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As Obama
dithers, Egypt ramps up its nuclear options
by Raymond Stock
Fox News
January 9, 2014
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After the fatally-flawed interim deal signed by the P5+1 in Geneva
November 24 over Iran's nuclear program, America's slighted ally Egypt is
now possibly pursuing its own nuclear option, amid fears of an atomic arms
race between Tehran and its regional Sunni rivals in Cairo, Riyadh and
beyond.
And no one seems to be paying attention.
Egypt's traditionally close relations with the U.S. have been severely
strained since Minister of Defense General Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi ousted the
narrowly-elected President Mohamed Morsi after more than thirty million
marched against him and the rule of the Muslim Brotherhood (MB), to which
he belongs.
To the outrage of most Egyptians, the U.S. cut roughly a third in cash
and equipment of its annual $1.6 billion of mainly military aid to Cairo in
early October in punishment for the new regime's crackdown on the MB, which
demands the return of Morsi -- and which Egypt now correctly classifies as
a terrorist organization.
Yet the White House had boosted aid to Egypt even as Morsi grew more and
more repressive, imposing his Islamist agenda on the country.
On October 6, Egypt's interim president, Adly Mansour, announced at the
annual commemoration of Egypt's successful 1973 surprise attack on the
Israelis across the Suez Canal that construction of a 1,000 MW light-water
reactor to generate electricity at El-Debaa, 120 kilometers west of
Alexandria -- the first of four planned in the country -- would go ahead.
Egypt's 60-year-old nuclear program is already the third largest in the
region, after those of Israel and Iran.
On November 26, the respected Middle East news site Al-Monitor reported
that Egypt expects to generate $4 billion in grants from interested
international companies to finance the project.
Morsi, whom al-Sisi appointed Mansour to replace pending new elections
next year, had earlier approved a similar plan, even obtaining a pledge of
Russian "research assistance" for Egypt's nuclear expansion, as
well as help in exploiting the nation's previously unknown major deposits
of uranium.
In mid-November, Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Defense
Minister Sergei Shoygu visited Egypt, where they negotiated a deal through
which Egypt will buy $2 billion worth of Russian military equipment.
"We want to give a new impetus to our relations and return them to
the same high level that used to exist with the Soviet Union"—i.e.,
during the Cold War--Egypt's Foreign Minister Nabil Fahmi is quoted as
saying.
On November 11, the destroyer Varyag docked with an official welcome at
Alexandria, the first Russian warship to visit one of Egypt's ports in
decades.
It is not known if the Russians and their hosts also discussed Egypt's
nuclear program in those talks.
Morsi -- whom the Iranians too had offered to help develop his nuclear
program, and with whom he worked to have closer ties after three decades of
frozen relations--was most likely interested in acquiring nuclear weapons,
for which the MB has called since 2006.
That idea is still wildly popular in Egypt, even if the MB no longer is.
Yet unlike Iran, a major oil exporter, Egypt really does have an urgent,
legitimate need to develop new sources of energy.
Rolling brownouts and blackouts have been increasingly common,
especially in post-Mubarak Egypt.
But as al-Sisi and Obama drift further apart, there are good reasons to
be aware, if not wary, of Egypt's push for nuclear power.
Egypt's nuclear program, which began in 1954, features two research
reactors and a hot-cell laboratory, all located at Inshas in the Delta.
From the reactors' spent fuel rods, the hot-cell laboratory reportedly
extracts at least six kilograms of plutonium -- enough for one nuclear bomb
-- per year.
During the rule of Hosni Mubarak -- overthrown in February 2011 in a
U.S.-backed coup propelled by public protests--the International Agency for
Atomic Energy (IAEA) in 2004 opened an investigation into irradiation
experiments and the unreported import of nuclear materials, and in 2007 and
2008 found traces of Highly-Enriched Uranium (HEU), all at Inshas.
After each, the IAEA issued brief, bland reports, but the last case is
apparently still open, while similar traces of HEU found in facilities in
Iran provided the first clue that Pakistan had been aiding Tehran's own
drive for the bomb.
Mubarak also called for a Weapons of Mass Destruction Free Zone (WMDFZ)
in the Middle East--now a movement, co-led by Iran, obviously aimed at
freeing Israel of its most effective last-ditch defenses.
Yet, although Egypt signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) in
1968, it has refused to sign the NPT's Additional Protocol, which permits
spot inspections, as well as treaties banning the possession of chemical
and biological weapons.
Al-Sisi shares Mubarak's antipathy for the ayatollahs, and rightly fears
their growing rapprochement with a gullible U.S. eager to create a new
alignment in the Middle East, at the expense of traditional Sunni allies.
That means not only Egypt but Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates
(UAE), who ultimately felt threatened by the MB in Egypt (the UAE is now
prosecuting about thirty MB members accused of plotting subversion), which
the Obama administration continues to stand by instead, despite the group's
anti-Western ideology and actions.
There is now enormous support on the street for Egypt to shift its
alliance away from the U.S., particularly toward Russia, especially after
President Vladimir Putin's masterful diplomatic deflection of America's
pusillanimous threat of a military strike against Moscow's Syrian client
last fall.
The rift is not yet complete- -- though there still is no clear sign
that the Obama administration will either fully accept the loss of Morsi,
or actually stop Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons and the means of
delivering them.
Whatever Iran chooses to do when it finally gets the bomb, its very
proximity to having these ultimate weapons could impel its neighbors to
seek their own deterrent.
Sadly, no deterrent nor strategy of containment can control the dynamics
of this most unstable region should Iran achieve its ultimate nuclear
ambitions.
And a nuclear arms race between the Sunni states and Iran -- also, in
the end, aimed at Israel -- would be even worse.
Raymond Stock, a Shillman-Ginsburg Writing Fellow at the Middle East
Forum and a former Assistant Professor of Arabic and Middle East Studies at
Drew University, spent twenty years in Egypt, and was deported by the
Mubarak regime in 2010.
Related
Topics: Egypt
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