Why Nuclear Dominoes Won't Fall in the Middle East

Dina Esfandiary, Research Associate at King's College, London, and Ariane Tabatabai, Research Associate at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, write for the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists that an Iranian nuclear deal is unlikely to spark a major surge in developing nuclear technology in the countries of the Middle East. They look specifically at the cases of Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Egypt, Jordan, and the United Arab Emirates and examine the technical, diplomatic, and political challenges to each one to actively pursuing nuclear weapons programs, and argue from this assessment that a successful nuclear deal with Iran will not spur a nuclear arms race in the region.