U.S. Nonproliferation Strategy for the Changing Middle East

Abstract

U.S. Nonproliferation Strategy for the Changing Middle East, available for download above, is a 154-page book which provides rigorous analysis and specific recommendations for how to improve U.S. efforts to stop the proliferation (spread) of weapons of mass destruction (nuclear, chemical and biological) in the Middle East (defined to include North Africa). Published on January 14, 2013, the book was co-authored -- in their personal capacities -- by David Albright, President of the Institute for Science and International Security; Mark Dubowitz, Executive Director of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies; Orde Kittrie, Professor of Law at Arizona State University; Leonard Spector, Deputy Director of the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies; and Michael Yaffe, Professor at the National Defense University. The book received coverage from over one hundred media outlets worldwide including outlets in the following 30 countries: Argentina, Azerbaijan, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Greece, India, Indonesia, Iran, Israel, Lebanon, Malaysia, Maldives, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar, Romania, Singapore, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Switzerland, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Vietnam. Many of the book's recommendations called for specific changes to U.S. and international law. Several of the recommended changes to U.S. law have already been adopted into Congressional legislation. Senator Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), in her Congressional Record statement introducing S. 1021, the “Next Generation Cooperative Threat Reduction Act of 2013,” graciously offered “special thanks to the Co-Chairs of the Project on U.S. Middle East Nonproliferation Strategy, including David Albright, Mark Dubowitz, Orde Kittrie, Leonard Spector and Michael Yaffe, whose report, ‘U.S. Nonproliferation Strategy for the Changing Middle East,’ served as the inspiration for this legislation.” Senator Shaheen’s bill was signed into law on December 26, 2013 as Section 1304 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2014. In addition, several of the book's recommendations on sanctions were adopted in the Nuclear Iran Prevention Act of 2013, which unanimously passed the House Committee on Foreign Affairs on May 22, 2013. The book contains rigorous analysis and dozens of specific recommendations arranged in chapters focused on: 1) preventing Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon, 2) stopping potential proliferation by countries (other than Iran) in the changing Middle East, 3) preventing potential proliferation by Middle Eastern terrorists, 4) improving cooperative nonproliferation programs applicable to the Middle East, and 5) enhancing U.S. collaboration with Europe to prevent proliferation in the Middle East. The non-partisan Project on U.S. Middle East Nonproliferation Strategy, which issued the book, is co-chaired by the book’s co-authors -- Albright, Dubowitz, Kittrie, Spector, and Yaffe. The Project convened five not-for-attribution roundtables in 2012 at which leading experts from the U.S. government, think tanks, and academia discussed how to more effectively address Middle East nonproliferation challenges and opportunities in light of regional developments including Iran’s advancing nuclear program, the turmoil in Syria (with its massive chemical arsenal), the replacement of an Egyptian government which had rejected a nuclear option, and the rise of inexperienced and Islamist parties in Egypt and elsewhere. Many of the book’s recommendations were drawn from or inspired by the roundtable discussions. However, they are attributable only to the Project co-chairs, in their personal capacities.

Keywords: Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, Cooperative Threat Reduction, chemical weapons, biological weapons