Iran's Bushehr nuclear plant sits in an earthquake zone, runs on decades-old safety systems and is now inside a war. An accident or strike there would hit the Gulf states harder than Iran, and few were talking about it.
The argument
Bushehr is Iran's oldest and main nuclear plant, next to a city of more than a million people, in one of the world's most active seismic regions. A 6.3-magnitude earthquake hit in 2013, just before it opened.
It runs on a 50-year-old design with a 40-year-old emergency cooling system built on two different technologies, after Germany started it in 1975 and Russia finished it. The IAEA says its staff are not properly trained for an accident, and Iran is the only country running nuclear power that has not signed the major international safety conventions.
“Building a nuclear plant in the area was pure madness.”
The Gulf states carry most of the risk. Kuwait City is 175 miles away, Manama 187, Doha 254 and Dubai 373. The Zagros Mountains shield Iran's own cities, and the northwesterly winds would carry a leak toward its neighbours and the Strait of Hormuz.
Those neighbours rely mostly on desalinated seawater, so a leak would threaten their water supply as well as lives. US forces based in Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait and the UAE would be directly exposed.
Our call: Washington should avoid striking targets near the plant, push for international safety inspections and consider a full shutdown.
Iran war brings new danger as Bushehr nuclear plant poses catastrophic risk