As Iran moves closer to the “immunity zone,” the decision to strike or forever hold its peace is quickly approaching for the state of Israel. The world has spoken and the international community is becoming increasingly more intolerant of the covert nuclear program Iran is suspected of operating.

However, the intelligence failures surrounding the 2003 coalition invasion of Iraq do not bear repeating. For that very reason, there appears to be a sense of skepticism among some world leaders as to the accuracy of any Western intelligence reports indicating the military application of Iran’s nuclear program. Both Israeli media and international news sources have been preoccupied with discerning Iran’s regional intentions and the debate has primarily revolved around the extent of its contested nuclear facilities.

However, very little attention has been given to the fundamental question of why Iran would ever willingly end its suspected nuclear weapons program and comply with what the international community is attempting to dictate. What does it have to gain by heeding to the economic pressure that is going to be applied exponentially in the coming months?           

If we turn to history’s examples of similar international predicaments, we observe the emergence of nuclear armed states such as Pakistan, India, and North Korea. All have developed such weaponry in defiance of an increasingly constraining international community (though North Korea to a lesser degree). These states have defied the international community’s efforts to stop them, evaded customary international law, and imposed their will upon the world.

And how has the world reacted? It has simply accepted the pompous actions of said states that have presumably adopted the mindset of, “it’s better to ask for forgiveness than for permission.” Rogue behavior is becoming increasingly more the norm and appeasing other states’ nuclear ambitions only encourages and strengthens Iran’s nuclear resolve.

The political fragility of the Iranian regime has indisputably been a concern for both the Middle East region and security analysts’ worldwide, but as some may argue, it’s not anymore erratic and potentially volatile than that of Pakistan or North Korea.

States that have acquiesced to international pressure, be it through military intervention or economic sanctioning, have been met with the exact opposite fate of those who were able to develop nuclear capabilities and impose themselves on the international community.

Iraq was met with regional military intervention by Israel in 1981 when attempting to construct an Osiris class, light-water research nuclear reactor. More than two decades later, the Saddam Hussein Ba’athist regime was completely dismantled and permanently banned after being militarily occupied during the 2003 coalition invasion of Iraq. This intelligence blunder is perhaps the primary reason why a pre-emptive strike on Iran has not already materialized.

Libya, a state in which great strides were taken to acquire nuclear weapons in the 1970’s and 1980’s, succumbed to international sanctions and subsequently was toppled by its own people.

Lastly, the Syrian nuclear program was curbed at its height in 2007 after being attacked militarily by Israel ,although it has not officially taken responsibility for the strike. Now Assad’s government is in the process of being toppled as the world watches captivated in order to witness how it may end. Being a contiguous neighbor to a state that suffered foreign military occupation and witnessing the systemic collapse of several Arab regimes in response to domestic disturbances, Iran has a reasonable motivation to acquire a strategic deterrence and change the status quo of its military hegemony in the region.

Iraq, Libya, and Syria are contemporary examples of state actors that all failed at procuring nuclear capabilities and subsequently met their demise.

History has shown, empirically, that states that attempt to acquier nuclear weapons and subsequently fail to do so, become increasingly more susceptible to military intervention and domestic civil uprisings.

What motivation or rational logic would be employed in trying to convince Iran to halt its current nuclear program? No reasonable disincentives can be found. Just as it did for the states that successfully crossed the nuclear threshold, economic trade and normalized relations will resume after the development of an Iranian bomb; actions that Tehran is perhaps counting on.

Therefore, in the perception of Iranian leadership, it is only their intent to attain the one security deterrent that will safeguard them from foreign intervention and potentially preserve the Persian Empire. The presumption that the Islamic Republic would do anything but expedite its nuclear program is what I find most naïve and irrational. Iran is neither of these.