ABSTRACT
As the Shah and his visionary nuclear mastermind Dr. Etemad were meticulously setting the domestic and international stage for the freshly minted AEOI to hit the ground running, the entire architecture of the international nuclear industry was thrown into spasm on May 18, 1974 when India detonated a 12-kiloton plutonium device oxymoronically termed a “peaceful nuclear explosion” (PNE) in the Rajasthan desert. This development touched off a quantum shift in the tenuous equilibrium of power in South Asia with unmistakable and instantaneous proliferation implications for the Middle East.
