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.