Even some of the states that eventually joined the nuclear club such as Israel and India were unsure about their ultimate goals and spent a considerable amount of time debating the nature of their nuclear programs. After India's test of a nuclear device , which was not the prototype of a weapon, New Delhi sat on the nuclear fence for sixteen years before it finally began weaponizing in North Korea did not test its first nuclear bomb until , more than half a century after it launched its nuclear weapons program, even though its nuclear capabilities were so advanced in that U.
Also, Iran may drag its feet on the path to a bomb. Iranian leaders have seen Japan as a model and have argued that if Japan is allowed to have fuel-cycle technologies and stay in the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, then Iran should have that option too.
This slow proliferation can only partly be explained by threats of strict nonproliferation sanctions. Even without them, prolonging nuclear latency may make sense for most potential nuclear powers, politically, economically, and strategically.
Politically, nuclear weapons have not proven to be a broadly useful coercive tool, as it is difficult to credibly threaten the use of such destructive power unless in response to severe security threats. By contrast, stopping short of building nuclear bombs while keeping or upgrading the relevant technologies can buy a state bargaining leverage often disproportionate to its capabilities.
This is apparently the reason Iran is currently engaging in nuclear activities that have no civil justification. By threatening to go nuclear, even a minor state that otherwise would be ignored on the world stage can pressure proliferation-averse major powers to offer rewards for staying nuclear-free.
Iran would become a pariah like North Korea and its rivals, Saudi Arabia and Turkey, will be spurred to develop their own nuclear weapons. And this Iranian uncertainty translates into a policy of walking on the brink: Staying a few months to a year away from building a nuclear bomb, but not actually assembling it.
Yet for Israel even a nuclear threshold is a nightmare and this is the reason why Israeli and U. Yossi Melman Jul. Get email notification for articles from Yossi Melman Follow. Open gallery view.
A handout satellite image shows a general view of the Natanz nuclear facility after a fire, in Natanz, Iran July 8, Click the alert icon to follow topics: Iran Iran nuclear deal Iran - U.
Tel Aviv Is Over. Gay Haredim Turn to Her for Help. Sometimes She Prescribes Chemical Castration. Israel Could Soon Reopen to Tourists. The nuclear program is a way in which Iran affirms, to itself and to the world, that it is an advanced and sovereign nation. It's a way of saying: we are not inferior to the world powers, even though you treat us that way, but are in fact equals. It's also a way of defying what Iran sees as continued Western efforts to control, exploit or weaken Iran.
The more that the world tells Iran it cannot have a nuclear program, the more important building such a program becomes for the cause of Iranian nationalism. This is part of why Iranian leaders so often state that they want world powers to affirm Iran's right to enrich uranium and to respect Iran's "dignity" — a word that top officials use frequently.
This isn't posturing — they really mean it. He spent very little time talking about actual nuclear policies — the meat and potatoes of the negotiations — and lots of time saying things like, "We expect and demand respect for our dignity.
There was a brief moment, after the US invasions of Afghanistan in and Iraq in both Iran's neighbors where Tehran seemed eager to strike a deal with the West over its nuclear program. There are many reasons that fell apart — Dick Cheney personally worked to torpedo any communications, for example — but a crucial one was Iranian politics. Iran's anti-US hard-liners took the parliament in , and the presidency in with the election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
The hard-liners turned the nuclear program into something of a partisan wedge issue, using it to weaken reformers and moderates who wanted to compromise the program to soften relations with the West. And debate was actively discouraged. This was great politics for Ahmadinejad and other hard-liners. But it made it much more difficult for him or other Iranian leaders to compromise on the program.
They were too invested in the program, politically, to back down — even if backing down would have been in Iran's national interests. Ahmadinejad is out of power, but the hard-liners are still powerful. They have particular influence over Khamenei, who as supreme leader is the ultimate decision-maker.
Because of the way Khamenei came to power — his religious credentials are weak, and his political credibility never as strong as predecessor and national founder Ruhollah Khomeini — he's long caved to hard-liners, who he fears could turn against him. Since Iran become the Islamic Republic in the revolution, it has seen the Middle East as a battleground for its influence.
This is meant as both defensive and offensive; ever since Saddam invaded, Iranian leaders have feared that hostile, Western-backed Arab leaders could do them terrible harm. But Iran is also expansive and aggressive in the region, supporting proxy terror groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah both as a deterrent against American or Israeli threats and as a way to project its power.
In the context of this regional struggle for power, a nuclear weapon starts to make a lot more sense. Not as something that Tehran would want to actually use, but as a way to get away with other sorts of trouble-making. Clifton W. Sherrill of Troy University explained in a issue of Nonproliferation Review how Iran could use a nuclear weapon as not just a deterrent but a way to give itself cover for bullying its neighbors and generally projecting more power in the region, where competition for influence is already high, and the stakes are enormous.
That likely means using proxy groups, such as Hezbollah in Lebanon, even more aggressively to threaten and bully other countries in the region. That also means pushing harder to support pro-Iran militant groups in countries such as Syria and Yemen where Iran sees itself as competing for influence.
The idea is that Iran can be more brazen and aggressive with these non-nuclear threats because its nuclear weapon would scare other countries out of retaliating. That bullying could also have implications for energy politics; Iran might feel it could force "demands in the Persian Gulf regarding disputed islands or natural gas fields" or "desires regarding production quotas" within OPEC, Sherrill warns.
And he points to nuclear-armed Pakistan as an example of how this all can happen:. Pakistan's behavior after its public entry into the nuclear club in is instructive: it immediately increased support for Islamist militants, creating 's Kargil crisis and the standoff with India in and In a classic example of the stability-instability paradox, Pakistani confidence that nuclear arms would prevent escalation made limited conventional and terrorist attacks against India possible.
Despite widespread misconceptions to the contrary in the US — often pushed by politicians who wish to play up the Iranian threat for political gain — there is no reason to believe that Iran wants to launch an offensive nuclear strike against the US, Israel, or any other country.
The well-established logic of nukes would make any war against other nuclear powers a loser for Iran. This is because powers such as the US and Israel have what is called second-strike capability, meaning that even if Iran got off a nuclear strike, the country would still be destroyed by the retaliation.
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