Abstract
For well over a decade, much of the commentary on the Iranian nuclear challenge has reduced the issue to a binary opposition: nuclear weapons acquisition versus civil nuclear development. Yet Iranian proliferation behaviour is far more complex than this approach would suggest. This brief opening chapter explains the need for a more nuanced interpretation based on the concept of nuclear hedging. The chapter goes on to describe how, over the remainder of the book, the analysis both advances conceptual understanding of nuclear hedging as proliferation behaviour and uses this concept to generate new insights into the Iranian case.
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Notes
- 1.
‘Joint statement by EU High Representative Federica Mogherini and Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif’, European Union External Action Service website, 14 July 2015, http://eeas.europa.eu/statements-eeas/2015/150714_01_en.htm
- 2.
Bob Corker, ‘Congress should reject the bad Iran deal’, The Washington Post, 17 August 2015.
- 3.
Jeremy Stahl, ‘Morning Joe Crew Grills Tom Cotton, Who Says “Congress Will Kill” Iran Deal’, The Slate, 14 July 2015; ‘Menendez Delivers Remarks on Iran Nuclear Deal at Seton Hall University’s School of Diplomacy and International Relations’, Official Website of Senator Bob Menendez, 18 August 2015, http://www.menendez.senate.gov/news-and-events/press/menendez-delivers-remarks-on-iran-nuclear-deal-at-seton-hall-universitys-school-of-diplomacy-and-international-relations
- 4.
Hossein Shariatmadari, ‘Talks were in Geneva but Vienna took the Hat’, Fars News Agency, 20 July 2015. All translations are the authors’ except where otherwise noted.
- 5.
‘Agreement and Security Council Resolution undermines domestic legislation’, Basij Student Organisation statement published by Fars News Agency, [Insert Date], http://farsnews.com/printable.php?nn=13940429001091
- 6.
‘H.R.1191—Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act of 2015’, 114th Congress, Entered into law on 22 May 2015, https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/house-bill/1191
- 7.
Wyn Bowen and Jonathan Brewer, ‘Iran’s nuclear challenge: nine years and counting’, International Affairs (2011), Vol. 87, No. 4, p. 924.
- 8.
Ray Takeyh, ‘Iran’s New Iraq’, The Middle East Journal (2008), Vol. 62, No. 1, p. 14.
- 9.
Shireen T. Hunter, Iran’s Foreign Policy in the Post-Soviet Era: Resisting the New International Order (Santa Barbara: Praeger, 2010), p. 33.
- 10.
Ray Takeyh, Guardians of the Revolution: Iran and the World in the Age of the Ayatollahs (Oxford & New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), p. 62.
- 11.
‘Statement by the President on Iran’, Office of the Press Secretary, The White House, 14 July 2014, https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2015/07/14/statement-president-iran
- 12.
Steve Johnson, Investors eye Iranian opening’, Financial Times, 7 July 2015.
- 13.
Winston Churchill cited in Ariel E. Levite, ‘Never Say Never Again: Nuclear Reversal Revisited’, International Security (2002), Vol. 27, No. 3, p. 70.
- 14.
For example, the 2007 US National Intelligence Estimate assessed ‘with high confidence that until fall 2003, Iranian military entities were working under government direction to develop nuclear weapons’. See Office of the Director of National Intelligence, ‘Iran: Nuclear Intentions and Capabilities’, National Intelligence Estimate, November 2007, http://www.dni.gov/files/documents/Newsroom/Reports%20and%20Pubs/20071203_release.pdf
- 15.
Of central importance here is the fact that Iran will retain an enrichment capability and the know-how to advance relatively quickly should a political decision be taken to abandon the JCPOA.
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Bowen, W., Esfandiary, D., Moran, M. (2016). Introduction: Understanding Iranian Proliferation Behaviour. In: Living on the Edge. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-27309-3_1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-27309-3_1
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