ABSTRACT
The current American and international attention on Iran’s suspected nuclear weapons aspirations is high, but Tehran’s belated admissions and continued maneuverings with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) may in the medium to long run allow Iran to press ahead with a clandestine nuclear weapons program. Tehran probably looks to the North Korean model in which Pyongyang ostensibly conformed to the Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) to diffuse politically any international or American resolve for preventive or preemptive military action to stem North Korea’s nuclear weapons program. After establishing a minimal nuclear deterrent, North Korea was able publicly to withdraw from the NPT and announce its nuclear weapons capabilities to up the ante for any consideration of Americaninstigated military action against the hermit kingdom. Tehran also can look closer to home, to Iraq’s unsuccessful bid for nuclear weapons in the run up to the 1990-1991 Gulf war. Saddam managed to remain in good standing with the NPT while harboring an enormous nuclear weapons infrastructure that would have produced a nuclear weapons arsenal had Saddam not provoked international military intervention with his invasion of Kuwait. The lessons from North Korea and Iraq underscore for Iran how it is possible to continue working on nuclear weapons, even with the presence of IAEA inspectors on the ground, while parlaying “compliance” with the NPT safeguards against international military action on suspected nuclear weapons-related sites and infrastructure.
