The destruction of Iran's military infrastructure carries consequences far beyond the Middle East. Governments worldwide are watching Tehran's fate and drawing conclusions about what it takes to survive confrontation with the United States - and a latent nuclear capability, it turns out, is not enough.
Writing in Foreign Affairs, Carnegie scholars Nicole Grajewski and Ankit Panda have warned that the war on Iran may end up accelerating the very proliferation it was meant to prevent, "Hvylya" reports.
Iran wanted what the authors describe as "the benefits of a nuclear weapon without the actual weapon." It pursued threshold status - advanced enrichment capability, growing stockpiles, weapons-relevant research - while stopping short of a deliverable bomb. Tehran wanted leverage without triggering attack. Instead, it ended up in the worst possible position: close enough to the bomb to invite a preventive strike, but not far enough along to deter one.
The lesson for other states is stark. North Korea took the opposite approach after a nuclear deal collapsed in 2002 and the U.S. invaded Iraq in 2003. Pyongyang rushed a weapons program in secret, tested a device before the international community could mount a response and has been effectively untouchable ever since. The contrast with Iran could hardly be sharper.
If Iran's current leadership survives and decides to pursue nuclear weapons again, the authors expect it will follow the North Korean playbook: smaller stockpiles of highly enriched uranium kept hidden, dispersed centrifuge expertise, weaponization components developed out of inspectors' reach. North Korea evicted nuclear inspectors in 2009, and none have returned since.
The deeper problem extends well beyond Iran. The transparency that nonproliferation treaties demand now looks, in light of Tehran's experience, like an invitation to be targeted. Grajewski and Panda argue that Washington has yet to reckon with a world where the bomb looks more valuable than ever - and where governments watching Iran's destruction understand the urgency of building one in secret.
Earlier, "Hvylya" examined why replacing the U.S. nuclear umbrella has become Europe's most urgent task.