Stopping nuclear proliferation in the Middle East will require a consistent policy, not just sporadic interventions.
Two months ago, President Donald Trump laid down a marker: the United States and Israel will act militarily, if necessary, to prevent Iran from making nuclear weapons.
“Iran was beaten up very badly, for good reason. We cannot have them have a nuclear weapon. But they still talk about enrichment…we’re not going to allow that to happen,” Trump declared.
Yet, while Washington and Jerusalem have both pledged to prevent Tehran from reconstituting its ability to enrich uranium or produce separated plutonium they seem prepared to permit enrichment by Iran’s other rival, Saudi Arabia.
Given the world’s experience with Iranian enrichment and how close Tehran came to possessing the bombs, Trump should rule out such cooperation with the Saudis. Instead, he should broaden his no-enrichment policy and announce that America will intervene to prevent not just Iran, but any new countries, from enriching uranium or separating plutonium.
The United States revealed last April that it is in nuclear cooperation talks with Riyadh that may include a path to domestic enrichment. Those talks reportedly continue. Yet in May, Trump’s envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, rightly noted with regard to Iran, “enrichment enables weaponization.”
Implicit to his observation is that once a country “peacefully” refines nuclear fuel, it is impractical for international inspection systems to detect a diversion for nuclear weapons reliably or early enough to permit intervention.
Similarly, separating plutonium from spent reactor fuel through reprocessing is one of the last steps needed before building bombs. It’s how the United States got fuel for the first nuclear bomb it tested in 1945. Currently, 23 countries have nuclear power reactors but forgo enrichment and reprocessing to fuel them.
Their reasons are practical: states can already acquire enriched uranium fuel affordably from several global suppliers, and making one’s own nuclear fuel attracts global suspicion—even sanctions and sometimes bombing.
As for reprocessing spent reactor fuel to extract and re-use the plutonium, it makes even less economic sense—using fresh uranium without recycling is far cheaper. States that enrich and reprocess, however, can easily cross the line into weapons-making.
Of the 10 nations that currently reprocess to get plutonium, nine possess nuclear weapons. Among the 15 states that possess uranium enrichment plants, nine brandish nuclear weapons. Of the six enriching states still lacking atomic weapons, at least three have harbored a desire to acquire them.
Only Iran has been under investigation by the UN nuclear watchdog—the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)—and has been found to be in non-compliance with its safeguards agreement under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
Prior to the recent 12-day bombing campaign, Tehran was enriching uranium to 60 percent—too close for comfort to nuclear weapons-grade—and was progressing efforts to construct nuclear weapons.
On June 12, the IAEA found Tehran in non-compliance with the NPT. Israel began bombing Iran’s nuclear facilities the following day, and America joined a week later. Jerusalem feared that Tehran, with other growing missile and military capabilities, could soon sprint to a bomb and acted pre-emptively.
Israel had already bombed nuclear plants in Iraq and Syria in 1981 and 2007, respectively, to prevent fuel-making. Washington considered bombing North Korea in 1994 for similar reasons. America didn’t act, and Pyongyang went nuclear in 2006.
Now, Trump has warned Iran not to rebuild its nuclear fuel-making facilities. This is a good start, but US adversaries, in particular, will dismiss it as a one-off unless he broadens this policy to include any nation that doesn’t already have enrichment or reprocessing.
The Trump administration should insist Riyadh formally rule out enrichment and reprocessing. Its neighbor, the United Arab Emirates, has already agreed to this “gold standard” of nonproliferation for civil nuclear cooperation. In return, Abu Dhabi received enhanced US nuclear cooperation, a close military partnership, and increased trade. America should offer additional, similar benefits to Saudi Arabia. Trump should also insist that, as a condition of US nuclear cooperation, other states such as Turkey or Egypt agree to the “gold standard” as well.
Beyond the Middle East, the United States should work with like-minded nations to insist on this condition and enforce it, if necessary, throughout the rest of the world. Trump has established an important precedent by destroying Iran’s nuclear fuel-making capabilities. In making this decision, he rejected the prevarication of previous administrations. If he wants a legacy, however, he needs to enforce this policy in a country-neutral manner. Anything less will only encourage further nuclear threats like Iran’s.
About the Authors: Henry Sokolski and Andrea Stricker
Henry Sokolski is executive director of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center, was deputy for nonproliferation policy in the Department of Defense (1989-1993), and is the author of China, Russia, and the Coming Cool War (2024).
Andrea Stricker is deputy director of the Nonproliferation and Biodefense Program and a research fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
Image: Matthew Munsell / Shutterstock.com.
