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...
