Many proponents of President Barack Obama’s Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) like to point out that the genesis of Iran’s nuclear program actually lay with U.S. support in the years before the Islamic Revolution overthrew the shah who, before 1979 was a pillar of U.S. policy in the Middle East. Likewise, whenever panic spreads too deeply about the possibility that Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal could fall into the hands of radical Islamists, some analysts and academics remind that the United States initiated Pakistan’s nuclear program as part of President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s “Atoms for Peace” program. Both are true, although those that root Iran’s nuclear program in the shah’s ambitions often forget that revolutionary turmoil ended the program, and the Islamic Republic basically restarted it from scratch.
Still, those who point out U.S. culpability in sharing technology have a point. Pakistan and Iran were once staunch Cold War allies. Now, they are both adversaries, although diplomats try to obfuscate Pakistan’s state sponsorship of terror targeting both Afghanistan and India. There is logical inconsistency, however, to those who cite such past technology sharing as reason to rationalize bad behavior today. If anything, the fact that nuclear technology sharing ended so badly should be reason to condemn subsequent promises of technology sharing, both with North Korea under the terms of the 1994 Agreed Framework and with the Islamic Republic of Iran today, as part of the JCPOA.
Many ideas permeate diplomatic culture and become unquestioned conventional wisdom. Among these is that the sharing of technology is good. Sure, sanctions at times limit technology transfers, but that is simply the exception that proves the rule; after all, the whole point of sanctions is to prevent the good and cause harm. There are any number of excuses made to support technology sharing: The Obama administration blessed transfer of software and some computers to Iran, for example, in the belief that it would help civil society become less dependent on the regime. (Now, Microsoft has reportedly opened a store in Tehran). There’s no evidence to suggest that was the case, but it is a notion that remains unchallenged. Likewise, the United Nations and European countries saw the transfer of night vision goggles to Iran as an unquestioned good, something that would all the Islamic Republic to crackdown on drug trafficking while simultaneously creating a partnership that could grow. In hindsight, however, all that technology exchange did was to facilitate Iranian-backed operations against U.S. forces and bolster Iran’s own military industries.
When it comes to nuclear technology, perhaps the greatest recent folly was the George W. Bush-era “Global Nuclear Energy Partnership.” The State Department, at the time under the leadership of Condoleezza Rice, announced that the program was designed “to envision a future where we can bring the benefits of nuclear power to the developing world.” Amongst those developing countries to which the Departments of State and Energy sought to introduce nuclear technology were Egypt and Yemen. In theory, GNEP would introduce reactors and other equipment that were less proliferation proof. In reality, there is very little which is completely proliferation proof: where there’s a will, there’s a way. Fissile material is fissile material and, as occurred with Iran and its Bushehr reactor, legal components of a nuclear program often serve as covers for illegal activity. Iran claimed components in required were for Bushehr, but when they would arrive, Iranian engineers could either divert or reverse engineer them.
GNEP ultimately gained little traction. The idea of Yemen—now contested between Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, Iranian-backed Houthi rebels, and weak and disorganized government forces—having any nuclear material should keep any responsible policymaker up at night. And while, love him or hate him, President Sisi in Egypt remains an American ally, most analysts see a Potemkin stability, and do not believe his brand of repression will bring permanent peace. Saudi Arabia makes little secret that it might be the next to go down the nuclear path.
Historian Daniel Headrick has written frequently and well about the history of technology. Those who retain the technological edge maintain an advantage of power. Those who forfeit it, face decline. How sad it is that even with the most deadly technologies, American officials from Condoleezza Rice to John Kerry, seem so willing in their embrace of false theories to both catalyze the breakdown of American power and the potential rise of adversaries.
