Why do some countries seek to acquire nuclear weapons? How can they be convinced to give up these aspirations? These are the underlying questions in Gawdat Bahgat's intriguing new study of nuclear proliferation in Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Libya, and Saudi Arabia.Bahgat looks at the economic and political forces that shape this threat to world peace and at the prospects - 'largely unrealistic' - of establishing a nuclear weapons free zone in the region in the foreseeable future.