I've stated many times that I find the Iranian government, as it has actually operated, to have been entirely rational in their foreign policy since assuming power thirty years ago. Brutal, amoral, and entirely rational. The rhetoric spewed by their puppet president is just that--fundamentalist red meat that keeps the people distracted from the regime's repressive internal policies. We play right into this control mechanism by demonizing and threatening Iran at every turn, giving the regime a legitimacy it might not have without a western boogeyman to vilify and measure itself against. We allow the Iranian people to hate us more than they hate their direct oppressors, and the regime feeds that fire.
Iran has slowly but effectively accumulated regional power of the last three decades, and have smartly refrained from aggressive, uniformed-military-type actions (such as invading a neighbor), while operating below the threshold that would trigger a US invasion or an Israeli attack. Concurrently they covertly work to undermine counter-interests in the region (so do we). And then we gave Iran the all-time greatest birthday present of destroying their main check on regional hegemony, Iraq, while getting nothing out of it ourselves (being their second major check), and, in the process, ensured that we can't invade them and stop their nuclear program. Savvy.
There is nothing in the actions of the Iranian regime over the past thirty years that can reasonably lead one to believe that, having finally achieved nuclear capability, they will suddenly commit regime suicide by either giving away such hard-earned technology to a terrorist cell or using it themselves. MAD with Israel and a final check on the threat of US invasion may actually reduce Iranian military paranoia, and ease tensions. I expect they'll behave exactly as Pakistan does with India. Indeed, I expect them to fiercely guard their nuclear capability in the same manner that every new member of the nuclear club does. Once in, you don't want anyone else in, because it decreases your power base. Iran doesn't want another group in the Gulf region to have nuclear capability.
Once at the big table, why do people think they'll immediately destroy themselves? They'll have achieved national security and regional hegemony in one fell swoop. What do you think their further ambitions are? Land conquest? The actual destruction of Israel? Will Palestinians even matter to Iran, once they no longer need that thorn in Israel's side, having achieved MAD? I just don't understand why people think Iran will overplay their best hand, when they've been playing weaker hands extremely well for the entire existence of this junta. I don't see the irrationality in their actions to date, so I don't predict for them to act appreciably different once they achieve the next level of international power. We have to deal with someone in the region, unless we intend to annex it. I fail to see why Iran is such an impossible trading partner. What separates them from the Saudis?
