March 01, 2013

If Iran Builds the Bomb, Will Saudi Arabia Be Next?


Although warning that it would be costly for the U.S. to provide a nuclear umbrella to Saudi Arabia, you and your co-authors ultimately conclude this would be preferable to Pakistan being Riyadh’s nuclear guarantor. Were the U.S. to provide Saudi Arabia with a nuclear umbrella do you believe this would require deploying nuclear weapons to Saudi territory as in Europe, or could Washington rely on offshore forces as in Asia? Why?
Operationally, extending a nuclear umbrella over Saudi Arabia would probably not require deploying U.S. nuclear weapons on Saudi soil; offshore capabilities would likely be sufficient. Such deployments could conceivably be seen as necessary to politically and symbolically reassure the Saudis of the U.S. commitment. However, the political feasibility of such a deployment is questionable, both in Washington and in Riyadh. If the parties determined that a forward deployment was essential for the credibility of an extended deterrence pledge, it is more likely that there would be deployments elsewhere in the Gulf or periodic military exercises in the region involving nuclear-capable U.S. forces. These nuclear moves would likely be combined with the continued forward presence of U.S. conventional forces to serve as a “trip wire” aimed at enhancing the credibility of American military involvement in the event of Iranian aggression.
In arguing that Saudi Arabia is less likely to acquire nuclear weapons in response to a nuclear-armed Iran than is often assumed, you and your co-authors point out that the threat of a nuclear tipping point or nuclear cascade has been greatly exaggerated historically. In your opinion why has this fear of “reactive proliferation” persisted in U.S. policy circles for decades despite so much evidence to the contrary? How can Washington take a more nuanced view?
This argument persists in large part because the compelling historical evidence against it is rarely raised in public debate. In the context of the ongoing policy discussions over the implications of Iranian nuclearization, our report tries to correct this problem. A second reason for the prevalence of fears of “falling nuclear dominoes” in policy circles is the magnitude of the consequences associated with a cascade, or even limited reactive proliferation, if it actually occurs. Even if the odds of this scenario are low, a small risk of a multipolar nuclear Middle East is widely viewed as unacceptable.
In Washington there seems to be a strong consensus that the U.S. should undertake surgical air strikes against Iran’s nuclear facilities should sanctions fail to persuade it to agree to the P5+1’s terms. At the same time, most observers agree this would only slow Iran’s nuclear program by a few years.  It seems to me, then, that this would essentially commit the U.S. to what the Israelis call “mowing the grass”— i.e. a strategy of periodically conducting air strikes for an indefinite time period. Do you foresee this as a potential risk and, if so, what might this mean for the Asia pivot?

President Obama is right to keep the military option “on the table.” But most analysts see the use of force as a highly undesirable outcome, which is why it should remain a last resort. U.S. defense officials have noted on many occasions that military strikes could set the Iranian program back a number of years, but strikes would not permanently resolve the problem if Iran decided to reconstitute their program. Therefore, in the aftermath of a U.S. or Israeli strike, it would be imperative to hold together an international coalition to continue to economically and diplomatically isolate Iran, making it more difficult for Tehran to rebuild their nuclear infrastructure. And maintaining a large number of U.S. military forces in the Persian Gulf would likely be required to contain Iran, and potentially re-strike the program—just as U.S. forces contained Saddam Hussein and sought to degrade Iraq’s ability to rebuild its WMD program for more than a decade after the 1991 Gulf War.