Two, Three, Many North Koreas
SOKOLSKI, HENRY
Two, Three, Many North Koreas Would-be nuclear proliferators are learning from Pyongyang. BY HENRY SOKOLSKI FIRST, IRAQ VIOLATED ITS PLEDGE not to try to acquire nuclear weapons. Then North Korea...
...Pakistan is estimated to have 50 or more nuclear weapons...
...Iran insists it has broken no rules, and says it will allow inspections of the photographed plants as required by the Henry Sokolski is executive director of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center in Washington...
...International Atomic Energy Agency, just as soon as these facilities have uranium or heavy water in them...
...By then, iran's nuclear reactor at Busheir will have been operational for about a year...
...Then, there's Algeria...
...Rather than bargain with Pyongyang, the United States should work with others to get the United Nations to sanction North Korea...
...security promises alone or will it feel the need to turn to its nuclear friend Israel for assistance, possibly to help it develop its own nuclear option...
...Doing this would violate the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), but, given past U.S...
...What might Algeria or its neighbor Libya, which previously tried to buy nuclear weapons, do if any of the above states moved to acquire a bomb...
...This must be done—whether or not North Korea tries to make more bombs—to drive home to all other would-be proliferators the message that a price will be paid for misbehavior...
...Who else in the region needs watching...
...Russian and Syrian officials insist that this nuclear cooperation is purely peaceful...
...It's not as if Iran can conceal its ambition to possess nuclear weapons...
...Bank on a slew of others, including a fair number of America's friends...
...Further dawdling, they warn, risks turning Iran into an American war target like Iraq...
...Unfortunately, Europe has never fully accepted Turkey as an ally...
...Even Iran's "reformers" now complain that their government is not pushing its bomb project fast enough...
...Another worry: If Iran goes nuclear, what might Turkey do...
...If Iran goes nuclear, will Turkey be reassured by U.S...
...This question is now being asked by leading Egyptian officials and nuclear scientists...
...Last November, U.S...
...The Saudis, meanwhile, still own several inaccurate medium-range Chinese missiles, which lack effective warheads...
...What would stop these and other client states from going nuclear...
...This brings us to Syria...
...Then North Korea did the same...
...Not more than seven months ago, Egypt's energy minister reiterated plans to complete a nuclear power station in Al-Dhab'a by 2010...
...None of this, of course, will be easy...
...newspapers published satellite photos of a previously undisclosed Iranian uranium enrichment facility and a heavy water plant...
...Ten years ago, the North African country fired up its second research reactor, a plant that some experts fear because its large size, extensive air defenses, and covert construction suggest it was intended to make nuclear weapons...
...Taiwan and South Korea have both tried to acquire nuclear weapons in the past...
...News reports indicate that Saudi officials have toured Pakistan's secret uranium enrichment plant at Kahuta, a facility many believe the Saudis helped pay for...
...Nor should they be able to receive nuclear weapons from other countries even if these bombs are under the donor state's "control...
...At a minimum, the U.N...
...Japan could quickly make thousands of bombs from the nuclear material it has on hand...
...To avoid this and get the kind of respect Pyongyang is now receiving from Washington, Iran, they insist, must build its bomb now...
...Members who lack nuclear weapons should not be able to build civilian nuclear facilities that bring them within weeks of acquiring them...
...At which point, Iran could extract fifty or more bombs' worth of weapons-grade plutonium from the reactor's spent fuel rods in a matter of weeks...
...Nor did Egyptian newspapers pass up the opportunity to commend North Korea's success in getting the United States to play ball...
...Saudi Arabia...
...Will the Syrians use this project to build a nuclear infrastructure like the one Russia helped build for Iran...
...should grant NPT adherents the authority to interdict the North Korean weapons exports that fund their nuclear activities...
...Turkey has repeatedly sought security assurances from its European allies, regarding a possible Iranian nuclear threat...
...such impatience makes sense...
...More likely than not, about 30 months from now...
...Beyond this, the most worrisome loopholes in the NPT need to be closed...
...Certainly the Syrian announcement did not go unnoticed in the government-run press...
...The short answer right now is not much...
...The Egyptian press insist their country must not be anything less than second when it comes to having nuclear weapons in the region...
...and Allied sloth in enforcing this treaty (consider Iraq and North Korea), the mullahs could easily conclude that abandoning the treaty, or even just threatening to, will give them leverage...
...The agreement, which deals Moscow into a major Syrian oil pipeline project, includes training for Syrian scientists as well as access to Russia's leading nuclear institutes (the same kind of deal Moscow cut with Iran a decade ago...
...How can Egypt get a weapons option if it's a member of the NPT...
...Easy: Develop a "peaceful" nuclear program first...
...What if American security guarantees were to weaken...
...This must change, starting with what Washington does about the most egregious NPT violator, North Korea...
...A little-understood fact is that under the NPT, members can legally accept nuclear weapons onto their soil so long as the donor state retains control...
...Who's next...
...But failure to take such steps will guarantee us a large and unruly crowd of nuclear powers, each of whom will have us over a barrel...
...More countries could be in line...
...How soon...
...other would-be bomb makers, however, have gotten the point: To get within weeks of a bomb without violating the NPT, one need only follow Iran's example...
...Finally, friendly states need to be reassured that their security is better served by working with the United States and its allies than by going it alone and going nuclear...
...Earlier this month, Moscow and Damascus formalized plans to build a large nuclear desalinization plant on Syria's coast...
Vol. 8 • February 2003 • No. 20
