As North Korea restarts its main nuclear plant and Iran continues to flex its nuclear muscles, a less publicized nuclear renaissance is underway in the Middle East.
In the Arab world, at least thirteen nations, both oil-rich and oil-thirsty, are collaborating with world powers to build nuclear energy programs with unprecedented determination.

As energy and water needs grow, they are confronting the inevitable depletion of oil and natural gas and the nuclear option has trumped renewables (both in terms of feasibilty and economics) as a means to generate electricity while guaranteeing long-term security.

Plus, while no Arab leader will readily admit that Iran’s nuclear capabilities have spurred, at least in part, his country’s nuclear ambitions, Richard Falk, chair of the board of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, says the perceived threat from Iran must be a factor.

“Most of the rationale for these expanded nuclear energy programs is almost always related to domestic factors, increasing electricity demand and the expense of importing energy,” Falk said.

“But now that Iran is at least a latent nuclear weapon state, it doesn’t make any sense [for Arab states] to proceed in [the non-nuclear] direction anymore. It seems they think they need to have their own long-term security in mind,” he said.

On Thursday, energy experts and international government officials met in Dubai for the GCC’s first Nuclear Summit, a meeting that addressed the justifications, conditions and logistics for developing nuclear power in the Gulf and broader Middle East.

Dr. Mahmoud Nasser Al Deen, advisor to the secretary general at the League of Arab Nations, said that Arab countries have placed energy diversification high on their list of priorities.

“In achieving this objective, they have expressed their clear commitment to the promotion of the peaceful uses and applications of nuclear energy in a transparent manner that fully respects their international obligations,” he said.

With electricity and desalination demands estimated to increase by about 10 per cent annually by 2015, the GCC is in dire need of diversifying their energy sources.

The UAE alone estimates it would need 40,000MW of electricity to meet domestic demand by 2020. With drafted plans to generate 15,000MW of electricity from nuclear energy by 2020 at a quarter of the cost of gas powered plants, the UAE already have several construction companies bidding to sign on.

Meanwhile, France, Russia, China and the US are ardently working to sign lucrative deals with the eager Arabs, who are also competing with one another to attract the best investors and suppliers, despite previous plans of regional cooperation.

Competition or cooperation

Last month at the Arab League Summit, the league’s secretary-general, Amr Moussa, announced plans to launch an inter-Arab dialogue for nuclear cooperation.

“The Arab world is extremely concerned by Israel’s nuclear programs…but the Middle East should be an area that is free of weapons of mass destruction,” Moussa said.

“The condition to join this program will be based upon joining the NPT and agreeing that all nuclear efforts will be for peaceful purposes.”

But the rhetoric does not match reality in the region as the prospect for cooperation seems to be diminishing.

Even the Gulf Cooperation Council countries, who are set to benefit most from regional cooperation due to their relatively smaller size and associated limitations, seem to be going it alone now.

“There is a lack of cooperation because each country wants to be the first,” Kamal Araj, vice-chairman of the Commission for Nuclear Energy in Jordan said, “I think it is really childish.”

The UAE are moving fast to be the first Arab country to develop a nuclear power program as they have been fast-tracking the process (which usually takes 10-15 years) to fulfill the requirements by 2016. Through engaging vendors and supplier countries at events such as last week’s nuclear summit, their plans may soon become realized.
Within a decade there could be about a dozen nuclear reactors in the region, which makes the option of having a regional enrichment facility extremely viable.

“Regional cooperation makes economic sense rather than investing foolishly,” Araj said.

The issue of waste disposal poses a key incentive for Arab states to work together. A nuclear repository would reduce stress on smaller countries like the UAE by excusing them from needing their own.

“It doesn’t make sense for each country to have a nuclear repository to store high-level waste for a long long time,” Araj said.

“If one nation were to host the regional repository in exchange for financial incentives, they would need to safeguard the waste for 100-150 years until the radioactivity had decreased to the environmental levels – then it would no longer pose a threat.”

Still, two distinct nuclear approaches are evident as illustrated by Jordan and the UAE.

With virtually no oil or gas and suffering from severe water shortages, Jordan is in dire need of developing alternative energy sources.

Before the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, Jordan relied on hydrocarbon imports from Iraq to support 95% of its energy consumption, receiving oil at an extremely cheap rate. But in 2003, Iraq began charging full market prices, forcing Jordan to end its generous domestic fuel subsidies.

“The volatility is a major factor,” Araj said. “Spending 25 percent of your GDP on oil is a big factor. It was the impetus to revive this nuclear program.”

Jordan hopes to have its first nuclear reactor up and running by 2016, though Araj admits 2018 is more realistic. Jordan estimates it has140,000 tonnes of conventional uranium reserves and an additional 59,000 in phosphate deposits, an impressive amount – enough to make the option to enrich uranium a plausibility down the line.

France, China, South Korea, Russia and Canada have signed deals with Jordan to provide assistance with construction, research and training.

“We have a very active international program,” Araj said. “The idea is to develop relationships with all potential supplier countries.”

Geopolitics vs international law

In September 2007, Jordan and the US signed a memorandum of understanding on cooperating on the peaceful use of nuclear energy under the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP), a US-led initiative to expand nuclear energy use worldwide while reducing the threat of nuclear weapons proliferation.

Since then the US has announced plans to design and construct a storage facility in Amman for Jordan’s radioactive waste and nuclear materials.

But while the project demonstrates US involvement in Jordan’s nuclear plans, the US has been reluctant to sign an agreement with Jordan, even while it has signed with the UAE and Bahrain.

Unlike Jordan, both the UAE and Bahrain have committed to forgoing the option to enrich uranium, a move which persuaded the US to sign and Barack Obama, the US president, to endorse and send to the Senate for ratification.

“Until now the US has not completed their procedure so we cannot import US technology,” Araj said.

General Electric is just one of several companies that had expressed an interest in working in Jordan, but have been deterred by the US’s apparent stalling on the matter.

Falk said one reason for the United States’ reluctance may be because of Jordan’s framing of its program.

“You have two regimes, with one on top of the other,” he said. “The former legal regime, and the new geopolitical regime that is more or less administered by the US, and Jordan may be perceived as eroding the geopolitical regime.”

The US deal with the UAE would allow US firms to assist the UAE in building several civilian nuclear power plants despite its record as a transshipment port for weapons-related materials to Iran.

To many, the deal indicates that the UAE, which has the financial resources to finance a program, has now entered the “A club” of nuclear ambitious states as it has chosen to conform by the geopolitical reality rather than the legal one.

“If you exercise your legal right, as Iran has sought to do, and other countries have done without difficulty like Japan and Germany, that puts you in the B category where you are subject to this kind of geopolitical pressure,” Falk said. “I suppose the UAE is trying to make itself look like the optimal actor in terms of how you ensure energy security transition beyond the petroleum age.”

Obama’s endorsement demonstrates the administration’s commitment to providing an alternative to Iran’s approach for Arab nations with nuclear power aspirations.

While the UAE has agreed to give the IAEA complete access to its nuclear sites, including unannounced inspections under additional safeguard protocols, the key to the their having entered the “A club” was its voluntary renunciation of its rights to enrich uranium under the NPT.

Falk suggests that the US may be stalling with regards to Jordan in order to send a signal that it is not excited about its approach.

“The US may be in deference to Israel’s concerns about having these nuclear programs move forward in the region,” Falk said. “Jordan, which is dependent on the US in a variety of ways, is framing its program in relation to the legal international treaty rather than in relation to the geopolitical framework which is more limiting to the nonnuclear states than the actual treaty itself.”
From Falk’s perspective, the geopolitical framework is based on “a pervasive double standard that is embedded in the whole idea of nuclear nonproliferation,” or what he called, “the mind game that has been successfully played by nuclear weapons states that makes us believe that the danger comes more from those who don’t have the weapons, rather than those who have the weapons.”

Israel

Araj also highlighted Israel’s influence on American policy, especially on issues related to Israel’s perceived security, as a probable reason.

“I think surely Israel has a hand to play,” he said. “Israel is against the transfer of technology to the Middle East, whatever the type of technology. They really want to keep the Middle East underdeveloped.”

Israel, the only country in the Middle East that currently has nuclear weapons, estimated at between 100-200 warheads, has yet to sign the NPT, unlike its Arab neighbors.

Dr. Barth discusses Israel’s relevance in the Arabs’ nuclear ambitions

The Middle East is filled with various elements of unresolved conflict. Israel possesses formidable nuclear weapons capabilities and Iran has latent potential and appears to be set on advancing its enrichment capabilities.

The Arab world sits anxiously between the two foes, making plans for its own nuclear ambitions and energy programs inextricably linked to the reality of being wedged between Iran and Israel.

“I would think it is in Israel’s long term interest to get some sort of regional military denuclearize commitment settled,” Falk said. “The unwillingness of the US to press Israel in the way it would press other countries is illustrative of another aspect of these double standards in nuclear weapons and nuclear energy.”

Fuel assurances

Kai-Henrik Barth is a visiting assistant professor at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service and is currently researching the nuclear power with an emphasis on Iran and the Gulf region.

For Barth, it is crucial that the international community come up with a system of assurances that would deter states pursuing nuclear energy programs from producing the fuel cycle domestically, which could then be diverted for military purposes. In his opinion, enrichment and reprocessing too often leads to dangerous circumstances.

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