Iran Should Just Build the Bomb Already

The recent talks held in Moscow between the representatives of the United States, the European Union and Iran have ended with no progress. As of July 1, the West has tightened the energy and financial sanctions on Iran. The meeting in the Russian capital was supposed to be Iran’s last chance at avoiding the measures from taking effect, which they failed to do.

If we suppose that Iran is really working on an atomic weapon and is not enriching uranium for purely peaceful purposes that it claims to be doing, there are three ways that this conflict can play out.

First, Tehran will finally buckle under the weight of the U.S.-led sanctions and will completely withdraw from its nuclear program. This is the option that seems the least likely. No country has ever been persuaded from abandoning nuclear weapons through the use of sanctions. The best example for this is North Korea, which went ahead and detonated its first nuclear device in 2006 despite international pressure.

A second possibility is that Iran will stop right at the verge. Tehran could proceed with its program to the point where it could technically build the bomb, but refrain from doing so except in a case of national emergency. This option could be satisfactory to both doves and hawks on the international scene. However, this scenario would likely be unacceptable to the United States and its ally, Israel. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has already pledged to stop Iran not only from obtaining a weapon, but also from having the technical ability to do so.

There is also the final option: that is, the scenario where Iran does succeed in building and testing a nuclear device.

For over 60 years, the nuclear club has been ruled by a certain set of ground rules that has managed to keep the peace and preserve the world in one piece. For example, the United States and the USSR adopted the concept of mutually assured destruction, which stipulated that any attack by the two sides would not only destroy the enemy, but also would spell the end for that country as well. Due to the circumstances, the nuclear weapon became a defensive weapon, not an offensive one.

The Americans and Israelis are trying to convince the international community that a nuclear-armed Iran will not adhere to the rules that have governed the nuclear club. Authorities in Washington and Tel Aviv are convinced that as soon as the ayatollahs build the bomb, they will immediately use it to go on the offensive against their enemies. It is hard to understand exactly why that would the case, especially since even the 1960s-era Soviet Union and Maoist China did not dare to do so.

Another concern topping the list of the Americans and their allies is the potential for a regional arms race that would take place following an Iranian nuclear detonation. Here again, history shows us otherwise. Israel detonated its first bomb in the late 1970s, and to date, there has been no evidence of the dreaded regional arms race. However, the assumptions toward the leaders of Iran are very different. The ayatollahs are inherently irrational and different than other world actors before or since.

This gives rise to the question of what is the rational solution to this crisis? If we agree that sanctions will most likely not bring the desired conclusion, and a technical capability to build a bomb will satisfy no one, then the only option left is that Iran does build a bomb. In accordance with the precedent of the field of nuclear politics, an Iranian bomb might bring the region more stability, not less. The effort to stop Iran from developing a bomb by force will inevitably bring war to the region.

The assumption that rationality is the characteristic of only one side is just irrational.