What are Afghanistan’s Policy Options Given the Ranges of Future Scenarios for Iran’s Nuclear Weapon Program?

Abstract

Afghanistan, a nascent democracy has been locked among theocratic fundamentalist, military dictator and authoritarians in a war for its existence. Afghanistan already shares border with two nuclear powers and lies within the range of hundreds of different types of ballistic missiles in a region where Shiite revolutionary extremism from west Sunni Deobandi and Salafi radicalism from southeast are exporting in the country directly since 1979. Afghanistan is in agonizing pain of a slow rather fatal undeclared eroding war which has imposed on it by its neighbors and Regional powers. The Soviet military rampage, civil war and war on terrorism has crippled the country to an extend that pushed it unto the threshold of a failed state and turned it into a hub of a totalitarian apocalyptic regime. Today, Afghanistan suffers from many political stalemates and economic crisis, with high rate of domestic unemployment, corruption and a relentless terrorism inspired insurgency that emanates beyond its borders. Now, Afghanistan as a nation that survived over 700 massive military interventions since last 7,000 years is clanging to death with little chance of survivability. Afghanistan is confronting existential threats from its neighbors who sponsors international terrorism, resilient insurgencies and who acquired nuclear weapons or are about to acquire weapons of mass destruction. The sole purpose of this thesis is to scrutinize Iranian nuclear weapon program, its possible military dimensions and its implications for Afghanistan’s national security in the aftermath of an Iranian chain reaction and what Afghanistan could do to keep its independence and realize its national interests peacefully. To this end, the current, thesis analyzed Iran’s nuclear ambitions, its capabilities, and the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action and its implication to Afghanistan’s national security. The research findings are based upon the Iran’s past, present foreign policy behavior. It further demonstrates how possibly an Iranian nuclear weapon can affect Afghanistan’s security, economic and national interests through fact-based and realistic scenarios.