The hysteria over a "nuclear-armed Iran" [View all]

[markpkessinger]

There is a particular narrative circulating, mostly among Trump's supporters, but I've even seen it among some on the left -- people who may be opposed to the way Trump has gone about it, but who nevertheless think attacking Iran is a good thing -- that I really have to take issue with. It goes something like this:

"If we don't prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, Iran will blow up a nuclear bomb over New York [or someother American or European city]!"

I'm sorry, but that's an utterly ridiculous narrative. Whatever Iran's sins on the international stage (and they've certainly had their share), there is absolutely no evidence that they have any designs on world domination or territorial conquest. They are interested in being the dominant power in the Middle East, but that is essentially the ancient Shia/Sunni rivalry. But launching a major nuclear strike against a Western nation would result in an immediate counter-strike, which would likely annihilate them. Iran's leaders certainly know this.

Iran is the world's oldest continuous civilization, and I don't see any signs that it wishes to commit collective suicide.

What is most disturbing about this narrative is that it echoes equally fallacious narratives we have heard in order to justify at least two prior conflicts that turned out to be total debacles, namely, Vietnam and Iraq. In Vietnam, the line was, "if we don't fight the Commies is Vietnam, we'll be fighting them on the shores of California." In Iraq, it was, "We don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud" [h/t Condoleeza Rice]

Good God, folks, how often are we going to fall for rehashes of this absurd narrative?!

And here's the thing: Iran is not some primitive backwater; it is an advanced, modern country with a highly educated populace and plenty of technical expertise. We won't be able to prevent them from obtaining a nuclear weapon if they are determined to do it. So we had better begin figuring out how to co-exist with Iran, rather than clinging to some childish notion that there are no limits to American military power!