[Slonopotam845]

There is already a quasi nuclear arms race in the middle east. Which is why not negotiating is worse than negotiating. If we do then we know what they know we know about them. That's more valuable than pretending each other doesn't exist except at the end of a gun.

I've said for years, there's crazy, there's stupid and there's stupid crazy. Iran is crazy. But they have a plan and an agenda. It would be useful to know more about that, what their expectations are. Given they will be a major political player in the region, we have to consider what it is they want. We can't simply approach the problem from the perspective of arming everyone and hoping for the best.

It may or may not be a foregone conclusion that Iran will be a nuclear state. They will achieve that in the next 2 years with another 1-2 years before they can weaponize The Bomb. But they will discover that being a nuclear state is somewhat like being a slave to it too. These systems are devilishly complex and expensive to maintain. Which is why North Korea, Pakistan, China and India have, relatively speaking, small arsenals even though they have sunk decades and billions of dollars into these programs.

There have been in the past several countries which started and abandoned nuclear programs for this reason. Argentina and Brazil both ended their programs as they understood that even 'success' was hard to define. They would be trapped into a strategic posture that required these weapons. South Africa built 6 or 7 bombs and partially completed 2 more before they ended their program as it was understood that they couldn't be employed in the manner that they originally intended, strategically. North Korea at best has 6 bombs and no real way to deliver them, as we understand it.

This isn't to say that building nukes makes you a rational actor. It's simply a matter of strategic intent versus capability. The Ayatollahs may claim that they are prepared to absorb multiple retaliatory strikes but this is not a rational sane statement. It would mean the end of Iran and possibly the end of Shiite Islam. That they are not prepared to do. So - Iran needs to stake out a strategic posture with nukes that doesn't commit them to a plan they can't afford and can't maintain. If they can't do that then they may very well be forced to abandon their plans or at the least curtail them severely.

In the meantime, we'll have to figure out how to handle all those other second line states that may go nuclear: Malaysia, Indonesia and Nigeria, primarily.