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During the Cold War, the two most heavily armed militaries the world had ever seen stared each other down, and neither fired a shot. During the current quasi-Cold War between India and Pakistan over Kashmir, two of the world’s most bitter enemies have come to the brink of nuclear war, and neither has pulled the trigger. So, as the U.N. Security Council readies to discuss the Iran nuclear crisis this week, can someone explain to me why we’re all so worried about Iran getting the bomb?

Being terrified of nuclear weapons has been ingrained in the American consciousness since the “duck-and-cover” drills of the 1950s. It was surely an unsettling thing to know that the Soviets could strike at any time and that there was no way for the U.S. to defend itself; our only recourse was to declare that if they destroyed us, we’d destroy them.

A nuclear crisis or two later, most Americans seem terrified of nuclear weapons, even our own. The theft and usage of a nuclear weapon by terrorists against Americans was even a major plot element of the last season of “24,” as ridiculous and implausible as that scenario may be.

We are right to be terrified of the potential power of nuclear weapons; they are the most destructive force the world has ever seen. But we remain the only nation to have ever used one in combat. The deterrent force of other nations having nuclear weapons that they could fire at you if you ever used one against them has been enough to keep nine nations, several of whom hate each other, from pulling the nuclear trigger in over 60 years.

According to a transcript on UC Berkeley’s Institute of International Studies Web site, Kenneth Waltz, a political scientist, in the Berkeley series “Conversations with History,” put it this way: “No matter how often the Bush administration people say ‘containment and deterrence do not work,’ it works as well as it ever did (in the Cold War). ... One of the striking things about nuclear deterrence is that it has worked, no matter what country we’re talking about, no matter what kind of government the country has, no matter what kind of ruler the country has had.”

Waltz’s argument is essentially this: People in power want to stay in power. Any nation that uses a nuclear weapon on another nation is guaranteeing, if not its total destruction, a removal of its government from power by the U.S. and other nuclear nations. So why would a nation with a nuclear weapon ever use it? A country’s most likely reason for wanting to have the bomb in the first place, then, is not to make war, but to get other countries to take it seriously.

And thus we come to Iran. Iran’s announcement recently that it has successfully enriched uranium is a step toward having the capacity to develop its own nuclear bomb. Experts say that Iran is still years away from being able to enrich uranium to the point necessary to make it “weaponizable.”

The Security Council has called for Iran to stop enrichment and is considering sanctions if Iran continues to ignore its requests. Although Iran said that its only objective is to have nuclear energy, not nuclear weapons, it remains a good idea to act on the assumption, as most countries are, that Iran would like to have the bomb.

But let’s think this through. Waltz said, “If a country ... badly wants nuclear weapons, it is almost impossible in the long run to prevent that country from acquiring nuclear military capability.” Threatening Iran is only going to make it want a nuclear bomb more.

The most obvious threatened party would be Israel. But Israel is believed by everyone to have its own nuclear weapons, even though it has never made a stockpile public.

The mullahs may want to wipe Israel off the map, but it’s a big stretch to simply assume that they would be willing to sacrifice their entire country for that goal in what would likely be a massive return strike from Israel’s secret stash of nuclear weapons.

Iraq is most likely Iran’s other potential target in the Middle East, since those two countries have been fighting for many years, but Iraq is now protected by the United States.

It makes no sense for Iran to take any nuclear action against either country, because to do so would assure its own complete destruction. No government has ever been willing to take that step, so why are we so quick to assume that Iran will be?

Iran wants the status and the security associated with being a nuclear power. It has already rebuffed the United Nation’s demands for it to stop enriching uranium, and the situation is accelerating toward Gulf War III (the prewar intelligence will certainly be easier; no need to convince everyone of Iran’s nuclear status with unconvincing-looking documents from Niger and satellite photos of barns like the last time we went to war over this).

Is it worth storming into another quagmire when the thing we’re trying to prevent might not be a measurable threat in the first place?

Or might it perhaps be a better idea to take a more cautious approach, offering incentives for Iran to stop its activity instead of basically calling its nuclear bluff?

There’s an argument to be made that the world would be safer if, indeed, every nation had a nuclear bomb. You might not agree with that, but it’s worth wondering if, perhaps, we might not be just as safe if there were, at least, one more in the club.

The question should be: Would you personally be willing to go to war in Iran in order to prevent its acquisition of a nuclear weapon?

The answer should be: no.

E-mail Atherton at

datherton@media.ucla.edu. Send general comments to viewpoint@media.ucla.edu.