I concluded in 2004 that no one was going to do anything serious about the Iranian attempt to get nuclear weapons and that they would, therefore, succeed. There is nothing you can offer the Ayatollahs that would persuade them to give up their quest for nukes. To gain such weapons they have impoverished the country and risked internaional isolation. The benefits they anticipate from possessing nukes are so great that there is nothing that outweighs their desire for them.

Nuclear bombs will make Iran top dog in the Middle East. It will make them invulnerable to any retaliation for their terrorist wars with numerous enemies. It will allow them to use nuclear blackmail on any other states they wish, especially after they mate nukes to missiles. It will enable them to conduct massive terrorist attacks on the US and Britain using smuggled nukes (using proxies so that the attacks will not be directly traceable to Iran). And it will allow them to nuke Tel Aviv, annihilating those uppity untermenschen the Jews with a single blow. It will allow them to cause the world-wide chaos that will herald the return of the 12th Imam. Compared to these desiderata, what can we offer them to get them to refrain from building nuclear weapons?

To all those who are complacent about the Iranian drive for nukes, what part of “Death to the Great Satan” do you not understand?