On April 21, Iran and six world powers resumed the final phase of nuclear talks after a preliminary framework deal reached earlier this month. Iran and the P5+1 countries — Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States — are expected to reach a final accord by the end of June. Yet hawks in Washington and Israel continue to oppose the negotiations. They argue that Iran cannot be allowed to obtain a nuclear weapon or even remain within sprinting distance of acquiring one. A nuclear Iran would be an existential threat to Israel, they claim, and would likely provoke a nuclear arms race in the troubled Middle East. Others have suggested that a nuclear-armed Iran may even precipitate World War III, pushing the world closer to a nuclear winter. Most of these fears are simply unfounded. In fact, even if Iran wanted a nuclear weapon and managed to obtain one, it would not be able to carry out a successful nuclear strike against Israel or the United States.

No ballistic missile option

The majority of the American public supports a nuclear deal as the best alternative to preventing – rather than enabling – Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

Hawks contend that, even if it lacked the capacity to attack Israel or the U.S., Iran could provide highly enriched nuclear material to terrorist groups to be incorporated into a devastating dirty bomb that could be deployed against the U.S. or Israel. But this scenario is unlikely for a number of reasons. For one, Iran’s regional allies — including Hezbollah, Hamas and Yemen’s Houthis —are primarily nationalistic and rarely operate outside their home countries or their perceived national interests. Moreover, none of these groups have a demonstrated intent or capability to attack the U.S. mainland. This is in part why U.S. intelligence recently removed Iran and Hezbollah from its list of terrorism threats. Moreover, dirty bombs are not weapons of mass destruction. A radiological dispersion device does not have much more explosive power than a conventional weapon. Moreover, the relatively small amounts of nuclear material emitted in the process are unlikely to pose a severe immediate or long-term health risk to the public. Therefore, even if Iran’s proxies obtained nuclear material and decided to carry out a radiological attack in Israel or the United States, the effect would hardly be catastrophic. The consequences for Iran, on the other hand, would be.