ABSTRACT
The overthrow of the Shah of Iran has not fundamentally changed the prospects for the spread of nuclear weapons to the Persian Gulf. By the mid-1980s, many countries of that region, including the Iran of Ayatollah Khomeini or his successors, will have available the technology for acquiring at least a rudimentary nuclear weapon capability. More important, the change of regime has removed only one possible political impetus to widespread proliferation in the Gulf: an Iranian nuclear weapon programme driven by the Shah’s pursuit of regional hegemony and global prestige. Two other triggers — an expanding nuclear arms race between India and Pakistan and Iraqi acquisition of nuclear weapons in an attempt to upset the Middle East status quo — remain. The not improbable result well could be the dangerous entry of nuclear weapons into some or even many Gulf countries’ arsenals by the late 1980s.
