iran

If Iran were to go nuclear, two scenarios would seem most likely. First, Iran develops the bomb covertly and inducts nuclear weapons into its arsenal without testing. There are a number of ‘plausible hypothetical reasons why Iran might benefit from a policy of opacity: Iran may want to avoid further sanctions, to avoid inviting a military attack, to maintain the option of strategic surprise, etc’.⁴ In this context, possession would be denied, deployment would not be acknowledged, military nuclear doctrine would not be released, and so on.⁵ This scenario would see Iran following Israel down the path of opacity, that is to say a situation ‘in which the existence of a state’s nuclear weapons has not been acknowledged by the state’s leaders, but in which the evidence for the weapons’ existence is strong enough to influence other nations’ perceptions and actions’.⁶ Israel has never acknowledged its nuclear capability ‘yet it is well-recognised by others, friends and foes alike, in a manner that has shaped strategic perceptions and actions’, both regionally and globally.⁷ Former US Special Representative for Nuclear Non-proliferation Christopher Ford has suggested that this path might prove attractive to Tehran: ‘I fear that the Iranians will choose to try to do – and from inside the NPT – what most observers claim Israel has done since the late 1960s.’⁸

Covert nuclearization is thus a possible option for the regime in Tehran. While the IAEA ‘continues to verify the non-diversion of declared nuclear material’ at the nuclear facilities and locations outside facilities (LOF) declared by Iran under its safeguards agreement, the possibility of additional undeclared facilities cannot be ruled out.⁹ Significantly, the agency’s ability to investigate undeclared nuclear facilities is limited by Iran’s refusal to ratify the Additional Protocol, a legal document granting the IAEA complementary inspection authority to that provided in basic safeguards agreements. The Additional Protocol grants inspectors greater rights of access to information and sites, allowing the IAEA to provide assurance about both declared and possible undeclared activities.¹⁰ Iran signed the Additional Protocol in December 2003 and agreed to implement the agreement on a provisional basis pending ratification. However, Iran suspended its adherence to the Additional Protocol in 2006 and the document has never been ratified.

The 2007 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) argued that Iran ‘probably would use covert facilities – rather than its declared nuclear sites – for the production of highly enriched uranium for a weapon’.¹¹ However, this route would bring significant challenges. For example, Paul Kerr rightly points out that it is highly unlikely that such facilities would avoid detection, noting that ‘Tehran would need to hide a number of activities, including uranium conversion, the movement of uranium from mines, and the movement of centrifuge feedstock.’¹² Furthermore, Iran’s nuclear programme is now a key priority for intelligence agencies across the globe and, given that ‘both the Natanz and Fordow facilities were discovered by foreign governments before they became operational’, it would seem highly unlikely that additional undeclared facilities would successfully avoid detection. This is certainly the view of US National Security Advisor Thomas Donilon; in November 2011 he claimed that the United States would be able to detect any additional secret Iranian enrichment facilities.¹³

On a larger scale, Hymans and Gratias argue convincingly that while many expect Iran to adopt the Israeli model, ‘the two countries’ different external and internal situations provide little justification for this analogy’.¹⁴ At the most fundamental level, for example, Israel’s policy of opacity is inextricably linked to the experience of the Holocaust. According to Avner Cohen, this defining event in Jewish history provided ‘Israelis with a concrete, as opposed to hypothetical, worst case scenario. Given Arab continued and proclaimed enmity, it is Israel’s security anxiety that fashioned Israel’s existential fears and made it feel that it needed a weapon of last resort’.¹⁵ At the same time, however, the Holocaust inevitably fostered a certain moral aversion to weapons with such destructive capabilities, an av...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Introduction
• 1  The Dangers of a Nuclear-Armed Iran
• 2  Saudi Arabia: The Logic of Restraint
• 3  Egypt: Domestic Uncertainty, Nuclear Consistency
• 4  Syria: A Political Regime in Flux
• 5  Turkey: Non-proliferation and International Integration
• 6  Iran: Arming Terrorists with Nukes
• 7  Living with an Iranian Bomb: Preventing Further Pro-liferation in the Middle East
• Bibliography
• Index