One Day We Will Wake Up and Iran Will Have Nuclear Weapons

GG 2020 - 19th July 2010

By Katrin Kinzelbach

As I write, all the Fellows have gathered in Shanghai for the second GG2020 session. About time, then, that the blog discusses the third GG2020 topic: nuclear non-proliferation. This entry serves to introduce our discussions on non-proliferation and focuses on one of the most pressing proliferation cases - Iran.

Just last month the Security Council agreed on new sanctions against Iran; the US announced even stricter American sanctions and the EU followed suit. The main reason additional measures are considered necessary is because the Security Council resolution is relatively weak - and it is so weak primarily because China had opposed earlier proposals for tougher Security Council sanctions. When signing the significantly stricter American bill, US President Obama explained: “With these sanctions, along with others, we are striking at the heart of the Iranian government’s ability to fund and develop its nuclear program.” So will these steps spell the end of the Iranian nuclear program? Definitely not! The pattern of Teheran’s actions over the years conveys a clear message: no matter what you offer, no matter what you sanction, and no matter what you threaten, we are determined to preserve the possibility to build the bomb. In an evident response to the new sanctions, Iran immediately denied visas to two IAEA inspectors. The developments we have seen during the last month are not new; it’s the same old pas-de-deux. The sanctions do increase the costs of the Iranian program but they do not curb Teheran’s ambitions. Had China supported tougher sanctions, the costs would have been higher than what they are now - but it is safe to assume that Teheran’s ambitions would have remained unaffected even then.

One day we will wake up and Iran will have nuclear weapons. A nuclear Iran represents a threat, of course, but Iran’s nuclear capability is not the main threat. The more difficult threat to manage is that such a development could lead to a breakdown of the entire non-proliferation regime. Other states in the region could follow: Saudi Arabia, Egypt, maybe even Turkey. Israel is assumed to have the bomb already. If we see nuclear proliferation in this highly volatile region, the risk of nuclear war rises dramatically. Not necessarily some argue, because if all of these states had the bomb, their incentive to use it would be significantly reduced. It’s a legitimate hypothesis, but not one I would like to test. And even if a deterrence equilibrium could be achieved in the Middle East, the road towards such an equilibrium would undoubtedly be very dangerous.

At this year’s Review Conference of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) in May, it was agreed that talks would be opened on establishing a nuclear free zone in the Middle East. These talks are to take place in 2012 and will be co-sponsored by the United States, Russia, the United Kingdom and the UN Secretary General. But what if Iran decides not to take part? The recently agreed sanctions do not help to increase Teheran’s already limited openness to negotiation. And they will not hit Iran hard enough to force it back to the table by 2012. Rather than creating further obstacles to a negotiation on a nuclear free Middle East, we need to make concrete steps towards it. Talks are needed now, not tomorrow.

At the same time, the international community must prepare for what may happen once Iran goes nuclear. In particular, the breakdown of the entire non-proliferation regime must be prevented. That is not an easy task because the regime is already in a deadlock. The bargain between the haves and the have-nots is dysfunctional. There are countries inside the NPT that have secret plans to go nuclear (like Iran) and there are countries with nuclear weapons that remain outside of the NPT, such as India, Pakistan, and Israel. For non-proliferation to work, we need a regime whose rules are accepted and followed by all. A first step towards that goal would be to get the countries outside of the NPT into the NPT.

Katrin Kinzelbach is a GG2020 Fellow.