Our partner, PRISME, has a new paper out by Emma Soubrier: “Nuclear Politics in and with the MENA Region: Imagining New Pathways beyond Coercion and Exception” (September 2025). It provides a synthesis of a recent online workshop, part of the “Sustaining Alternative Links beyond Arms and the Military” (SALAM) project. Below is an excerpt and we encourage you to access the full paper.
Nuclear politics in and with the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region are often framed as a source of global disruption, exceptional in their complexity, and resistant to cooperative solutions. This portrayal not only reflects deep-seated biases and orientalist tropes—it also distracts from a more urgent reality: the global nuclear order itself is shaped by foundational asymmetries, selective enforcement, and persistent coercion. Far from being an exception, the MENA region reveals the system’s deepest contradictions.
The fifth SALAM workshop, held in May 2025, brought together a diverse group of experts from the MENA region, Europe, and North America for critical discussions about the dynamics of nuclear politics in and with the region. Their contributions—refined in the wake of renewed military escalation across Gaza, Iran, and Israel—mapped the multiscalar dynamics of nuclear governance: how global norms collapse into regional asymmetries, how national ambitions are framed through symbolic and strategic narratives, and how future pathways must grapple with shared risks and public legitimacy.
Rather than treating nuclear governance as a domain of technical expertise or pure military deterrence, participants called for a political reframing: one that engages with the region on its own terms instead of through inherited hierarchies. This synthesis traces three interrelated arcs of discussion: first, a critique of the global regime’s structural failings; second, an examination of regional dynamics and embedded agency; and third, a set of constructive policy recommendations rooted in reciprocity, pluralism, and inclusive cooperation. Together, they offer a vision of nuclear politics which shifts away from alarmism and containment to recenter avenues of (re)building trust.
Faultlines of the Existing Nuclear Order
Nuclear dilemmas in the MENA region are not rooted in inherent regional dysfunction, as many commentaries on these issues tacitly or explicitly suggest, but in the asymmetries embedded in the global regime itself. From the double standards of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) to coercive enforcement practices and the growing institutionalization of exceptionalism, the current order perpetuates mistrust rather than preventing proliferation. This section unpacks these contradictions by examining the foundations, instruments, and selective silences that define the global nonproliferation architecture.
The NPT and the Architecture of Inequality
The global nonproliferation regime is neither neutral nor unanimously trusted. While the NPT remains one of the most widely supported multilateral frameworks—with near-universal membership and significant success in curbing the spread of nuclear weapons—it is also riddled with structural contradictions. Chief among these is the division it enshrines between nuclear “haves” and “have-nots.” As Almuntaser Albalawi and Hassan Elbahtimy emphasize, the regime codifies a two-tiered system between nuclear-weapon states (NWS) and the rest.2 That asymmetry was politically tolerable only as a temporary bargain—restraint traded for a promise of credible movement toward disarmament, often coupled with access to peaceful nuclear technology.3 Today, however, the indefinite preservation of nuclear hierarchies—where some states retain the right to possess nuclear weapons while others are permanently barred from acquiring them—has hardened into a structural feature of the system. With Article VI disarmament unmet, the impasse has sharpened a sense of strategic imbalance. Many non-nuclear-weapon states have tried to correct it through disarmament norm-building—above all the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW)4—while the regime’s legitimacy continues to erode.
Nowhere is this more destabilizing than in the Middle East itself, where the architecture of inequality takes on an additional and deeply entrenched regional character. While Iraq, Libya, Syria, and more recently Iran have come under intense and often punitive scrutiny for their nuclear activities under the NPT, Israel’s undeclared nuclear arsenal remains outside international inspection and accountability mechanisms.5 As Albalawi argues, this uneven application of nonproliferation norms has intensified perceptions of double standards. The regional bargain underpinning adherence to the NPT included the long-standing expectation of a Weapons of Mass Destruction–free zone, which would require Israeli disarmament. Yet, with Israel remaining outside the treaty and little tangible movement toward that goal, frustration over that imbalance has only deepened. Elbahtimy emphasizes that this continued asymmetry fundamentally weakens the NPT’s capacity to serve as a credible framework for regional nuclear restraint or trust-building.
Héloïse Fayet further illustrated that the NPT’s inequities extend beyond the Middle East, pointing to the divergent treatment of South Korea and Iran—both NPT parties—as a revealing case in point.6 While South Korea has recently alluded to developing its own nuclear weapons amid doubts over U.S. security guarantees, such statements have not drawn serious international censure, in stark contrast with the scrutiny aimed at Iran. This inconsistency underscores that global nuclear governance does, in practice, tolerate nuclear ambiguity or defiance when it involves Western-aligned states, while swiftly penalizing it elsewhere. This discrimination in nonproliferation is dangerous: what is at stake is not just inconsistent policy, but the erosion of norm-based governance itself. The challenge, then, is not only that the NPT regime has failed to deliver on disarmament, but that its uneven application perpetuates power asymmetries and undermines the very idea of a shared, rule-based nuclear order.
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Conclusion
To speak of nuclear politics in and with the MENA region is to confront the limits of the existing global frameworks. Too often, the region is treated as a site of dysfunction—exceptional, unpredictable, and in need of external management. The fifth PRISME/SALAM workshop challenged that framing. It highlighted not just the failures of coercive nonproliferation and asymmetrical governance, but also the emergence of alternative approaches grounded in regional dynamics, agency, and interdependence.
These alternatives do not seek to replicate the flawed models of the past. Instead, they reframe the terms of debate. Participants questioned dominant assumptions—about who holds responsibility, what constitutes legitimacy, and how restraint, transparency, and diplomacy might be reimagined on the region’s own terms. They emphasized phased reciprocity, shared risk management, and a shift from elite-driven opacity to inclusive governance as viable and necessary pathways.
The stakes are immediate. In the aftermath of the 12-Day War, with diplomatic channels strained and global institutions losing credibility, a new political grammar is taking shape—one that values restraint as a strategic choice, cooperation as a tool for resilience, and justice as a condition for legitimacy. While no singular vision unites the region, the ideas presented here reflect an important shift: a growing insistence that nuclear futures in and with the Middle East cannot be dictated from outside.
This synthesis does not claim to offer a blueprint. But it affirms what the workshop made clear: the MENA region is not merely reacting to external pressures. It is actively engaging in the redefinition of nuclear politics—and beginning to articulate what responsible, inclusive, and sustainable security might look like from within.
This was an excerpt, the full paper is available on the PRISME website.
