It’s a pity commonsense does not drive diplomacy. If it did, Washington might realize that its schizophrenic nuclear policy in the Middle East is a bigger risk to nuclear weapons proliferation than Iran. And in the process it could conclude that the best way to secure the region is for all countries is to play according to the same rules.
For climate change and energy supply reasons, all developing countries should have access to the most advanced nuclear power technology. More importantly, trying to delay the inevitable is increasing the risk of an arms race or accidents as countries try to balance nuclear strategic capabilities.
To put it bluntly, there is no stopping several Middle East and North African countries from developing nuclear power in the coming decades, not because they need to feed national pride or to compete with Tehran, as many argue, but out of sheer economic necessity. And this is not a threat, but an opportunity.
To begin with, it’s utterly simplistic to say that oil- and gas-rich nations don’t need nuclear power. In fact, MENA countries should have developed it years ago to avoid the blackouts that even oil-rich Kuwait and gas-rich Egypt have. Just about every country in the region already is, or soon will be, facing power generation shortfalls, and it’s vastly more economic to sell gas and oil instead of burning it.
But that is really the commonsensical portion of the argument. The really dangerous aspect of US policy is that it wants to effectively stall MENA nuclear programs and to demand that they forego uranium enrichment, while allowing, indeed protecting, the only nuclear arms arsenal in the region that Israel has.
Denying countries access to nuclear power technology won’t stop them from building bombs if they choose to. Indeed, the US didn’t have a nuclear reactor for decades after it detonated two warheads over Japan. Pakistan developed the bomb to catch up with India using a small western-supplied research reactor, much like Israel.
No, the risk of proliferation is not tied to nuclear power technology as most of Europe proves. It comes from eliminating the need to have nukes as a military deterrent, a misguided perception that is indeed instigated by nuclear-armed powers, not those with nuclear power.
Take what happened last month: The US successfully lobbied to block an Arab-sponsored resolution in the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that symbolically urged Israel to join the Non-Proliferation Treaty—that every other MENA country has signed, including Iran—and to open its nuclear program to the same international inspectors that the US wants supervising every other country. Through this action the US simply did a profound disservice to the ultimate objective of creating a nuclear weapons-free MENA region.
Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa made it clear during the conference: “It is inconceivable that only one country (in the region) will have nuclear weapons. Why should Israel be the only one? The Middle East should be free of all weapons of mass destruction. If Israel maintains its (weapons), the Middle East is heading towards an arms race.”
Which is why nuclear power ambition in the MENA region offers a unique window to banish nukes, although one can reasonably fear that it’s a non-starter. The Obama administration could actually do more toward global nuclear disarmament then by signing his half-way agreement with Russia that allows both countries to keep hundreds of warheads as a deterrent, exactly the opposite message countries like Iran should be getting.
Kuwait, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia, the UAE, Qatar, Sudan, Bahrain, Algeria, Libya and Turkey have all signed nuclear cooperation agreements with other powers like Russia, France, Japan, South Korea and the US. What if all developing countries are offered unconditional access to nuclear power technology in exchange for accepting a new reinforced NPT treaty? It could start in the MENA region with Israel and Iran surrendering their nuclear military programs. It would ideally come with comprehensive peace negotiations, but pragmatically speaking peace is not a prerequisite. The end result would be that countries are technologically able to develop nuclear weapons, which is in any case inevitable, but militarily ill-advised to do so.
But to be more realistic, Israel will not surrender its nuclear weapons unless its existence is guaranteed. That means countries like Iran must stop threatening it. This is not about the decades-old Arab-Israeli conflict. Israel, regardless of what many in the MENA region feel, has economically, politically and militarily evolved to guarantee its existence. And nukes are its best military argument.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad offered a nuke-free MENA region recently. He could follow through by offering transparent overview of his country’s nuclear program. Western countries could accept that Iran and every other country can enrich uranium in exchange for full disclosure and trust, as long as Israel plays by the same rules, and then nobody will need weapons able to destroy others with one pop.
The best case to illustrate how the US is shooting itself in the foot is Jordan—for years one of its closest allies in the region. Jordan lacks hydrocarbons and needs to import just about all its energy, and it recently found plenty uranium to power the new fleet of reactors it will build. But the US is pressuring Amman to forego enrichment and instead agree to import it. It’s like asking oil producing countries to forego value-added refining and export their oil to re-import it in a different form at a great loss.
The US should actually promote nuclear power in the region, while convincing Israel to surrender its program. If Israel doesn’t have nuclear weapons, Iran won’t need them, nor will any other country. If Israel and Iran get to have them, others will follow, with or without western help, as history has proved.
And while we are at it, the US could then move on to convincing India and Pakistan to simultaneously surrender their nuclear military programs and weapons. North Korea would immediately follow, and eventually the world could convince the five members of the UN Security Council that insist on threatening humanity’s existence to give them all up. Nuclear weapons can simply not be used by any country as a deterrent.
But of course one realizes this is not going to happen for decades. The risk now is that if Israel gets to keep its weapons, other MENA countries will get them somehow, someday, starting no doubt with Iran. And then, many other countries globally will follow because it will be the only way to balance the playing field. Otherwise, who are we fooling? It’s just a question of time. That is commonsense.
Andrés Cala – Madrid-based freelance journalist. Cala contributes regularly to several publications, including TIME, the New York Times and the Christian Science Monitor.
