A Case Against a Nuclear Iran

The assumption that Iran is a rational actor, and would behave as one if possessed of nuclear weapons, is pure folly.

Israel’s fight for its existence continues unabated. The wars for survival, Hamas, Hezbollah and October 7 were apparently not enough. Now there is Iran – and the death toll mounts on both sides. Israeli officials reiterate that attacks on Iranian nuclear and military assets constitute a response to an existential threat against the Jewish state.

Israel affirms its possession of  “concrete intelligence” that Iran was “moving forward to a nuclear bomb” at its Isfahan facility. Despite advancing its uranium enrichment significantly, Iran has claimed that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes. But while denying its interest in a nuclear device, it also has denied IAEA inspection of its “peaceful” nuclear sites.

Yet, in spite of the above, neorealist thinkers suggest that Israel and Iran would co-exist in a non-confrontational relationship if the latter acquired nuclear capability. Israel and Iran, they contend, will deter each other, as nuclear powers always have.

But a critique of neorealist doctrine favoring nuclear deterrence as a means to foster regional stability in the Middle East and minimize the likelihood of conflict demonstrates why Israel must answer the existential threat from Iran by eliminating or severely degrading Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

Neorealist doyen Kenneth Waltz, in his paper ‘The Spread of Nuclear Weapons: More May Be Better,’ proclaimed that as nuclear weapons “make the cost of war seem frighteningly high and thus discourage states from starting any wars that might lead to the use of such weapons,” the spread of nuclear weapons should not be discouraged. Experts agree that if nuclear states remain rational actors, as the Cold War superpowers were, Waltz’s premise may be valid.

Unrealistically, however, this argument assumes that the rational dynamics of the relationship between superpowers can be assured between all states – and especially those in the emerging multipolar realm.

In his Foreign Affairs article of 2012, “Why Iran Should Get the Bomb,” Waltz theorizes that a nuclear-armed Iran is nothing to fear. He claims that such an eventuation will actually increase stability in the Middle East. “If Iran goes nuclear,” he claims, “Israel and Iran will deter each other, as nuclear powers always have…Once Iran crosses the nuclear threshold, deterrence will apply, even if the Iranian arsenal is relatively small.”

Waltzian neorealists claim that states are rational actors seeking only relative security. States maximize their security by attempting to balance their power against a status-quo power — a state content with the existing, regional balance of power. Security imbalances foster instability. For Waltz, this is currently the status in the Middle East. He alleges that Israel’s nuclear dominance creates strategic imbalance and thus instability in the region. His realist remedy for this alleged “fault” of Israel is nuclear balance — deterrence. Waltz theorizes that, “By reducing imbalances in military power, new nuclear states generally produce more regional and international stability, not less.” Given that all states are presumed rational actors seeking to maximize their relative security, he argues that fear of nuclear reprisal vis-à-vis a second-strike capability acts as a sufficient deterrent between two nuclear-armed adversaries. Hence, if Iran developed nuclear weapons, relations between the two most powerful actors in the Middle East would become more stable.

This reliance on theory to justify the granting of nuclear weapons to Iran is not just flawed, it is dangerous. “Waltz himself argues,” says theorist Sean Molloy, “that the assumptions on which theories are built are radical simplifications of the world and are useful only because they are as such.  Any radical simplification conveys a false impression of the world.” While Waltz argued that a limited nuclear war would not end the world if it didn’t threaten the central balance, it must be concluded that “an exchange of nuclear weaponry would probably eliminate all involved states as viable societies and most likely, a number of innocent neighboring states would also face destruction and disarray.”

A “stability-instability paradox” exists which undermines the validity of nuclear deterrence — regions with rival nuclear powers become increasingly unstable. It posits that two nuclear-armed, adversarial states, believing that neither will initiate a nuclear strike, can and will increasingly engage in offensive maneuvering and limited conflict with one another.

An examination of relations between India and Pakistan illustrates the stability-instability paradox. Nuclear weapons embolden “revisionist” nuclear states – states dissatisfied with the existing regional balance of power; this raises the propensity for conventional conflict. As a more recent nuclear power compared to India, Pakistan is inclined towards ‘adventurism’ in the form of offensive probing and increased lower-order conflict. India — as a status-quo state — experiences a constrained freedom of action due to its adversary’s new status. Instability at the conventional level in the form of more pronounced aggressive posturing and/or limited conflict heightens tensions between major regional powers and leaves open the possibility of escalation and miscalculation at the nuclear level.

If we take Pakistan as a model for a newly-weaponized Iran, the latter believing it now has a significant deterrent capability, will, at a minimum, increasingly antagonize Israel without fear of nuclear reprisal. Hence, neorealists obscure a fundamental issue: nuclear deterrence does not rule out the potential for conventional escalation – it can destabilize regions in unanticipated and catastrophic ways. Tense relations between nuclear-armed foes, whether as offensive maneuvering or limited conventional conflict, create opportunities for miscalculation and escalation to the nuclear level. The US-led Ukraine proxy war with Russia under Biden is indicative of this possibility.

In essence, neorealists put their faith in a theory of nuclear deterrence and attempt to justify this in historical terms.  Yet, history reveals that since the beginning of the Cold War there have been multiple accidents, miscalculations and real threats to employ nuclear weapons. We must never forget the blockade and ‘stand-off’ of 1962, and the palpable threat of a nuclear exchange during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Waltz’s faith in nuclear deterrence reflects a belief in rationality — a questionable belief at best, that all leaders will behave rationally at all times, including under conditions of extreme stress. This defies the historical record of human behavior and historical reality of human fallibility.

Nuclear weapons have brought humankind to the precipice. Israel has a right to defend itself from annihilation by an Iran which vows to expunge the Jewish state and its inhabitants from the face of the earth. Israel must not be put in the position of having to defend itself in the face of a nuclear-armed Iran. No theory can change this imperative.