Lost chances to contain nuclear arms
IN RECENT years, stopping the spread of nuclear weapons has been a major preoccupation of US foreign policy. But what if our best efforts fail? What if Iran gets the nuclear bomb? Or if a North Korean nuclear test vaporizes any doubts of its arsenal?
Most Americans know intuitively that it would be undesirable for those countries to emerge as nuclear powers. What's less widely understood is just how bad our options will be if they do.
The danger is not that either state would attack America or our allies. Both regimes know what would happen next. For all the talk of messianic fanaticism, these governments remain focused on their material and political fortunes. They will be no more willing to give up their lives in a suicidal gesture than any other nuclear-armed state has been .
Nor is it likely that either state would intentionally give a nuclear bomb to a terrorist group. No nation has ever transferred a nuclear, biological, or chemical weapon to terrorists. Before the current Iraq war, US intelligence agencies explained why Saddam Hussein was unlikely to do so: He would not give up control of weapons he had worked so hard to create; the use of such weapons would be blamed on him no matter who actually delivered them; he feared terrorists might turn the weapons on him. All these reasons apply to Iran and North Korea.
The real danger is what happens next . What do Iran's rivals -- Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkey -- do if it declares itself a nuclear power ? None could allow Iran to acquire the strategic advantage that would come with a nuclear arsenal. They would feel compelled to match it. Egypt had a nuclear program before abandoning it in the 1970s. Turkey can start a program. The Saudis could take a short cut by having Pakistan, whose nuclear program they financed, station weapons on Saudi territory.
And if Iraq ever forms a stable government, it could restart the nuclear program eliminated by the Gulf War and United Nations inspections in 1991.
A similar pattern could occur in Northeast Asia. South Korea could restart the nuclear program that it halted under US pressure in the 1970s. Meanwhile, talk of a Japanese bomb once forced the resignation of officials foolish enough to speculate publicly; now rightist politicians discuss it without rebuke.
This nuclear reaction chain is exactly how nuclear weapons have spread in the past. Fear of a Nazi bomb begat the Manhattan Project. The American bomb begat the Soviet bomb, which begat the British, French, and then Chinese bombs. India followed China; Pakistan followed India.
Now the regions on the Asia periphery could tip. In the Middle East, instead of one nuclear state, Israel, there would be three or four -- with all the region's territorial, political, and ethnic disputes unresolved. This is a recipe for nuclear war. It also increases the risk that terrorists could steal or buy a weapon from corrupt or unstable governments.
This is the world John F. Kennedy feared 44 years ago. Imagining nuclear weapons ``in the hands of countries, large and small, stable and unstable," he saw that there would be no stability, ``and the increased chance of accidental war and an increased necessity for the great powers to involve themselves in what otherwise would be local conflicts."
This is the shape of a nuclear-proliferated world. What would we do?
We would have three options: military strikes to take out another nation's weapons, diplomacy to convince states not to follow their nuclear neighbors' example, or the traditional foreign-policy default -- muddle through and hope for the best. The first would mean wars that would make Iraq look like a warm-up act . The second would likely fail . And the third, muddling through, is just a crapshoot.
We still have time for better alternatives. But we have squandered key opportunities over the past five years to negotiate the end of both the North Korean and Iranian programs. Both wanted to cut deals. But administration officials wanted to overthrow these regimes, not talk to them. Now both are stronger, and we are weaker. North Korea, for example, has increased its stock of plutonium sixfold.
We must resuscitate diplomacy before the price of a deal rises further, or both decide they don't have to deal at all.
Joseph Cirincione is senior vice president for national security and international policy at the Center for American Progress and author of the forthcoming book ``Bomb Scare: The History and Future of Nuclear Weapons." 
