There is a logical argument that the Iran theocratic state cannot possess a nuclear weapon — that it should be inspected, and its ability to manufacture nuclear weapons completely dismantled.  But there is another problem: Iran doesn’t need to make a nuclear weapon.  They can buy one, or trade it for oil, or simply receive one as a favor.

Moreover, who needs to worry about Iran building a weapon, when the Biden administration left behind a massive weapons bazaar worth over $7 billion, in the hands of our enemy, right next door to Iran, in Afghanistan?

And who is to say that some of those weapons are not already nuclear-tipped, and controlled by Iran’s eastern border neighbor, the Taliban, all compliments of Biden and his incompetent team?

If you simply look at a map, it portrays a very unstable concentration of erratic, unpredictable, undisciplined, in some cases rogue states, all surrounding Iran.  Some, like Pakistan, are fully armed with advanced nuclear weapons, and nuclear know-how.  They could back right up and drop off all the bombs Iran wants on its southeast, open border.

This is one of the reasons why former Pentagon senior official Dov Zakheim argued in 2007 in the international press that the U.S. needs to focus on Iraq’s borders, extending to Iran’s surrounding region.

In addition, the black market for weapons is extensive, and given the lack of control over U.S. weapons and money that freely flowed into corrupt Ukraine under the Biden administration, an enormous security risk has been made even bigger.

This brings up a realpolitik challenge in the Middle East: Iran sits on Caspian oil reserves, among the largest in the world, and worth billions a year in liquid cash.  Indeed, they are China’s biggest oil supplier. That oil buys all the weapons they want.  Trade deals, export agreements, weapons flow, logistics, and more, are as equally vital to monitor and control as mere periodic site weapons inspection.

Iran can’t have a nuclear weapon; make one, buy one, import one, or use one from an ally neighbor.  But more, Iran can’t have a radical theocracy government willing to use one, or use other lethal mass weapons.

This is why Trump is also right about Gaza being under U.S. military reinforcement, and regular U.S. economic influences that can stabilize the region, while continuing to directly influence and radiate outward, the presence of U.S. power, control, competence and direct economic development.

Economics is ultimately the best method of deterrence.  Iran and Islam represent an effective third-world stage of development, with ambitions of first world destruction power.  Netanyahu was correct in his recent speech before the Knesset:  the risk is to the entirety of Western society.  That is why the entire region must be subject to a multi-lateral treaty regime involving the great power triad of America, Russia, and China, each with shared security interests over proliferation, and a nuclear Iran, and nuclear Pakistan and India.

Matthew G. Andersson is a former CEO and executive advisor in the aerospace and defense practice of Booz Allen Hamilton.  He worked in Russia and the Former Soviet Union and has testified before the U.S. Senate. He is a graduate of the University of Chicago and worked with economist and White House national security advisor W.W. Rostow at the Johnson School of Public Affairs.

Image: Ninara via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.