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An Islamic nuclear arms race?
23 August 2007
Despite years of negotiations and US sanctions, successive reformist and hardline Iranian governments continue to develop the domestic capacity to manufacture nuclear fuel through uranium enrichment, which can also be used to produce nuclear weapons. Iran's nuclear programme, combined with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's bellicose rhetoric and the increasing influence of Tehran-affiliated Shia groups in Iraq, Lebanon and other Middle Eastern countries, has alarmed Sunni Arab regimes.
Iranian officials insist their decades-long nuclear programme has entirely peaceful aims. They claim they need nuclear energy to provide additional civilian energy supplies in preparation for the day when their oil supplies become exhausted. Yet, foreign governments, including those in the Arab Middle East, suspect other considerations are also motivating the Iranian government to develop its own nuclear enrichment capacities. Having such a capacity could underscore Iran's claims to great power status, provide resources to benefit domestic political factions or, most worryingly, give Tehran the option to develop nuclear weapons more rapidly should Iranian leaders decide that circumstances warranted such a step.
One response of these regimes has been to purchase additional conventional weapons from Russia, the US and other countries. Another has been to announce that they are considering launching their own nuclear initiatives. Although these governments formally deny that Iranian actions have induced their nuclear declarations, the near-simultaneous decision of so many Sunni Arab regimes to proclaim interest in pursuing some kind of nuclear energy programme raises the possibility of a nuclear arms race among the Islamic countries of the Middle East.
In September 2006, Egypt became the first Sunni Arab regime in recent years to declare interest in developing a civilian nuclear power programme. President Hosni Mubarak and other Egyptian officials announced they would restart their country's programme, which has been in abeyance for two decades following the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster. Egypt faces growing water and electricity shortages, in part due to a soaring youth population, which a civilian nuclear programme could alleviate.
Egypt currently possesses small nuclear research reactors, but is considering constructing at least one large power-producing plant. For example, one option being considered is inviting foreign companies to build a 1,000-megawatt plant at Al-Dabaa on the Mediterranean coast that would begin operating in 2015.
Egyptian policy makers have discussed civil nuclear co-operation with the governments of Canada, China, Russia and the US.