The Challenges of Nonproliferation
in the Middle East
Ambassador Nabil Fahmy, Ambassador of the Arab Republic of Egypt to the United States
On May 29, 2008, the National Strategy Forum hosted Ambassador Nabil Fahmy, Egypt’s Ambassador to the United States-a post he has held since October, 1999. Previously, he headed the Egyptian delegation to the Middle East Peace Process Steering Committee in 1993 and the Egyptian delegation to the Multilateral Working Group on Regional Security and Arms Control emanating from the Madrid Peace Conference in December 1991. He was elected Vice Chairman of the First Committee on Disarmament and International Security Affairs of the 44th Session of the U.N. General Assembly in 1986. From 1999 until 2003, he was a member of the U.N. Secretary General’s Advisory Board of Disarmament Matters and served as its chairman in 2001.
The current challenge of nonproliferation of weapons of mass destruction is not new, Ambassador Fahmy remarked. The global community has been grappling with this issue for decades. In recent years, however, a number of states in the Middle East have expressed interest in developing nuclear energy, including Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Their aim in developing nuclear energy is economic or resource-related (e.g., meeting energy demands; water desalination), yet concerns about a possible nuclear arms race in the Middle East has the international community on edge. Iran’s more recent nuclear aspirations and defiant posturing have intensified this debate. If Iran proliferates, and a regional arms control mechanism is not implemented, including Israel, neighboring states will feel compelled to take legitimate protective measures, which could mean additional security arrangements or arms acquisitions to balance the threat, the Ambassador explained. To date, he said, only Iran is developing enrichment and reprocessing capability. He also noted that Israel has a reprocessing capability.
Ambassador Fahmy explained that the failure to adequately address how to stop the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction to date, which is evidenced by current discussions among “practitioners and pundits” regarding the efficacy of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT; 1970), can be attributed to several factors. These include competing regional strategic interests in the Middle East, differing notions among key players of “security” and what is needed to achieve it, and competing political interests.
Ambassador Fahmy said that the NPT was perceived as an important but unfulfilled contribution to nonproliferation efforts. By creating a system based on norms, the NPT provided a framework that has served as a guide for states and has resulted in various measures including the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). He noted that states joined the NPT to protect long-term national security interests, which encompasses political or economic reasons. Still, the general assumption among member states was that the NPT would ultimately result in nonproliferation or possibly total disarmament, and thus, would provide the added benefit of security. This has not happened.
The state-parties that compose the NPT are categorized into two categories: nuclear-weapon states (NWS), which include the US, Russia, China, France, and the United Kingdom; non-nuclear-weapon states (NNWS). All of them committed to pursue general and complete disarmament.
The Ambassador pointed out that several major NNWS did not join the NPT. He noted the that India, Israel, and Pakistan, which were all non-nuclear weapons states in 1968, were unsatisfied with the NPT and have since pursued various nuclear capabilities, or have been perceived as having “gone nuclear.” He explained that Egypt joined the treaty under the assumption that its neighbors would also adhere to the standards and norms, particularly Israel which has not. He cited the cases of Iraq under Saddam Hussein, and North Korea, which also have not adhered to the NPT regime. North Korea opted out of the NPT in 2003.
Iran’s current posturing, Ambassador Fahmy warned, suggests the need for more effective, collaborative nonproliferation measures, in addition to the NPT. For example, he said, Iran uses Israel’s reprocessing capabilities as leverage for their own development. It becomes an issue of “If they can do it, so can we.” “The current situation in the Middle East is urgent,” he said, and “there is the need for immediate action.”
Ambassador Fahmy stressed the importance of addressing the foundational security issues in the region that would compel NNWS to acquire nuclear capability. A show of force against Iran will be ineffective if the policies to support such action are defective or inconsistent with double standards being applied to different states in the region. Developing policies to address the root causes of insecurity in the Middle East is the prerequisite to effective nonproliferation measures.