Recently, Egypt became the thirteenth Middle Eastern state to seek nuclear power. Iran is now surrounded by Arab, Sunni-led states with nominally peaceful nuclear ambitions. It's hard to see how Iran could possible call a halt to its nuclear program without fearing eventual regional eclipse by a future Sunni-led nuclear-armed state. Pakistan (though not officially Sunni-led) is preoccupied with India and Afghanistan, and is thus cannot afford to be particularly intent on containing Iranian hegemony, but the same cannot be said of countries such as Algeria, Egypt, Morocco and Saudi Arabia. Tunisia and the UAE.
On the diplomatic front, Arab concerns about Iranian nuclear capability were no doubt raised further by inflammatory commentary out of Iran earlier this year:
A close advisor to Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Hosseini Khamenei recently wrote that the country of Bahrain was a province of Iran. Hossein Shariatmadari, editor of the hard-line, state-approved Iranian newspaper, "Kayhan," made the claim in an editorial. "Kayhan" is widely regarded as a mouthpiece for Mr. Khamenei.
Without trust in the region, Iran is squarely caught up in a regional nuclear race which it cannot easily back out of.
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