A nuclear Middle East is not a secure Middle East

Iran is accumulating enough near-weapons-grade enriched uranium to build a nuclear weapon within weeks or months, not years. President Donald Trump, having withdrawn the United States in 2018 from the nuclear deal that would have postponed that possibility, is now appealing for negotiations with Tehran. South Koreans are debating whether to get their own nuclear weapons because the American nuclear umbrella is no longer a sure thing. The new German chancellor is looking to France and the United Kingdom for nuclear protection.

In the Middle East, the nuclear question does not concern only Iran. Israel already has an unacknowledged nuclear arsenal. Both Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman have said they will seek to equal Iranian nuclear capabilities. Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi has said his country should be like Germany, a great power without nuclear weapons. But would Egypt continue to exercise restraint if Turkey or Saudi Arabia goes nuclear? Five nuclear-armed and unfriendly countries in an area the size of the American lower 48 states is a real possibility during the next decade, or much sooner.

Civilian nuclear capabilities in the region are growing

Turkey, which has one operating research reactor capable of producing small amounts of plutonium, is constructing a Russian commercial power plant with four reactors scheduled to produce electricity in the next few years and is negotiating for two others. But its government has explicitly pledged itself to not weaponize that technology. Ankara has, namely, signed and ratified the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) along with a stricter Additional Protocol with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

Saudi Arabia is preparing to build its first nuclear plant as well, and it intends to supply it in part with fuel from its own uranium resources. Riyadh has also signed the NPT, but not an Additional Protocol. The Saudis have said they will not sign any new agreements until Israel gives up its nuclear weapons, but they are reportedly prepared to go further if Washington provides security guarantees associated with normalization with Israel and the creation of a viable pathway to a Palestinian state.

Egypt has two research reactors — one Russian and one Argentinian. It has signed the NPT and an Additional Protocol. Russia is building Egypt’s first four-reactor commercial power plant.

The United Arab Emirates, which has also signed both the NPT and an Additional Protocol, possesses a four-reactor commercial power plant built by South Korea. 

Enrichment and reprocessing capabilities in the Middle East are unclear. NPT and Additional Protocol signatories are permitted to conduct enrichment and reprocessing for civilian purposes. It would be surprising if Turkey and perhaps Egypt have not at least experimented with small quantities of enriched uranium and plutonium. Signatories of a bilateral “123” agreement with the United States are not permitted to do so without US concurrence. Turkey’s 123 agreement expires in 2028. Neither Egypt nor Saudi Arabia has signed one.

Nuclear proliferation has been slow

Proliferation of nuclear weapons in recent decades has been slower than anticipated. The Israelis likely had nuclear weapons before 1970. Israel and South Africa are thought to have tested jointly in the Indian Ocean in 1979. India and Pakistan tested nuclear weapons in 1998, but India had already conducted a “peaceful” nuclear explosion in 1974. North Korea first tested a nuclear weapon in 2006. These are the only known nuclear powers in addition to the Permanent Five members of the United Nations Security Council: the US, UK, Russia, France, and China.

Bilateral nuclear standoffs have proven manageable. The United States and Russia, Pakistan and India, India and China, and North Korea and the US have demonstrated that nuclear-armed states do not necessarily attack each other or non-nuclear states.

Some states avoid or give up nuclear weapons. Brazil and Argentina agreed to back off nuclear weapons. The Arab states sometimes complain loudly about Israel’s nuclear arsenal, but they have so far done nothing about it. South Africa gave up its nuclear arms after the end of apartheid. After declaring independence from the Soviet Union, Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan surrendered the nuclear arsenals left on their territories as well.

Proliferation in the Middle East could be fast and deadly

The slow pace of proliferation to date can be credited to the Cold War, the unipolar decade of the 1990s, and the War on Terror. During the Cold War, the US and the Soviet Union resisted allowing any of their allies to gain control over nuclear weapons. The nuclear weapons in Ukraine and Kazakhstan were directly controlled by Moscow. After Britain and France tested nuclear warheads in 1952 and 1960, respectively, the Americans vigorously enforced non-proliferation policy, in particular with Germany

Over the past decade, however, the return of multi-polar geopolitics has lessened Washington’s credibility and Moscow’s power. The Middle East has descended into a maelstrom of conflict. Israel’s war on Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis and the collapse of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria have rolled back Iran’s power projection. But that has only increased the interest of hardliners in Tehran in gaining alternative means to protect the Islamic Republic. Turkey has a precarious relationship with the rest of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO); and Saudi Arabia has so far been unsuccessful in convincing the Americans to sign a bilateral security pact.

Any definitive move by Iran toward nuclear weapons could open the floodgates. Within months we could see four new nuclear powers in the region, in addition to the existing capacity in Israel. Only minutes of missile flight time separate the capitals of potential nuclear powers in the Middle East. Surreptitious delivery by ox cart is also a possibility. Mutual hostility and incomprehension radiate throughout the region. There are lots of good reasons for regional cooperation that could produce stability, but that has not happened yet and will take time and wisdom that is not readily available. A nuclear Middle East is not a secure Middle East.

Daniel Serwer is a professor and Senior Fellow at the Foreign Policy Institute of the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and an affiliate of the Middle East Institute. He blogs at www.peacefare.net and tweets @DanielSerwer.

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