So, the Middle East is going nuclear?

First, in order to counter Israel's nuclear bomb, the anti-Israel Arab world was keen on developing an "Islamic bomb". As India too got quite "explosive", Bhutto (Benazir's father) famously commented:"There's a Hindu bomb, a Jewish bomb and a Christian bomb," Bhutto once wrote. "There must be an Islamic bomb."

As Iraq got into that, Israel launched a brilliant attack that destroyed Iraq's key facilities. Much later, Pakistan detonated its nuclear devices to tell the world that it has arrived. A few months ago, something happened in Syria that nobody still talks about. But, speculation is that Israel wiped out some kind of a nuclear ambition that Syria had.

Yesterday (I think it was) as I was driving, I head on NPR that France was selling Saudi Arabia civilian nuclear power generating technology. Because, the Saudis want to prepare themselves for a world without petroleum--when they are sitting on the world's largest reserves that they can tap into for practically no cost at all.
I was not happy with all this talk about selling nuclear tech to the crazy guys in the Middle East. Because these are not democratic countries. We have no idea who the next ruler will be, and what kind of crazy things he will want to pursue.
And then I read this:

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.

Great! after we are done with the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, next decade will be all about uncontrolled chain reactions in the Middle East. Thanks. Now I can sleep well! Dr. Strangelove, any pills for me? :-)