Would a nuclear-armed Iran really be so dangerous?

Matt FUHRMANN* and Todd S. SECHSER**           The Christian Science Monitor

Advocates of military strikes against Iranian nuclear facilities assume that a nuclear-armed Iran would be able to blackmail its neighbors. History suggests that's wrong.

One of the biggest surprises to emerge from the ongoing WikiLeaks fiasco is that Arab leaders, including Saudi King Abdullah, have been banging the drums of war, calling for American preventive strikes against Iranian nuclear facilities. Yet calls for military force are based on incorrect assertions about what the world would look like if Iran built nuclear weapons.

Advocates of the military option routinely make two claims. The first is that a nuclear-armed Iran would be able to blackmail its neighbors. The second is that other countries would be forced to capitulate to Iran’s demands. Both assumptions are wrong.