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A Nuclear Iran and the Ramifications of a Poly-Nuclear Middle East

(Institute for Policy and Strategy-IDC Herzliya) Shmuel Bar - The classic European thesis which has now been adopted in Washington is that there is some - yet undiscovered - enticement that can be offered to Iran which would hold greater value than becoming a nuclear power. A cursory examination of what Iran believes it can achieve with even the image of being a threshold state will show that nothing the West can offer Iran (short of total hegemony over the Gulf and parts of Central Asia) can give Iran more. Furthermore, the basic Iranian perception of the conspiratorial West is that such offers are no more than a ruse to disarm Iran of the only capability that can protect it from Western subterfuge. Even if we accept that Iran is tending to a democratic counter-revolution, the timeline for the transformation makes this irrelevant to the nuclear crisis. Even the optimists do not see democratic change happening within the next year or two, the time most experts believe Iran needs to cross the threshold of a military nuclear capability. And because even the public that seeks democratic change will congratulate the regime for its achievement, acquisition of a nuclear bomb will only lengthen the road to democracy in Iran. What would a nuclear Middle East look like? Certainly not a re-run of the Cold War. We should expect that a nuclear Iran will move to assert its dominance in the Persian Gulf and to gain hegemony over the Gulf, including dictating oil production levels. Iran will also assert itself in the heart of the Middle East by using terror with impunity. These and the very potential of a nuclear confrontation in the region should bring the Western world to the conclusion that the best option remains prevention at all costs. Dr. Shmuel Bar, Director of Studies at the Institute of Policy and Strategy in Herzliya, Israel, served for thirty years in the Israeli intelligence community.
2012-01-30 00:00:00
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