Nuclear power and Energy (In)security in the Middle East
The role of energy in advancing diplomacy and cooperation is often overlooked in the context of the geopolitical rivalries in the Middle East. While countries in the region fail to engage in transformational, cross-border, energy initiatives, they are investing in uneconomic and inward-looking projects under the pretext of “energy security” and “energy independence”. A prime example of such inefficient policies is the epidemic spread of interest in building nuclear power plants to generate electricity across the region.
Unofficial account: Why do states in the Middle East want nuclear power?
Across the region, officials cite multiple motivations for constructing nuclear reactors. The most commonly articulated one is the desire to reduce the reliance on hydrocarbon resources to produce electricity and desalinated water. The real rationale, however, may differ from the officially announced reasons, or at least has additional, more covert, components. It also differs from one country to another. While the nuclear programs of Iran and Saudi Arabia are the most politicized, and therefore primarily motivated by security calculus, the programs of the UAE, Egypt, Jordan and Turkey are less so. However, the professed ambition to join the list of countries producing nuclear energy strikes a sensitive chord of nationalist spirit in the populations of these countries. A wide swathe of the public associates nuclear energy with national prestige and pride.
For Iran, a combination of political, historical and institutional motivations has been behind the country’s nuclear power ambitions. The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) agreement between Iran and world powers, signed in 2015, and its shaky status since the US withdrawal, demonstrates the level of politicization of Iran’s nuclear power and fuel cycle activities. On the political level, the Iranian political establishment sees the nuclear program as an assertion of sovereignty that fosters a sense of national unity, regardless of partisan affiliation. The Iranian leadership has also asserted that the failure of other governments to understand the nuclear program’s central role in Iran’s identity hinders cooperation on non-nuclear issues. On the institutional level, certain organizations and interest groups, such as the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) and the broader scientific community, are heavily invested in the program, and they are influential advocates for its continuation.
In Saudi Arabia, the nuclear program cannot be viewed without considering the country’s ongoing rivalry with Iran. To a large extent, Saudi Arabia’s nuclear power ambitions and nuclear fuel cycle plans appear to be a strategic hedge against Iran’s nuclear program. The Kingdom’s main grievance with the JCPOA is that its restrictions on Iran’s enrichment infrastructure expire after fifteen years. The Kingdom suspects Iran will restart its nuclear weapons program as a fait accompli.
Seeking to keep the option of nuclear hedging open, Saudi Arabia has refused to sign the voluntary Additional Protocol (AP) to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), which would require enhanced verification and inspections of the kingdom’s entire nuclear infrastructure. Signature of the treaty was sought by the US delegation in the early Saudi-US nuclear cooperation negotiations in London in March 2018. In fact, the AP signature was one of the main demands by the United States, as it was seen as a necessary precursor to a US-Saudi nuclear cooperation agreement.
Nuclear power and energy (In)security
If one reduces the concept of energy security to ensuring availability of energy supply whenever needed, there are major risks that could hinder the effectiveness of nuclear power in the region and transform it from a component of energy security to a driver of energy (and political) insecurity. These risks can be summarized as follows:
Vendor-client dynamics
The building (and operating) of nuclear reactors and facilities by a foreign entity is quite different from other trade and joint economic activities. First, ability and knowledge of operating nuclear power plants and their corresponding fuel cycle activities are exclusive to certain suppliers and countries — known as the nuclear suppliers group (NSG). The level of expertise these countries possess is a result of a long history and accumulation of knowledge, research and development that would be very difficult, if not impossible, to replicate regionally in a short period of time, regardless of the existing levels of human capacity.
Second, nuclear reactors are expected to operate for more than 60 years. Essentially, this means that client countries will be locked into decades-long relationship that can offer the vendor country political and trade leverage. This will be especially relevant when the vendor country is in control of all the aspects of building and operating the nuclear power plants, as in the case with the Russia-owned Rosatom’s agreements in the region.
Vendor countries, particularly Russia, have used energy as a geopolitical weapon to advance their political agenda. For example, Iran’s insistence on enriching uranium stems in part from Russia’s refusal in the past to supply the Islamic Republic with agreed-upon shipments of nuclear fuel. Russia has also given several “ultimatums” in the past regarding supplying natural gas to some Eastern European countries during winter. The political leverage is likely to be utilized by whoever the vendor country is, and there is no reason to suggest that nuclear projects in the region will be spared such tactics.
Non-state actors
The flowing of sensitive nuclear material and presence of critical nuclear infrastructure is a source of internal and external security risks that can be posed by both state and non-state actors. On the state level, there is a history of reactors and nuclear facilities being attacked. Iran’s Bushehr reactor was targeted by Iraqi missiles during the Iran-Iraq war. Israeli fighter jets carried out attacks on the Osairaq research reactor in Iraq in 1981 and on the suspected and undeclared nuclear site in Deir Ez-Zour in Syria in 2017.
While some analysts may consider it irrational for any state in the region now to carry out an attack on an operating nuclear facility, given the grave consequences of such an aggression, the presence and empowerment of non-state actors, which may operate with a different calculus, is a risk that should not be overlooked. The claim by Yemen’s Houthi group that they fired a ballistic missile on Al-Barakah nuclear power plant in December 2017 — regardless if it was true or not — is an alarming sign that nuclear reactors are being considered as targets. Additionally, the threat emerging from the empowerment of Egypt’s terrorist groups in terms of (potentially) accessing better missile systems with improved payloads should not be dismissed knowing that Egypt is one of the countries with plans to build nuclear power reactors. Now, the recent attack on Saudi Aramco further underlines the gravity of this risk.
