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Can a Nuclear Iran Be Deterred?

(CNN) Amitai Etzioni - There is a growing interest among U.S. foreign policy officials and scholars in deterring Iran; that is, in tolerating a nuclear armed Iran but keeping it at bay by threatening it in kind should it use its nuclear weapons. For deterrence to work, the leaders of the nations that command nuclear arms must be rational. However, there's another type of decision-making process that sociologists have known about. It's nonrational behavior, such as when people act in response to deeply held beliefs. People have long shown they are willing to kill or be killed for their beliefs, and that God commanded them to act in a particular manner. Thus, a religiously fanatical Iranian leader who believes that God commanded him to wipe out Tel Aviv may calculate whether to use missiles or bombers and in what season to attack, but not whether to heed God's command to destroy the infidels. Even rational heads of states have shown themselves in the past to be fully capable of making gross miscalculations that cost them their lives, regimes and all they were fighting for. Hitler would fall in that category. Similarly, the Japanese, when they attacked Pearl Harbor, believed they would be able at least to drive the U.S. out of their part of the world. In short, it might be possible to deter Iran, but no one can assume that we can safely rely on the rationality of Iran's leaders and their decisions and reactions to the events around them. The writer is professor of international relations at George Washington University.
2012-02-09 00:00:00
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