Boosting the CTBT's Prospects in the Middle East

The Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), which opened for signature in September 1996, would ban all nuclear explosions in all environments. As of January 2010, 182 states have signed the treaty, and 151 have ratified it. But because the CTBT requires the ratification of 44 “nuclear-capable” states before it can enter into force, nine holdouts currently prevent it from becoming legally binding: the United States, China, Indonesia, Israel, Egypt, Iran, Pakistan, India, and North Korea.

The good news is that the United States–the country that many view as the linchpin to the CTBT's entry into force–seems ready to alter its stance on the treaty. Last spring in Prague, President Barack Obama pledged to secure CTBT ratification in the Senate. Of course, his stance has detractors. One common argument employed against U.S. ratification is that it would have practically no effect in terms of convincing other holdout nations to follow suit. 1 In particular, the cases of Israel, Egypt, and Iran–all of which, like the United States, have signed but not ratified the treaty–are often cited as insurmountable roadblocks to CTBT progress. Yet the situation is not as intractable as some believe. There are compelling reasons to believe that if Washington does ratify the treaty, the three Middle Eastern states would come around to ratifying the test ban sooner rather than later.

Israel. A party to the Partial Test Ban Treaty, Israel signed the CTBT in September 1996. Ever since, Israeli diplomats have voiced consistent “firm” and “unequivocal” support for it. Israel contributes financially to the CTBT Organization's Preparatory Commission and participates in most CTBT activities; it also has completed construction and certification of two auxiliary seismic monitoring stations at Merona and Eilat. Last year, an Israeli diplomat stated, “Israel considers the prohibition of nuclear testing as an indispensable element of the global nuclear nonproliferation regime.” However, he added, “Several gaps have to be bridged … as we strive to move expeditiously toward entry into force.” 2

These “gaps” likely include Israel's three declared preconditions for ratification: (1) a CTBT verification regime immune to abuse; (2) equal status within the decision-making bodies of the CTBT Organization (CTBTO); and (3) the CTBT compliance of other Middle Eastern states.

With regard to the first precondition, Israel fears that hostile neighbors will use false charges of nuclear testing as a way to gain access to sensitive Israeli facilities via verification inspections. Therefore, it argues that on-site inspections should be a tool of last resort pursued only if a mandatory period of consultations fails to resolve concerns. To alleviate some of its verification concerns, Israel has participated actively in the drafting and elaboration of the On-Site Inspections Operational Manual. Further, since Israel's voice is more likely to be heard as a ratifying state, concerns over on-site inspections are unlikely to be a major factor in the government's CTBT decision.

As for the second precondition, treaty negotiators agreed for the 51 seats on the Executive Council (the CTBTO's principal policy-making body) to be allocated on the basis of six geographic regions. Israel was included in the seven seats allocated to the Middle East and South Asia region. Iran, however, has stymied Israel's efforts to function within the Middle East and South Asia grouping, leading the Israeli government to declare that resolving this problem is a prerequisite for ratification. Although Iran's behavior is unlikely to change dramatically in the near future, this comparatively minor issue is neither likely to force Israel to abandon a treaty it favors nor to provide a plausible excuse for it to remain outside of the CTBT.

In terms of the third precondition, while Israel wants Egypt and Iran to comply with the CTBT, it remains the only country in the Middle East outside of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). It is, therefore, the only one not legally bound to forswear nuclear weapons and, implicitly, their testing. Viewed this way, Israel's official stance of conditioning its treaty accession on ratifications from Cairo and Tehran seems to be a political escape clause for a worst-case-scenario future. In any case, Israel's refusal to join the NPT regime and ratify the CTBT has cost Israel goodwill in the international community–especially because it also opposes a Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty and is not party to either the Chemical Weapons Convention or the Biological Weapons Convention. While the lack of U.S. interest in arms control issues during the George W. Bush administration gave Israel no incentive to move forward on the CTBT, the Obama administration is much less likely to allow Israel to hide in its shadow.

If Israel ratifies the CTBT, Egypt may feel pressure to follow suit so that it can continue to present itself as a responsible member of the disarmament community and the non-aligned movement.

Overall, Israel's objections to the CTBT are relatively mild, and its posture of “nuclear ambiguity” means that the treaty would not present it with a significant security limitation. Given these facts, Israel may have good reason to try to divert attention from its lack of action in other areas by ratifying the CTBT.

Egypt. After flirting with the nuclear option in the 1950s and 1960s, Egypt seems to have concluded that acquiring nuclear weapons is not worth risking regional stability, economic development, or its increasingly close ties with Washington. Cairo consistently supports the principles and objectives of the CTBT–it voted in favor of U.N. General Assembly resolutions that called the CTBT a “fundamental instrument in the field of nuclear disarmament and nonproliferation”–but maintains that it “cannot regard [the test ban] as a secluded legal instrument, isolated from other treaties.” Egypt's primary security concern is the Israeli nuclear arsenal, which it regards as intolerable, and it has designed its arms control diplomacy around eliminating this asymmetry, gradually conditioning all progress on Israel's accession to the NPT. 3 Consequently, Cairo is not party to the Chemical Weapons Convention or the Biological Weapons Convention, does not adhere to the International Atomic Energy Agency's Additional Protocol, and is not a member of the African nuclear-weapon-free zone. 4

Despite these declarations, Egypt does maintain some flexibility. It signed the NPT in 1968 to earn international credibility and shine the spotlight on Israel's refusal to join the treaty; after its demands for Israeli accession remained fruitless, Egypt ultimately ratified the NPT in 1981. Additionally, during the 1995 negotiation of the NPT's indefinite extension, Cairo agreed not to block consensus in exchange for a resolution calling for efforts to denuclearize the Middle East. And last year, Egypt deviated from its traditional policy of linking CTBT ratification to Israel's accession to the NPT, instead suggesting that its decision would hinge upon a successful NPT review process. “[The 2010 NPT Review Conference] will be of paramount importance to move our agenda together, to implement the 1995 Resolution on the Middle East, which will open the doors for a new horizon to the CTBT,” Maged Abdelaziz, the Egyptian ambassador to the United Nations, noted last September at the Conference on Facilitating the Entry-into-Force of the CTBT. 5

On the other hand, Cairo let the Arms Control and Regional Security Working Groups of the mid-1990s fail over the nuclear issue and played a conspicuous role in the failure of the 2005 NPT Review Conference. These shifts between obstinacy and compromise suggest that Egypt sometimes trades its support for arms control measures in exchange for pressure on Israel to obtain the progress it desires. Its “stubbornness” appears to serve a domestic purpose by reassuring internal constituencies that the government is taking steps to redress its strategic disadvantage while also bolstering Egypt's regional leadership on an issue that has strong appeal in the Arab world. Nonetheless, when it has run out of benefits to be reaped or if no advantageous compromises seem negotiable, Cairo tends to bend its own rules.

If Israel ratifies the CTBT, Egypt may feel pressure to follow suit so that it can continue to present itself as a responsible member of the disarmament community and the non-aligned movement. Positive steps at the 2010 NPT Review Conference or in the near future on some of Egypt's other priorities–for example, on the role of nuclear weapons in the postures of nuclear weapon states–might even accelerate Cairo's decision-making process.

Iran. It is impossible to evaluate Iran's approach to the CTBT outside of the broader context of tensions over its nuclear program. After its unreported nuclear infrastructure was revealed in 2002, Iran admitted to running a covert nuclear program for almost two decades. Tehran maintains that it intended only to expedite an indigenous civilian nuclear energy program, but unanswered questions continue to preoccupy the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which is investigating Iran's file, and generate increasing pressure from the U.N. Security Council and the international community.

Tehran's nuclear saga could follow a number of divergent paths: Iran and the West could negotiate a cooperative agreement, allowing Tehran to maintain and develop certain capabilities under international control; Iran could continue to build its nuclear capability in an antagonistic framework, while staying short of crossing the weapons threshold; or the Iranian leadership could decide to work toward obtaining the necessary knowledge and materials to ultimately leave the NPT regime and acquire a nuclear arsenal. The Iranian regime could use CTBT ratification as a political instrument in any of these scenarios, and ultimately, Tehran is unlikely to perceive a position outside of the treaty as beneficial.

As Rebecca Johnson, the cofounder of the Acronym Institute for Disarmament Diplomacy in Britain, has pointed out, Iran participated “fully and constructively” in the CTBT negotiations in the 1990s. During these talks, Tehran's overarching aim was to counterbalance the nuclear weapon states and strengthen the treaty's disarmament components. 6 Iran argued for the prohibition of all nuclear tests (not simply explosions), the destruction of existing test sites and infrastructure, and an amendment to the Partial Test Ban Treaty to outlaw underground testing before the CTBT's entry into force. In the last days of the negotiations, Iran supported India's request to link the CTBT to a timetable for nuclear disarmament. Despite these objections, Tehran signed the treaty in 1996 and continues to officially support it. As such, the CTBTO certified a primary seismic station in Tehran, and two auxiliary stations are currently in the testing phase in Kerman and Shushtar. Additionally, Iran voted for the recent U.N. General Assembly resolutions in support of the treaty, and it has declared the CTBT “an essential element to implement Article VI of the NPT,” saying the world needs “consolidated efforts to facilitate the entry into force [of the CTBT].” 7 Tehran noted in a 2007 statement, however, that the nuclear weapon states “bear the main responsibility in entry into force of the CTBT and they should take the lead in this regard.” 8

Iran's noncompliance with its IAEA safeguard obligations tends to overshadow its other policies, but if Israel and Egypt ratify the CTBT, it will become increasingly difficult for Tehran–which portrays itself as an advocate for global disarmament–to successfully argue its dissenting stance.

Uncharacteristically, Iran did not deliver a statement at the 2009 biannual conference dedicated to facilitating the CTBT's entry into force. In light of revelations of a second enrichment facility under construction at Qom and the ongoing negotiations to send low-enriched uranium to Russia and France, perhaps Tehran wanted to avoid making its situation even more complicated by getting involved in the CTBT debate.

Iran's noncompliance with its IAEA safeguard obligations tends to overshadow its other policies, but if Israel and Egypt ratify the CTBT, it will become increasingly difficult for Tehran–which portrays itself as an advocate for global disarmament–to successfully argue its dissenting stance. Diplomatic support from the non-aligned movement has been critical for Iran to navigate its nuclear file with the IAEA. Yet the successful conclusion of the CTBT has long been a non-alignment movement priority, which means that Iran might find itself pushed toward ratification if it wants to continue to receive outside support in regard to its nuclear file.

In addition, Iran's diplomatic record seems to be a positive indicator. It joined the Chemical Weapons Convention and the Biological Weapons Convention, supported the NPT's indefinite extension in 1995, and even signed, and provisionally implemented, the IAEA Additional Protocol before its file was sent to the Security Council. 9 All of this suggests that obtaining Iran's CTBT ratification may not be as difficult as many anticipate.

In late 2008, experts such as Karim Sadjadpour at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace assessed that the new U.S. ideological orientation and overlapping interests with Iran would make a negotiated agreement possible. 10 The 2009 talks between Iran, the permanent five members of the U.N. Security Council, and Germany in Geneva and Vienna have demonstrated that moving in this direction is possible. The remaining question is whether the Iranian leadership will continue to view it as politically beneficial to take an openly defiant stance toward the United States and Europe on nuclear issues. Indeed, in the past, Iran's nuclear activities commanded broad domestic support, and in the early years of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's reign, many attributed his popularity to his image as a man who “says ‘No’ to the West.” 11 Nonetheless, the post-election protests in 2009 might have changed the nuclear calculus by delegitimizing Iran's ruling regime. 12

A grand bargain with Iran would include compromises on both sides. In terms of the CTBT, Iran's ratification of the treaty would be an easy way to assuage Western concerns and demonstrate its peaceful intentions. 13 Domestically, CTBT does not seem like a hard sell. In fact, the CTBT has never been a significant political issue inside Iran; rather, Tehran's official objections have always been of a technical nature. Concessions in general are seen in Iran as a slippery slope that might lead to more U.S. demands, but CTBT ratification could easily be presented domestically as a voluntary step that “responsible” nations normally pursue.

Conversely, in the event that relations between Iran and the West continue to deteriorate, Iran's ratification of the CTBT would constitute a relatively simple step to avert sanctions, or at least delay them. In the past, Beijing and Moscow have deflected Washington's attempts to pressure Iran by citing examples of Iran's “good deeds” and conceding only when the evidence against Tehran was beyond any reasonable doubt.

Finally, should Iran decide to use its nuclear program to acquire the knowledge and materials to leave the NPT regime, the CTBT would offer an excellent cover story to deflect international concerns along the way. If Tehran takes such a radical step, the issue of whether it has to withdraw from one or two international treaties is unlikely to be a decisive concern, even if the CTBT withdrawal process requires three more months than the NPT withdrawal process. As a worst-case scenario, one cannot dismiss the option that Iran might even decide to withdraw from the NPT but remain a member of the CTBT, trying to stake out a position similar to Israel's.

Moving forward. Although U.S. ratification of the test ban remains the essential precondition for progress on the treaty's entry into force, it will not constitute a cure-all for the CTBT's problems. U.S. allies will likely be disappointed with the tone of the debate in Washington, which will no doubt be marked by assertions that it can maintain its nuclear deterrent without further testing. Furthermore, the internal battle for Senate ratification will require significant political capital. Therefore, it remains unclear whether President Barack Obama will immediately embark on a diplomatic campaign to “bring onboard other states whose ratifications are required for the treaty to enter into force,” as he has promised to do. 14

Nonetheless, Washington's ratification will force the remaining outliers to reconsider their positions and will likely result in more ratifications–including from Israel, Egypt, and even Iran. To be sure, none of this will happen immediately. When making its decision, each state will take its time and attempt to extract concessions in exchange for its own ratification. Nevertheless, progress on the treaty is a strong possibility. So those who argue that politics in the Middle East should prevent Washington from ratifying the CTBT would do well to realize that the situation is not as intractable as they believe.