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Iran is already at the nuclear threshold

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Iran, which is now enriching uranium to at least 60%, is already a nuclear threshold state. There are no difficult technical obstacles that remain before enriching to weapons-grade material. Moving beyond that to fabricating a nuclear device is more difficult, but certainly not beyond Iranian capability. The question is: what difference does this make? The answer to that question depends on who you are. Israel, other regional states, the European Union, and the United States have distinct answers.

Israel apparently doesn’t care

Iran is significantly closer to nuclear weapons than when President Trump withdrew from the nuclear deal (aka Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA). This is in part because Israel urged the US to back out of the JCPOA and has done its best to prevent the US from re-entering it. The Israelis have preferred their own approach, which involves assassinations and attacks on nuclear infrastructure. But given the outcome so far, it appears they don’t care how much weapons-grade uranium the Iranians accumulate.

Why are the Israelis behaving this way? Is it because they are supremely confident of their ability to prevent weaponization of enriched uranium? Is it because their second-strike capability (from submarines) is thought to be a sufficient deterrent to an Iranian nuclear attack? Or is it because the Israelis believe American guarantees that Iran will never get nuclear weapons?

Whatever the reason, it is clear that Israel doesn’t really care about Iran accumulating weapons-grade uranium.

The region does, but what are they doing about it?

Major states in the region do care. Both Turkish President Erdogan and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman have said, more or less explicitly, that they will not be left wanting if Iran gets nuclear weapons. This is not how they have reacted to Israeli nuclear weapons, about which they complain readily but apparently do little. Neither country has used the decades since Israel became a nuclear power to mount serious nuclear weapons programs of their own, so far as is known. Instead, they have pleaded for a regional nuclear-free zone, which they know the Israelis won’t agree to.

Their reaction to Iran is rhetorically different. Riyadh and Ankara appear to see Iranian nuclear weapons as a threat to the regional power balance, one they need to counter. There are however still big questions about intentions and capability. Were Erdogan and MBS serious, or just rhetorical? Turkey has American nuclear weapons on its territory. Would Ankara risk losing those if it decides to go nuclear on its own? Does Turkey have the nuclear and high-explosive expertise required to enrich uranium or extract plutonium, as well as design a working nuclear weapon? Does Saudi Arabia? Has either obtained the needed materials, technology, and even weapons from Pakistan?

Egypt has been more circumspect than Turkey and Saudi Arabia. It has lived with Israeli nuclear weapons on its border for decades, apparently confident they won’t be used against a neighbor who has made peace, even if a cold one. American influence in Cairo is far greater than in Riyadh and Ankara, which is likely another factor in Egyptian reluctance to move in the direction of nuclear weapons.

Europe cares, but not in the same way as the United States and Russia

The European Union has exhausted itself in nuclear negotiations with Iran. This is not because of any threat to Europe from Iranian nuclear weapons. Most European states would like to normalize relations with Tehran. The unresolved nuclear issue makes that impossible. Hence the diplomatic efforts, first to negotiate the 2015 JCPOA and, after Trump left office, to revive it.

For the United States and Russia, the concern is nuclear proliferation, or to put it another way maintenance of their exclusive status as global nuclear powers. Both were unhappy with India and Pakistan getting nuclear weapons, but neither Delhi nor Islamabad has challenged the five permanent members of the UN Security Council (the Perm 5), all of which are nuclear states. Instead they have accepted the subcontinent nuclear balance and avoided nuclear contests beyond South Asia. This is true even though India views its nuclear weapons as necessary to balance China more than Pakistan. But nuclear balance has not been a factor in outstanding border disputes between New Delhi and Beijing.

The Middle East is not South Asia

It is harder to picture easy adjustment to Iranian nuclear weapons in the Middle East, especially if the Turks and Saudis follow suit. In a Middle East with four nuclear powers, or even five if Egypt joins the party and six if you count Pakistan, a stable balance will be far more difficult to achieve than between two parties like Pakistan and India. A nuclear arms race in a region with few stabilizing institutions and lots of destabilizing conflicts will be extraordinarily difficult to contain.