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The "Islamic Bomb" is the title of a 1979 BBC television documentary, of a book by Herbert Krosney and Steven Weismann, of another by D. K. Palit and P. K. S. Namboodiri, and it is used often in a hostile context in various discussions and writings. Although imprecisely defined, the "Islamic bomb" is roughly understood to be a nuclear weapon acquired for broad ideological reasons--a weapon that supposedly belongs collectively to the Muslim ummah or community and, as such, is the ultimate expression of Islamic solidarity.
Concern about the Islamic bomb is at the heart of the intense effort to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons to Muslim countries. The official justification is a general one: proliferation must be curbed globally. But unofficially, the Islamic bomb gets special attention.
Terrorism is given as one reason. Another is the threat of Khomeini-style Islamic fundamentalism sweeping unchecked across the world, locked in jihad with infidels, willing and able to use the ultimate weapons of mass destruction in hope of reward in the Hereafter. A third reason, related to the second, is "Islamism"--the fear that Muslim solidarity will lead to, in times of crisis, the transfer of nuclear arms from nuclear to non-nuclear Muslim countries. A final reason involves location: the region is the jugular vein of the West; no countries in such a strategic location should be permitted to threaten oil interests.
So potent is the fear of an Islamic bomb that, in the post-Soviet era, it is the critical factor determining the nature of relations between the Western powers and those Muslim countries engaged in the pursuit of nuclear weapons. This fear is visible in the way that nuclear non-proliferation is enshrined as a key U.S. foreign policy doctrine for the 1990s. The Clinton administration is likely to become more involved in this issue than has any other previous U.S. administration. U.S. doctrine requires that all Muslim and non-Muslim non-nuclear states (with the exception of Israel), be persuaded, cajoled, or pressured until they renounce their nuclear ambitions.
U.S. seriousness about pursuing this doctrine is demonstrated by its objections to the sale of a Chinese reactor to Iran; by its refusal to reduce tensions with North Korea until that country suspends its nuclear program, by its suspension...