With talk of sanctions on Iran over its failure to cooperate on its nuclear program with the International Atomic Energy Agency and the international community, the number of countries seeking to gain nuclear power and technology is on the rise, especially in the Middle East. In the space of one week, Russia discussed during the visit of Dmitry Medvedev to Syria on Tuesday, with senior Syrian officials, the possibility of Moscow's assistance in building a nuclear power station in Syria, and on the following day, he went to Turkey, where the two sides signed an agreement to build a nuclear power plant. During last year too, discussions were held between France and the United Arab Emirates, and tackled the possibility of French assistance to Abu Dhabi with building a plant of this type. For its part, Egypt earlier held discussions on this topic with France, while other Gulf states, such as the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, have expressed their readiness, in discussions with a number of states, including Russia, to begin producing nuclear power. As Iran moves ahead with its' nuclear program, aimed at obtaining this nuclear power and dating back to the Shah's era in the 1970s, and as the issue of Israel's nuclear arsenal is raised, on the occasion of an international conference, to review the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty at the United Nations this month, this seeming race by the region's states to possess nuclear technology might hint that the warnings by states opposed to Iran's nuclear program have become valid, in what is seen as a race to arms among Middle Eastern countries. However, this conclusion is unrealistic, and not only because the race to acquire nuclear technology is different from the race to acquire nuclear weapons, especially since the countries' new programs are being sought openly in a process overseen by the IAEA. It is also deemed so, because these states' possession of this technology will take a considerable amount of time. The Turkish energy minister, Taner Yildiz, said the other day that building a nuclear power plant in agreement with Russia will take around 70 years. In other words, if there was a belief that these new countries would aspire to obtain nuclear power, it would create a balance between Tehran and Tel Aviv (the latter starting its nuclear program in the 1960s), then the time that this will take would pass, and it will be too late. The current crisis over nuclear issues would have likely reached and end, with the results going one way or the other, and Iran would have gained, in one way or another, legitimacy for its nuclear program, while defining its orientation and strictly monitoring its activities. However, these newcomers to acquiring nuclear power face a choice, between, on the one hand, what they will pay compared to the benefit for their economies after successfully obtaining nuclear plants, and, on the other, the amount they will have to pay to achieve this goal, as well as the possibility of declining to pursue it, due to the huge costs, preferring to pursue the economic development of their countries. This is something faced by Iran as well, as it must choose between the huge spending on developing its advanced program to obtain a nuclear bomb, even though this will mean more non-peaceful military spending, and saving the deteriorating Iranian economy by spending on economic development, and especially the oil sector. There is a theory in the west, saying that in case the efforts to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear bomb fail, then let it, because Iran's economy will suffer as a result of this aspiration, if Tehran is truly seeking such a thing. Making a bomb must be followed by building a network of platforms for launching nuclear warheads. This complex requires networks of traditional missiles, to protect the nuclear facilities, and the network of missile protection itself requires air cover and a fleet of military aircraft, etc., while the costs of this all will jeopardize the Iranian economy. Irrespective of whether this Iranian objective exists, the essential conclusion that remains valid is that the costs of nuclear aspirations for the economies of states working hard for such a goal are high and could affect their political stability in the future. If western states want to make this cost higher for Iran, through sanctions, then the game would also require compensating the states that must adhere to sanctions from repercussions for the economic relations with each other, and with Iran. This involves difficulties that are making it more likely for an agreement on sanctions to fail, and also subject the success of sanctions, if they are agreed to, to a breakdown.
