Chain Reaction: How the U.S.-UAE nuclear deal could set off a Middle East arms race.

by Joseph Cirincione

Most of my nonproliferation colleagues think that having the United States help build a nuclear power reactor for the United Arab Emirates (UAE) is a great idea. I think it is a big mistake.

The U.S.-UAE civilian nuclear cooperation agreement was signed in the closing days of the George W. Bush administration and praised by advocates as a "model" for future agreements with Algeria, Libya, Saudi Arabia, and other states.  President Barack Obama will have to decide in the next few weeks whether to send the deal to Congress for final approval. Wary of a repeat of the Dubai Ports World fiasco, the emirates have launched a $1.6 million lobbying campaign to bring U.S. lawmakers on board. They've enlisted many of my friends in the effort.

One former colleague, now a consultant for the UAE, sends me regular updates filled with good news about this multibillion-dollar deal. Her latest e-mail quotes an op-ed by Elliott Abrams, deputy national security advisor during the Bush administration, promising that the deal "will show the way forward in responsible, transparent uses of nuclear energy -- at the very moment when the world must confront Iran's defiance." I remember Abrams's assurances about the invasion of Iraq and cringe.

Maybe I'm wrong. It may well be that the leaders of a country the size of Maine that holds 4.8 million people and 98 billion barrels of oil (the fifth-largest reserves in the world and projected to last another 100 years) are truly interested in diversifying energy production. But 10, 20, or 30 years from now will they, or the governments that replace them, still honor their promises not to engage in any nuclear-weapon-related activities, including producing reactor fuel? Or, after they have developed nuclear technologies, trained nuclear scientists and engineers, and plugged into global nuclear markets, will they go one step further and build uranium enrichment and plutonium reprocessing plants that could be used to make fuel -- or bombs?

I don't claim any in-depth knowledge of the UAE. I have never been there. But I am deeply disturbed by what is happening in the region. This is not an isolated case. Over the past three years, a dozen Middle East countries have declared their intent to pursue civilian nuclear programs, including Egypt, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, and Turkey. Sixty years after the nuclear age began, these states have suddenly become interested in nuclear power. I have a hard time believing that Middle East leaders got together to watch Al Gore's movie and decided to reduce their carbon footprint. This is not about energy. It is about Iran.

Make no mistake: We are witnessing the beginning of a Middle East nuclear arms race. Iran's rivals do not want Tehran to gain the military, political, and diplomatic advantage that nuclear weapons convey. They are beginning the decades-long process of developing technologies to match Iran's capabilities. All of this is legal, by the way, under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. In fact, nuclear weapon states are obliged to sell non-weapon states nuclear technology for peaceful purposes. It is one of the two grand bargains in the treaty. And it could spell our doom.

Not all Middle East powers may see civilian nuclear programs as a hedge against Iran. But recent history is instructive. The burgeoning interest in nuclear energy perfectly coincided with a set of events in the summer of 2006. At that time Western efforts to rein in Iran's enrichment program began to fail. The United States was becoming further mired in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and appeared unable to stop an Iran now freed of its main regional rivals. Iran's leaders expanded their military influence through aid to Hezbollah in the Israeli-Lebanese war. Referring to the changing atmosphere in 2006, Jordan's King Abdullah II observed, "The rules have changed on the nuclear subject throughout the whole region." My translation: "After this summer, everybody's going for nuclear programs." Given the context, the connection to Iran's growing strength and spinning centrifuges is clear.

Now, instead of persuading Jordan and others to refrain from setting off a proliferation cascade in the Middle East, the United States is joining the Chinese, French, and Russian salesmen eagerly peddling the tools to do it.

At its core, this is a deeply flawed method for preventing proliferation. It continues the Bush approach of dealing with problems state by state, dividing them into good guys and bad guys, rewarding friends with nuclear treats and trying to deny them to enemies.

It does not work. The United States needs, instead, a comprehensive plan to deal with this global problem. It is ineffective and perhaps immoral to promote the sale of nuclear technologies for civilian uses without fundamentally reforming the fuel production process that could bring dozens of new states to the brink of nuclear weapons capability. No new reactors should be sold until countries provide a commitment to end state control of nuclear fuel facilities.

The U.S.-UAE 123 Agreement was thrown together hastily at the end of the Bush administration. Many praised it in Washington, with some adamant exceptions. Rep. Edward Markey (D-MA) said, "The Middle East is the last place the United States should be seeking the expansion of nuclear technologies. We need to get serious about halting Iran's nuclear program, not helping its neighbors get in the nuclear club." He added, "In the Middle East, a nuclear energy race could be as perilous as a nuclear arms race," and urged then President-elect Obama to rethink the Bush policy.

Henry Sokolski, who heads the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center, found that the deal as written does not legally bind the UAE to many of its stated obligations. Instead, it "explicitly states that nothing in the agreement should be read to undermine the UAE's inalienable right to develop and produce 'peaceful nuclear energy' in conformity with the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty," Sokolski wrote, "a right that the U.S. State Department's legal division interprets to include (you guessed it) the right to make nuclear fuel if the fuel making is declared and inspected." Sokolski wisely counseled the United States to at the very least delay the deal while further review is conducted on the Hill and at Foggy Bottom.

(Here's something for the reviewers to consider: The United States is certainly not thinking about selling Syria a reactor, but the UAE has a less-than-stellar record on monitoring and disrupting nuclear proliferation. Pakistani nuclear scientist and infamous proliferator A.Q. Khan used Dubai (a member of the UAE) as a key transit point for his black-market operations. From the early 1990s until his supposed retirement, Khan used multiple front companies in Dubai to launder money and transport uranium centrifuge components to Libya and Iran.)

More broadly, it's time to slow down and ask: Is it smart to promote a 20th-century power source in a 21st-century world? Is it wise to rush in without a full plan, at least for the region?

The alluring nuclear advocacy Web site of the UAE maintains that the emirates' growing demand for electricity and aversion for energy sources with "poor environmental performance" are the sole reasons for the pursuit of nuclear energy. To its credit, the UAE is already investing billions of dollars in alternative energies such as wind and solar, energy sources for which these desert kingdoms seem ideally suited. Why not encourage them to double down on the future, instead of falling back on an expensive, messy, and dangerous old power source?

The United States cannot stop the UAE from pursuing civilian nuclear energy. Indeed, it is the UAE's right to do so. What the United States can do is avoid making deals that put industry above security. No matter how you try to sell it, nuclear power plants are, as energy guru Amory Lovins says, a "nuclear weapons starter kit."

Half-baked and hasty at best, foolhardy and dangerous at worst, the UAE deal should not be rushed through Congress, nor should its paper clauses obscure the real regional dynamics behind the rush to nuclear power. The United States should take a hard look at nuclear energy and think about the implications of correcting climate change by actively promoting an energy source that can be made into humankind's deadliest weapon.

Joseph Cirincione is the president of the Ploughshares Fund and the author of  Bomb Scare: The History and Future of Nuclear Weapons.