The impact of Iran's nuclearization on Israel

Middle East Policy

Volumn 12, Issue 2, 2005, Pages 58-72

  Sadr, Ehsaneh I ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND   (United States)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 25144513105     PISSN: 10611924     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/j.1061-1924.2005.00201.x     Document Type: Article

References (89)

1. See, for example, the comments of senior officials quoted in Uzi Mahnaimi and Peter Conradi "Israel Targets Iran Nuclear Plant," London Sunday Times, July 18, 2004;
2. Ed Blanch, "Iran's Technology Advances Strike a Chord in Tel Aviv," The Middle East, Issue 351, December 2004, p. 24;
3. Barbara Smith, "America's Next Target," New Statesman, Vol. 133, Issue 4710, October 18, 2004, p. 10;
4. Steven Erlanger, "Israel Trades One Nightmare for Another," The New York Times, October 10, 2004;
5. and David E. Sanger, "Cheney Says Israel Might 'Act First' on Iran," The New York Times, January 21, 2005.
6. Mahnaimi and Conradi, "Israel Targets Iran."
7. I b i d.
8. Sanger, "Cheney Says Israel Might 'Act First' on Iran."
9. See, for example, Barbara Smith, "America's Next Target";
10. Thomas Omestad, "Iran and the Bomb," U.S. News & World Report, Vol. 137, Issue 18, November 22, 2004, p. 50;
11. Barbara Slavin, "U.S. Prefers Diplomacy with Iran, But Conflict Possible," USA Today, November 5, 2004;
12. Thom. Shanker, Eric Schmitt and David E. Sanger, "U.S. Wants to Block Iran's Nuclear Ambition, But Diplomacy Seems to Be the Only Path," The New York Times, December 12, 2004;
13. and Joshua Mitnick, "Would Israel Strike First at Iran?" Christian Science Monitor, August 18, 2004.
14. Erlanger, "Israel Trades One Nightmare for Another";
15. and Mitnick, "Would Israel Strike First at Iran?"
16. Most scholars and policy makers are, therefore, consumed with the question of whether and how Iran can be prevented from attaining nuclear weapons with the implicit assumption that nuclear weapons in the hands of Iran's clerical rulers would constitute an intolerable and existential threat to the United States and/or Israel. See, for example, Richard Russell, "Iran in Iraq's Shadow: Dealing with Tehran's Nuclear Weapons Bid," Parameters, Autumn 2004, pp. 31-45;
17. Patrick Clawson, "Influencing Iran's Nuclear Activities through Major Power Cooperation," Washington Institute for Near East Studies, Policy Watch No. 936, December 30, 2004;
18. Thomas R. Pickering and John Newhouse, "Thinking about Iran," op-ed in The Washington Post, January 1, 2004;
19. James Fallows, "Will Iran Be Next?" The Atlantic, Vol. 294, No. 5, December 2004;
20. Geoffrey Kemp, "How to Stop the Iranian Bomb," The National Interest, Issue 72, Summer, 2003, p. 48;
21. George Perkovich, "Dealing with Iran's Nuclear Challenge," Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, April 2003;
22. and Ray Takeyh, "Iranian Options," The National Interest, Issue 73, Fall 2003, p. 49.
23. For a notable exception that contemplates how Iran's nuclearization might affect regional politics, see Robert Hunter, "What Happens If Iran Gets 'The Bomb'?" Arms Control Today, Vol. 34, Issue 10, December 2004, p. 25.
24. Jack Boureston and Charles D. Ferguson, "Schooling Iran's Atom Squad," Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Vol. 60, Issue 3, May 1, 2004.
25. Chris Quillen, "Iranian Nuclear Weapons Policy: Past, Present and Possible Future," Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA), Vol. 6, Issue 2, June 2002.
26. I b i d.
27. Boureston and Ferguson, "Schooling Iran's Atom Squad."
28. Joseph Cirincione, Jon Wolfsthal and Miriam Rajkumar, Deadly Arsenals (Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2002), Chapter 15.
29. Nuclear Threat Initiative, Iran Profile: Nuclear Chronology, www.nti.org.
30. I b i d.
31. Boureston and Ferguson, "Schooling Iran's Atomic Squad."
32. Maariv, NRG, "Iran Issues Religious Decree against Use of Nuclear Arms," Maariv Interntional, www.maarivintl.com, September 13, 2004.
33. See, for example, John R. Bolton, under secretary for Arms Control and International Security, "Testimony Before the House International Relations Committee Subcommittee on the Middle East and Central Asia," Washington, DC, June 24, 2004.
34. See, for example, the comments of Iran's foreign minister, Kamal Kharrazi, during a press conference with his Russian counterpart, Igor Ivanov, on March 11, 2003 (available on the Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs website: http://www.mfa.gov.ir/output/english/documents/doc2317.htm).
35. Kemp, "How to Stop the Iranian Bomb."
36. Patrick Clawson, "Evaluating the Options Regarding the Iranian Nuclear Threat," Testimony before the U.S. Israeli Joint Parliamentary Committee, September 17, 2003 (available at http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/ templateC07.php?CID=4).
37. Douglas Frantz, "Iran Closes In on Ability to Build a Nuclear Bomb," Los Angeles Times, August 4, 2003;
38. Anthony Cordesman, The Military Balance in the Middle East: The Impact of the Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction on the Regional Balance, Center for Strategic and International Studies, www.csis.org, March 15, 2004;
39. and Nina Gilbert, "Iran Nuclear Program near Point of No Return," Jerusalem Post, January 24, 2005.
40. Cordesman, The Military Balance in the Middle East.
41. Amos Perlmutter. Michael Handel and Uri Bar-Joseph, Two Minutes over Baghdad (Frank Cass, 2003);
42. and Shelomoh Nakdimon, translated by Peretz Kidron, First Strike: The Exclusive Story of How Israel Foiled Iraq's Attempt to Get the Bomb (Summit Books, 1987).
43. Shai Feldman, "The Bombing of Osiraq - Revisited," International Security, Vol. 7, No. 2, Autumn 1982.
44. Ibid., p. 122.
45. Roger Pajik, "Nuclear Status and Policies of the Middle East Countries," International Affairs, Vol. 59, No. 5, Autumn 1983;
46. and Feldman, "The Bombing of Osiraq - Revisited."
47. Cordesman, The Military Balance in the Middle East. For further definition and discussion of a "splendid first strike,"
48. see George H. Quester, Nuclear Monopoly (New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers, 2000), pp. 93-94.
49. See footnote 1.
50. See footnote 5 and "U.S. and Israel Turn Up the Heat on Iran's Nuclear Programme," The Middle East, Issue 352, January, 2005, p. 28.
51. Atlantic Monthly, The Atlantic Monthly Wargame, November 2004;
52. and Laura King, "Israel May Have Iran in Its Sights," Los Angeles Times, October 22, 2004.
53. Quoted in Arieh O'Sullivan, "A Partial Attack Would Set Back Iran's Nukes," Jerusalem Post, October 12, 2004.
54. "U.S. and Israel Turn Up the Heat."
55. King, "Israel May Have Iran in its Sights";
56. and Mahnaimi and Conradi, "Israel Targets Iran."
57. Peter Enav, "Israeli Arab Charged with Spying for Iran," Associated Press, December 7, 2004.
58. Colin Gray, "Nuclear Strategy: The Case for a Theory of Victory," International Security, Vol. 4, No. 1, Summer 1979, p. 55.
59. David J. Karl, "Proliferation Pessimism and Emerging Nuclear Powers," International Security, Vol. 21, No. 3, Winter 1996-97.
60. Several Israeli scholars have also argued that MAD should apply in the context of the Middle East. See, for example, Shai Feldman, Israeli Nuclear Deterrence: A Strategy for the 1980s (Columbia University Press, 1982);
61. and the comments of Israeli physicist Daniel Amit in "The Israeli Raid on Iraq's Nuclear Reactor," Journal of Palestine Studies, Vol. 11, No. 1, Autumn 1981.
62. Russell, "Iran in Iraq's Shadow."
63. Perkovich, "Dealing with Iran's Nuclear Challenge."
64. Feldman, Israeli Nuclear Deterrence, p. 148.
65. Mahnaimi and Conradi, "Israel Targets Iran."
66. Text of his speech, delivered at Tehran University, was translated by the BBC Monitoring Service, December 15, 2001.
67. Mohamoud Mohammadi, deputy head of the Iranian Parliament's influential Foreign Policy and National Security Commission, as quoted in "Iran Parliament Unlikely to Ratify Key Nuclear Treaty Soon, Top MP Says," Agence France Presse, July 28, 2004.
68. Robert Jervis, The Meaning of the Nuclear Revolution: Statecraft and the Prospect of Armageddon (Cornell University Press, 1989).
69. Daniel Byman, Shahram Chubin, Anoushiravan Ehteshami and Jerrold Green, Iran's Security Policy in the Post-Revolutionary Era (RAND Corporation, 2001).
70. Russell, "Iran in Iraq's Shadow."
71. "U.S. Senator Richard G. Lugar (R-IN) Holds Hearing on Iran," Political/Congressional Transcript Wire, October 28, 2003.
72. Brenda Shaffer, "Iran at the Nuclear Threshold," Arms Control Today, Vol. 33, No. 9, November 2003.
73. Howard Schneider, "Hezbollah's Revised Credo: 'Lebanon is Different from Iran,'" Washington Post Service, April 6, 2000;
74. and "Hezbollah's Iranian Military Advisors Return Home," Agence France Press, November 26, 2001.
75. See, for example, "Iran Calls for More Hezbollah Attacks on Israel," Agence France Presse, April 21, 2001;
76. and William Samii, "Iran: Teheran Supports Hezbollah in Lebanon," Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty - Iran, November 10, 1999.
77. Kenneth Waltz, The Spread of Nuclear Weapons: More May be Better, Adelphi Paper No. 171 (London: International Institute of Strategic Studies [IISS] Autumn 1981), p. 5.
78. Shai Feldman, "Is There a Proliferation Debate?" Security Studies, Vol. 4, No. 4, Summer 1995.
79. William M. Arkin, "Iran and the Virtual Reality of U.S. Wargames," Middle East Report, No. 197, November, 1995;
80. Tarzi, Amin, "The Role of WMD in Iranian Security Calculations: The Danger to Europe," Middle East Review of International Affairs, Vol. 8, No. 3, September, 2004;
81. and Ray Takeyh and Nikolas K. Gvosdev, The Washington Quarterly, Autumn 2004.
82. Fallows, "Will Iran Be Next?"
83. Scott MacLeod, Nahid Siamdoust and Andrew Purvis, "Iran Still Defiant," Time, Vol. 164, Issue 23, December 2004.
84. I b i d.
85. George Perkovich, India's Nuclear Bomb: The Impact on Global Proliferation (University of California Press, 2001), p. 416.
86. Ibid, p. 439.
87. Ibid, p. 442.
88. For current estimates see Cordesman, The Military Balance in the Middle East.
89. Charles L. Glaser, "Nuclear Policy without an Adversary: U.S. Planning for the Post-Soviet Era," International Security, Vol. 16, No. 4, Spring 1992.