The Iranian nuclear program may well be unstoppable.

This is conventional thinking among American foreign policy elites on Iran's regime:

- It is an anti-Semitic regime.

- It wishes to destroy Israel.

- "Regime change" in Iran will result in the halting of Iran's alleged nuclear weapons program.

Am I wrong? If not, then the above assumptions illustrate how we are influenced by flawed thinking. More worryingly, it is a deeply disturbing sign of how American public discourse on Iran is leading the United States to yet another "war of choice."

Les Gelb wrote last week about the "ignorance and arrogance of America's foreign policy establishment" on Iran and Syria. Consider the following facts and questions:

First, if Iran's regime was anti-Semitic by nature, then why has it not eliminated or "self-deported" the 30,000 Jews who live inside Iran? They are Iranian and Jewish, and proud of being both.

Second, Iran funds Hamas and is a self-declared champion of Palestinian peoples. How, then, can it attack Israel without harming the more than 1.5 million Arabs who live inside Israel? How can an Iranian nuclear warhead "eliminate" Israel without removing the populations of Gaza and the West Bank, too? Iran will destroy Palestine to save it?