0415453070.Routledge.Iran.and.Nuclear.Weapons.Protracted.Conflict.and.Proliferation.Nov.2009.pdf

Iran and Nuclear Weapons

This book investigates what is driving Iran’s nuclear weapons program in a less-

hostile regional environment, using a theory of protracted conflicts to explicate

proliferation.

Iran’s nuclear weapons program has alarmed the international community since

the 1990s, but has come to the forefront of international security concerns since

2000. This book argues that Iran’s hostility with the United States remains the

major causal factor for its proliferation activities. With the US administration pur-

suing aggressive foreign policies towards Iran since 2000, the latter’s security

threat intensified. A society that is split on many important domestic issues

remained united on the issue of nuclear weapons acquisition after the US war in

Iraq. Consequently, Iran became determined in its drive to acquire nuclear weapons

and boldly announced its decision to enrich uranium, leaving the US in no doubt

about its nuclear status.

This book underscores the importance of protracted conflicts in proliferation

decisions, and underpinning this is the assumption that non-proliferation may be

achieved through the termination of intractable conflicts. The aims of this work are

to demonstrate that a state’s decision to acquire nuclear weapons depends largely

on its engagement in protracted conflicts, which shows not only that the presence

of nuclear rivals intensifies the nuclear ambition, but also that non-nuclear status of

rival states can promote non-proliferation incentives in conflicting states inclined

to proliferate.

This study will be of great interest to students of Iran, Middle Eastern politics,

nuclear proliferation and international relations theory.

Saira Khan is a Research Associate at McGill-University of Montreal Joint

Research Group in International Security (REGIS).

Routledge global security studies

Series editors: Aaron Karp, Regina Karp and Terry Teriff

Nuclear Proliferation and International Security

Sverre Lodgaard and Morten Bremer Maerli

Global Insurgency and the Future of Armed Conflict

Debating fourth-generation warfare

Terry Terriff, Aaron Karp and Regina Karp

Terrorism and Weapons of Mass Destruction

Responding to the challenge

Edited by Ian Bellany

Globalization and WMD Proliferation

Edited by James A. Russell and Jim J. Wirtz

Power Shifts, Strategy and War

Declining states and international conflict

Dong Sun Lee

Energy Security and Global Politics

The militarization of resource management

Edited by Daniel Moran and James A. Russell

US Nuclear Weapons Policy After the Cold War

Russians, ‘rogues’ and domestic division

Nick Ritchie

Security and Post-Conflict Reconstruction

Dealing with fighters in the aftermath of war

Edited by Robert Muggah

Network Centric Warfare and Coalition Operations

The new military operating system

Paul T. Mitchell

American Foreign Policy and the Politics of Fear

Threat inflation since 9/11

Edited by A. Trevor Thrall and Jane K. Cramer

Risk, Global Governance and Security

The other war on terror

Yee-Kuang Heng and Kenneth McDonagh

Nuclear Weapons and Cooperative Security in the 21st Century

The new disorder

Stephen J. Cimbala

Political Economy and Grand Strategy

A neoclassical realist view

Mark R. Brawley

Iran and Nuclear Weapons

Protracted conflict and proliferation

Saira Khan

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