asianaffairs

At some stage in the course of the next five years, if some of the more gloomy predictions about world events are to be believed, the community of Asian nations can expect to witness the emergence of a new nuclear power in their midst. The underground test that takes place in a remote part of Iran will represent a political and military triumph for the authorities in Tehran who have refused to back down from their chosen path, despite the pressures and threats of the West. A nuclear Iran will accordingly join the exclusive club that so far includes the United States, Britain and France, as well as those other Asian powers, such as Russia, China, India, Pakistan and North Korea that have demonstrably mastered the technology of the ultimate weapon.

Whether Israel will respond to an Iranian test by carrying out a military strike, or whether the authorities in Jerusalem will use the Iranian-provided opportunity to come out in the open and confirm their own status as an independent nuclear power, remains to be seen. But the Israeli response is only one of the many challenges that will confront the international community in the wake of an Iranian test. At the very least it will lead to a nuclear arms race in the region with Tehran's regional rivals, such as Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Egypt, unleashing their energies to match or even surpass what Iranian scientists have managed to achieve.

Iran will and does already justify its interest in developing nuclear technology by using a familiar mix of arguments based on security needs and nationalism. It is surrounded by declared Asian nuclear powers in the immediate neighbourhood — Russia, China, India and Pakistan — and it has a remembered past of colonial-style exploitation. Part of the country was for a while occupied by the Soviet Union and then, until the Islamic revolution, it was the U.S. that dominated the political landscape. Small wonder that Iran's educated class resents the finger wagging of the outside world, or that Iranian scientists justify their efforts by invoking the words of the late Dr Homi Bhabha, an Indian scientist of distant Iranian descent, who was head of the Indian nuclear programme until his death in 1966. Bhabha told the 1965 IAEA general conference, 'Under developed countries have to be assisted in developing their peaceful atomic energy programmes as well as building up their general economies and industries. The under developed parts of the world regard this not as a charity but as a debt the prosperous countries owe them for their economic exploitation of the past. The developed areas of the world should therefore regard this in the spirit of the late Albert Schweitzer's philosophy who said he toiled in the jungles of Lambarene for 50 years to atone for the sins of his race.' India was committed to developing its nuclear potential even before independence in 1947.

The irony of nuclear research in Iran's case is that it was actively encouraged by the U.S., the same country that is now trying so desperately to derail the nuclear train. A nuclear pact with the U.S. signed in 1957 led to Iran's acquisition of an experimental 5MW research reactor. A decade or so later the Shah founded a new Atomic Energy Organisation of Iran to implement an ambitious plan of installing at least 20 nuclear power reactors to supplement the country's energy sources. Reports at the time suggested that the Shah also initiated a secret nuclear weapons project that the U.S. was aware of but did nothing to hinder. Back in those days the Shah was a close ally of the U.S., so Washington looked the other way while the Iranian authorities at the time initiated plans to turn their country into a nuclear weapons state. Here lies the weakness of the non-proliferation structure that has evolved since the Second World War.

Both the U.S. and the Soviet Union, the two post-war superpowers, each saw the terrible power represented by the Bomb and were in theory committed to prevent its future spread to other countries. But the Soviets shared their expertise with China, just as the U.S. did with Britain. When France tested its bomb, it passed its know-how to Israel. China and the U.S. each cooperated with Pakistan. The Chinese shared technology and the Americans turned a blind eye to the outrageous campaign of Pakistani scientists, led by the notorious A.Q. Khan, to first steal and then clone the nuclear secrets of Western laboratories. More recently, in 2004, it was revealed that South Korea had carried out uranium enrichment experiments in flagrant violation of IAEA safeguards agreements. As South Korea is a close and trusted U.S. ally, Seoul was given only the lightest possible rap across its knuckles. A far harsher response would have been forthcoming if the offending country had been, say, Cuba.

It is these double standards that make such nonsense of the existing non-proliferation controls. Rules for one are not rules for the other. Even more pernicious is the cynical way the older nuclear weapons states have held on to their arsenals, making laughable attempts to reduce their own stockpiles, while lecturing the rest of the world about the dangers of allowing nuclear weapons to spread. If outside powers are so concerned about Iran's nuclear progress, the U.S. and Russia could set a non-proliferation example by slashing their own stockpiles and enforcing sanctions against any country, no matter how close an ally, that seeks to develop itself as an independent nuclear state. Until that happens the nuclear game will remain a free for all and Iran will just be the next in a long line of future nuclear weapons states.

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