Introduction: Nuclear Activities Overview
The policy paper targets the governments of the countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and the United Arab Emirates in particular. The work concerns the danger of the possible nuclear activities, which can be caused by the conflict between Iran and Israel.
As such conflict would put a serious threat to the safety of the region, the policy aims at the acceptance of nuclear deal and the development of the effective course of actions aimed at eliminating the threat of the nuclear war between the confronting states and balancing the power in the region.
The Roots of the Nuclear Conflict
The roots of the nuclear challenges stem from the development of reactors and uranium enrichment. The threat, which evolved in the second part of the 20th century, came from the government of Iran, which claimed nuclear weapon elaboration. The act of Iran stirred not only its neighbors, which are Israel and the countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council but the United States as well since the enrichment of uranium contradicted the Treaty of United Nations on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.
The conflict sharpened when the opposing government of the USA made an agreement with Israel, which aimed at the prevention of nuclear holocaust in Iran and the neighborhood. At this point, Iran officials developed an escalating rhetoric against Israel authority and the claim about the future war against Israel was made. The disagreement between two Eastern countries started when Iranian government took an orientation on political leadership revelation, which flew into a proxy conflict.
The estimation of the military forces of the states shows the absurdity of the nuclear war. The reason for that starts in the military sphere since Iran possessed approximately 3.8 million of troops while Israel has only 750,000 troops. Moreover, there are considerable population differences as well as oil production potentials, which demonstrate the weakness of Israel.
Recently, the Iranian government signed an interim deal with the United States, which demonstrated that the latter might choose a direction of cooperation with Iran. Nevertheless, the countries of GCC face the need to establish effective cooperation with the Western partners to prevent the possibility of nuclear holocaust in the region (Dueck & Takeyh, 2013). The united efforts promoted by such partnership can contribute to the stabilization of relations between Israel and Iran.
The importance of the policy agreement may be defined if one views the consequences of the nuclear strengthening of Iran. Thus, the countries of the GCC have to take into consideration the fact that the country can become the greatest nuclear power in the Middle East (Inbar, 2006).
A consistent enhancement of uranium enhancement can contribute to the cancelation of the non-proliferation policy. In this context, the Iranian government might realign its political regime in the direction of the authoritative state, which may destroy Israel and pose a consistent threat to the Eastern neighbors.
Furthermore, the immense nuclear reserves, which may be developed by Iran, can endanger the United Arab Emirates (Eisenstadt, 2006). Therefore, it is a great challenge for the GCC to develop a consistent policy, which might both support the development of uranium potential but at the same time provide an efficient system for controlling the nuclear activities of Iran according to the non-proliferation objectives.
Analysis: The Nuclear Policy Options
The countries of the GCC, particularly, the United Arab Emirates, have to embrace a consistent policy to prevent the escalation of the conflicts between Israel and Iran. Both the countries of the Middle East and their Western partners are interested in the prevention of the growth of Iran’s nuclear power.
The policy, which can be developed by GCC, may take several directions. Primarily, the adopted regulation might create the basis for the effective collaboration of GCC countries with the Western partners that share the interest of decreasing the nuclear threat in the Middle East. Such direction might help to use the united power of GCC countries and Western states to prevent the development of negative scenario related to Iran and Israel’s nuclear holocaust.
Such cooperative actions might not only stop the growth of Iran’s nuclear power but also help to develop better relations between the Arab and the Western coalitions. Ensuring the effective cooperation between these world powers is crucial to preventing the possibility of confrontation between the Western and Eastern worlds. Working on achieving the common goal might eliminate the disagreements between the partners and contribute to the safe environment of the region and the world community.
Another option embraces the strategy of neutral partnership. The GCC countries might detach from participating in dealing with the nuclear conflict between Iran and Israel and promote a stable diplomacy dialogue with both sides. Such position would require GCC countries to give the right to deal with the problems related to the nuclear threat to the Middle East to the Western partners.
Such course of actions appears to be rather ineffective and can contribute to the dominance of Western countries in the region. Such dominance will have numerous negative consequences since Western governments tend to pursue subjective goals in the Middle East if the countries of GCC demonstrate passivity and do not put efforts in being actively involved in controlling such kind of activities (Amuzegar, 2006).
The final alternative of the course of actions include the independent activities of the governments of GCC aimed at dealing with the nuclear conflict between Iran and Israel. Such direction of actions would help the GCC countries to impose a strong control over the nuclear activities in the region without the participation of the Western partners.
In such case, the GCC countries would have to accept a stable plan of sanctions, which would come into power immediately after the breakage of the rules developed by them to control the nuclear activities in the region. However, such course of actions can have various negative results as dealing with the issue of Iran’s nuclear aggression can hardly be managed without the participation of the world community, and the Western partners in particular.
Nuclear Conflict Decision-Making Alternatives and Recommendations
The major policy recommendation, which has to be applied by the GCC to the nuclear crisis in Iran, must take the alternative of peaceful cooperation with the Iranian government and the Western world. However, it is important to emphasize that the adoption of the policy should rely on the principles of non-proliferation, which regulate nuclear facilities development (James, 2000).
It means that the policy should rely on the common goals of preventing nuclear threat instead of pursuing the subjective goals corresponding to the interests of a separate country.
The interim deal between the United States and Iran demonstrated that the reality of nuclear development in Iran might take a disruptive course against the Eastern world. Consequently, a proactive position and partnership should become the guiding principle for the new policy.
Therefore, the governments of the GCC have to initiate negotiations with the authority of Iran about the establishment of controlling institutions in the capital of Iran, Tehran, with an aim of supervising the nuclear weapon production. Moreover, the initial stages of the policy implementation have to embrace prevention of the conflict between Iran and Israel since Iran has previously claimed that the latter is a target for Iranian nuclear destruction (Perkovich, 2003).
The policy has to rely on the principles of effective cooperation between the world powers interested in dealing with Iran and Israel’s nuclear holocaust. Therefore, GCC countries, and the United Arab Emirates, in particular, should actively participate in dealing with such conflict together with their Western Partners.
The collaboration appears to be the key principle the policy should rely on as the neither separate participation in dealing with the conflict nor passivity and giving the initiative to the Western partners can benefit the countries of the Middle East. The effective combination of the power of both GCC and Western countries is the key to ensuring that the nuclear conflict between Iran and Israel is finished in favor of objective goals benefiting the region and the whole global community.
References
Amuzegar, J. (2006). Nuclear Iran: Perils and prospects. Middle East Policy, 13(2), 90-112.
Dueck, C., & Takeyh, R. (2013). Iran’s nuclear challenge. Political Science Quarterly, 2(1), 189-205.
Eisenstadt, M. (2006). Living with a nuclear Iran? Survival: Global Politics and Strategy, 41(3), 124-148.
Inbar, E. (2006). The need to block a nuclear Iran. Middle East Review of International Affairs, 10(1), 85-105.
James, C. (2000). Iran and Iraq as rational crisis actors: Dangers and dynamics of survivable nuclear war. Journal of Strategic Studies, 23(1), 52-73.
Perkovich, G. (2003). Dealing with Iran’s nuclear challenge. Survival, 44(2), 1-16.