For almost two decades now, US policymakers, foreign policy pundits and nonproliferation experts, among others, have fretted that Iran’s efforts to master the nuclear fuel cycle are primarily aimed at developing an atomic bomb. Tehran has done little to allay their concerns.
Although a nuclear weapon may be the ultimate goal – primarily to guarantee the country’s historically precarious territorial integrity and national autonomy, but also to affect the regional nuclear balance – Iran could just as well decide to stop short of the nuclear breakout point, securing for itself a so-called surge capacity.
A surge capacity, which Japan for example enjoys, involves having all the components needed to assemble and deploy a nuclear weapon within a reasonable time frame on hand – near weapons-grade uranium or plutonium, a delivery system, trained personnel and nuclear know-how – but intentionally leaving them all apart. Such an arrangement would likely allow Iran to nominally maintain its status as a non-nuclear weapons state and Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) signatory, and to simultaneously enjoy the added diplomatic leverage afforded by its latent capability.
Moreover, by not going nuclear, the strategy could help mitigate the impetus for a much-feared regional nuclear arms race involving Saudi Arabia, Egypt and maybe Syria.
The reason this approach is of interest is because during the Shah’s rule in the 1960s and 1970s, Iran pursued exactly that, a surge capacity. Are today’s efforts the Shah’s policies redux or are they instead aimed at acquiring a full nuclear capability? The West does not and probably cannot know, but negotiators on all sides are unlikely to be discounting the possibility of the former and its potential for compromise.
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