In an interview with CNN's Wolf Blitzer today, Newt Gingrich blasted fellow Republican Ron Paul (in direct violation of the Reagan Doctrine; the Gipper must be rolling in his grave) for his position that it doesn't matter if the Iranians get nuclear weapons. I hate to say it, but I'm kind of with Ron Paul on that one.
The popular trope, of course, is that Iran will give nuclear weapons to terrorist groups to use against the United States and Israel. Certainly that's been the refrain of the media, in their perpetual drumbeat toward war. But I don't buy it.
You often see politicians, particularly conservatives, talking about how Muslim extremists hate the United States because we represent "freedom." Not so. Anti-American anger in the Muslim world is in direct response to seventy years of meddling in their countries' affairs. And while jihadists' rhetoric of the United States as the "Great Satan" is undoubtedly overblown, still there is an underlying truth that lends it credibility in the Muslim world. Iran exaggerates our designs on them, no doubt, but we also overthrew their democratically elected government and propped up a brutal dictator for 25 years, so it's not hard to understand why they'd be bitter. And they do see their way of life threatened by the encroaching modern world, and, like religious conservatives in this country, they reflexively lash out against it. But the presence of US troops on Muslim holy ground has little to do with that culture war. Even if every single American soldier in the Middle East came home tomorrow, it still wouldn't stem the tide of American television, movies, music, and internet with which their youth are bombarded. Our own religious conservatives rail against the same thing; the only difference is they can't direct suicide bomb attacks (but I bet they wish they could).
So no, Iran doesn't like the United States very much. But enough to sponsor a nuclear attack on us? Ehh... It would gain them nothing. On the contrary, it would all but assure the end of their regime. Think of it: A nuclear attack on an American target by an Islamic terrorist group -- how long before they would find out where the bomb came from? Hours? Days? It wouldn't be long. Hell, even if they didn't know for sure they would assume it came from Tehran, and the response would be swift and terrible. War fever would grip the nation. Iran's military strength may be formidable in a regional context, but they would have no chance against the full might of a wounded and angry United States. Ahmadinejad and Khamenei would be hunted down like animals. If they were lucky they'd meet the same end as Saddam Hussein; not so lucky, Moammar Qaddafi. It would literally mean the end of the Islamic Republic, and the death or imprisonment of every senior member of their government.
The Iranians know this. Conservatives love to talk about the Muslim mind, and how it's all about martyrdom and getting to heaven for them. And for some, that's probably true. But it is antithetical to the very nature of governments, even the government of an Islamic Republic, to be suicidal. Like anyone else, they have concrete geopolitical interests to pursue. Iran wishes to be a regional hegemon in the Middle East, its pursuit of nuclear weapons has been with that goal in mind. If they succeed, we will be forced to deal with them on a higher level, as we do with Russia and China, and that is what they really want. They are not about to throw it away and risk their very existence to strike a blow against "freedom."
There is a big difference between saber-rattling and actual fighting. Nikita Khrushchev pounded his shoe on the podium and boasted that the Soviet Union would "bury" the United States, but it never happened. Instead we reached detente.
My title, of course, is an overstatement. Of course it matters if the Iranians get nuclear weapons. It would seriously change the balance of world politics. But it is not the existential threat to the United States that Newt Gingrich and the rest of the GOP cavalcade of clowns would have us believe. I would prefer not to see Iran possess nuclear weapons, but I would prefer to to see anyone possess nuclear weapons. I think the fewer nukes in the world, the better. But Iran is actively pursuing them, and unless we are willing to go to war to prevent it, they are eventually going to get them. It's not worth a war.