Is Iran Suicidal?

Michael Yon suggests that, despite 30 years of evidence to the contrary, what the Mullahs of Iran really want to do is commit mass suicide:

And when Iran has the capacity to launch rockets over to Europe or the United States, one can count on it happening. If they can manage to hatch nuclear weapons, we could see Israeli cities annihilated, leaving Israelis with little choice other than to respond with nuclear weapons, which could leave millions dead....If you want to see World War III unfold, just sit quietly about Iran. Iran could be the opening chapter of an apocalyptic era.

One should not discount the possibility that if Iran does acquire a nuclear weapon (and it's still an "if" at this point, as Stephen Walt explains here) the world will be dramatically less secure. We could very well have an arms race in the Gulf and a stepped up campaign of conventional terrorism by Hezbollah and Hamas against U.S., Israeli and Arab targets.

But the notion that Iran will, out of the blue, launch rockets at the U.S. or Europe or, worse, launch a nuclear-tipped rocket into Israel strains credulity.

As I've written earlier, Iran is widely suspected of having a chemical and biological weapons program for nearly 20 years. They have possessed the capacity to launch a mass casualty strike against Israel for a while now - and one that would be far harder to trace back to Iran than a nuclear bomb. And yet, they haven't launched one. Presumably because, contra Yon, they're not willing to sacrifice their entire country to strike a blow at Israel.

It is a mistake to treat Iran as an irrational state when they are in fact a belligerent one (which is bad enough).

Photo via Richard John Jones under a Creative Commons license.