Dr. Strangemoron, Or How I Learned To Stop Thinking And Hate The Bomb

Via DougJ at Balloon Juice comes this explanation from Danielle Pletka of winger think tank American Enterprise Institute as to what our Iran policy should be.

The biggest problem for the United States is not Iran getting a nuclear weapon and testing it, it's Iran getting a nuclear weapon and not using it. Because the second that they have one and they don't do anything bad, all of the naysayers are going to come back and say, "See, we told you Iran is a responsible power. We told you Iran wasn't getting nuclear weapons in order to use them immediately." ... And they will eventually define Iran with nuclear weapons as not a problem.

For years we've been warned that a nuclear Iran was an immediate threat to  everybody, and that the second the last bolt was tightened on it, they were going to strap it to a rocket and aim it at the nearest Israeli hospital maternity ward, then build radioactive zombie war machines out of the rubble.  That was never the reality, the reality was that if Iran got nukes, we'd have to give them foreign aid.  That's what we do with "responsible powers" with nuclear weapons.

Ask Pakistan.  President Obama didn't exactly start that little corollary.  That's why the new threat is "Israel is going to start a war, not us."  They're not.  They're instead sneaking Mossad ninjas in to blow up nuclear research labs and going "Who, us?  We were all busy that day."

No, the real problem is Iran becoming an acceptable member of society with a nuke or two, going to the UN Security Council, and saying "About crossing our palms with silver, gentlemen..."  Now, the GOP will freak out if we try to put up an embassy in Tehran, but the thought of regime change and selling weapons to Iran's neighbors will kick in, and we'll end up doing business with them just like we do with Pakistan.

Neocons hate admitting that's the next move on the board, but as long as there's filthy lucre to be had, they'll live with it.