As the United States edges closer to another military entanglement—this time over the pretense of Iran’s nuclear program—it’s worth revisiting the controversial but deeply compelling argument made by the late Kenneth Waltz in his 2012 Foreign Affairs article, Why Iran Should Get the Bomb. At the time, Waltz’s thesis—that a nuclear Iran would bring greater regional stability, not less—was treated by many as academic heresy. But in the context of another round of Israeli airstrikes, and a steady drumbeat from Washington’s bipartisan foreign policy establishment, his realism offers urgent clarity.
Waltz, the intellectual father of neorealism, argued that the key to international stability lies not in preserving American hegemony or endlessly propping up fragile alliances, but in maintaining strategic balance. Israel, currently the only nuclear-armed state in the Middle East, enjoys an unchecked monopoly that has emboldened its regional behavior while incentivizing other powers to consider counterbalancing—whether through alliances, proxy wars, or, in Iran’s case, nuclear deterrence.
This is the core of Waltz’s insight: nuclear weapons, paradoxically, make wars between states less likely, not more. Just as the Cold War never turned hot thanks to the threat of mutually assured destruction, so too would a nuclear Iran be restrained by the same strategic logic. In fact, the most dangerous scenario is not a nuclear-armed Iran, but one that stands at the threshold—capable of building a bomb, but constantly pressured, sanctioned, and attacked because it hasn’t crossed the line. That creates uncertainty and instability. A declared Iranian deterrent, on the other hand, would bring strategic clarity.
As a libertarian and non-interventionist, I find Waltz’s perspective not just theoretically sound, but morally and strategically essential. Iran is not threatening the American homeland. It poses no existential threat to the United States. Yet Washington’s political class is once again beating the war drums, not in defense of the Constitution or the liberties of American citizens, but to defend the military superiority of a foreign power—Israel.
Let’s be clear: Iran acquiring a nuclear weapon would not put New York or Los Angeles at risk. It would not upend our freedom of movement, our speech, or our property rights. What it would do is make it harder for the United States and Israel to continue conducting airstrikes, sabotage campaigns, and assassinations inside Iranian territory with impunity. That’s not a threat to America—it’s a threat to the status quo of American meddling abroad.
At present, Israel’s military actions are framed as preemptive strikes to stop Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon. That’s certainly the way the issue is being debated in Washington. But it’s important to understand that for Israel, the issue is not containment or arms control. It is regime change. That has been the Netanyahu government’s unchanging position for years. The nuclear issue is simply the most convenient and politically palatable justification. If Iran gave up enrichment altogether, Israel would still press for confrontation.
The American people, however, should not be fooled. As recently as eight weeks ago, both U.S. intelligence agencies and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard—a decorated veteran and persistent critic of reckless interventionism—affirmed publicly that Iran does not have an active nuclear weapons program. The U.S. intelligence consensus has remained consistent for years: Iran halted any military nuclear work in 2003, and while it has expanded its civilian nuclear infrastructure, it has not made the political decision to build a bomb.
Opponents of Waltz’s position argue that Iran’s nuclearization will trigger an arms race in the Middle East. Perhaps Saudi Arabia would pursue a bomb. Maybe Turkey or Egypt would follow. But even if they did, so what? The Cold War featured multiple nuclear actors—besides the United States and the USSR, there was Britain, France, China. All survived. All remained deterred.
The empirical record on nuclear proliferation is actually quite clear: nuclear-armed states are more cautious, not less. India and Pakistan, despite deep hostility and multiple conventional skirmishes, have not escalated to nuclear war. The same has held for Israel and its regional rivals. Why? Because leaders—even theocratic or authoritarian ones—are rational. They understand that using a nuclear weapon invites annihilation.
Indeed, the most irrational thing the United States could do would be to preemptively strike Iran in an effort to “prevent” it from acquiring a bomb. All this would accomplish is the entrenchment of Iran’s determination to acquire one, while likely kicking off a region-wide conflict that could kill tens of thousands—and possibly drag in the U.S. in yet another undeclared, endless war. For a country already $36 trillion in debt, with deteriorating infrastructure and rising internal division, this is madness.
From a libertarian standpoint, there is no constitutional or moral justification for the United States government to initiate force against a nation that has not attacked us. The U.S. government was created to secure the rights and liberties of its citizens—not to underwrite foreign military adventures or enforce nonproliferation norms through violence. If Israel believes its security requires attacking Iran, then that’s Israel’s decision to make and war to fight—not America’s.
What about the argument that allowing Iran to get the bomb undermines the credibility of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and global institutions like the IAEA? Waltz was rightly skeptical of such claims. States join or leave treaties based on perceived interest—not moral suasion or legal niceties. North Korea signed the NPT, then withdrew. Israel never joined. Pakistan and India developed nuclear weapons outside the treaty regime, and neither is about to give them up. The NPT’s success lies less in its enforcement mechanisms and more in the fact that most countries have no strategic reason to go nuclear. Iran clearly believes it does, and who can blame them?
After decades of being surrounded by hostile American forces, subjected to economic warfare, and watching neighbors like Iraq and Libya invaded and dismantled for daring to challenge the U.S.-led order, Iran’s pursuit of a deterrent looks not only rational, but inevitable.
From a constructivist lens, some argue that nuclear weapons in Iran’s hands would be interpreted differently because of the regime’s ideological posture. But Waltz’s answer is simple and persuasive: states may speak in ideological terms, but they act according to strategic logic. The Soviet Union was committed to global communist revolution; it still didn’t launch a nuclear war. Mao Zedong once said he could afford to lose hundreds of millions of people in a nuclear exchange—yet China has remained restrained. Iran would be no different.
Ultimately, the choice facing Americans today is not between peace and a nuclear Iran or war and safety. It is between minding our own business and once again inserting ourselves into a foreign conflict where we have no national interest. Waltz understood that nuclear weapons are terrible but that their very terribleness makes them stabilizing. As much as we might wish the world were otherwise, it is balance—not dominance, not disarmament, and not intervention—that preserves peace.
Iran getting the bomb may be inevitable. It may even be stabilizing. But above all, it’s not America’s problem. Let’s not make it one.
