Launching a preemptive strike might feel decisive—but it could make the very outcome we fear far more likely.
In the long shadow of past Middle East conflicts, the growing clamor for a more forceful U.S. response to Iran’s nuclear posture risks repeating a familiar pattern: rushing into action with too little thought about what comes next. The logic is always the same—act now, stop the threat, restore order. But when it comes to Iran and the specter of nuclear weapons, that logic collapses under scrutiny.
Military action might seem like a shortcut to peace, but history suggests otherwise. Iraq was supposed to be a clean intervention; Afghanistan, a swift decapitation of terror networks. Both turned into open-ended commitments marked by elusive goals, multiplying enemies, and mounting costs. Iran, larger and more sophisticated than either, could be worse. The better strategy is not appeasement. It’s patience, containment, and the kind of strategic restraint that avoids catalyzing the very catastrophe we’re trying to prevent.
The paradox of military strikes against nuclear programs is that they often accelerate the drive toward a bomb. Israel’s 1981 strike on Iraq’s Osirak reactor, while hailed at the time, led Saddam Hussein to double down on a covert program. A similar strike on Iran could push its regime past the threshold, validating hardliners’ paranoia and strengthening their grip. Worse, a cornered Tehran might see nuclear use not as unthinkable, but as its only viable deterrent.
For all the understandable anxiety surrounding Iran’s nuclear ambitions, the key question isn’t just whether we can stop them militarily—it’s whether doing so would make the situation better or worse. A targeted strike might delay Iran’s program, but it wouldn’t eliminate the knowledge, the motivation, or the political will to rebuild—and possibly in even more secretive and hardened facilities. If the real goal is to reduce the risk of nuclear war, bombing Iran may accomplish the opposite.
Think about what Iran sees from its side: U.S. forces in Iraq, Syria, and the Persian Gulf, and a history of regime change in the region. Under pressure, regimes often take more extreme steps, not fewer. Introducing open warfare could convince Tehran that its survival now depends on having a nuclear weapon ready—not someday, but immediately.
There’s also the risk of broader conflict. Iran has regional proxies in Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen, and beyond. A war would not be a clean surgical affair; it would unleash retaliation across multiple fronts and likely pull in Israel, Saudi Arabia, and others. We’ve seen this movie before, and it doesn’t end in quick resolution.
That’s why restraint doesn’t mean weakness. It means recognizing that the most powerful tool we have may not be a missile, but time: time to monitor, to contain, and to wait out a regime that—like others before it—could eventually evolve or fall under its own contradictions. If we act rashly, we may be ensuring the permanence of the threat we fear.
It may already be too late for restraint to fully work. The diplomatic window that once existed—marked by the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA)—has narrowed, perhaps irreversibly. Still, even limited containment may be preferable to an all-out war. Iran has developed advanced centrifuge infrastructure and stockpiled enriched uranium beyond past thresholds, making any military disruption only temporary at best.
And yet, despite the hardline rhetoric and military build-up, both Iran and Israel are countries with highly educated populations, global ties, and vibrant civil societies. Most ordinary Iranians and Israelis are not clamoring for war. If anything, there remains a quiet, widespread yearning for peaceful toleration—a recognition that long-term security doesn’t come from bombs, but from coexistence, however uneasy. That fragile common ground is worth preserving, if only to avoid forcing a generation on both sides to live under the shadow of a war neither truly wants.
There’s no perfect solution to the Iranian nuclear dilemma, but there is a hierarchy of risk. Starting a war could ignite a conflict that spirals out of control and lasts years or decades, pulling the U.S. into yet another intractable entanglement. Holding back, by contrast, means managing an existing danger rather than manufacturing a new one. This isn’t naivety—it’s strategic realism.
I’m writing this not because I think Iran is harmless, or because I believe its leaders are misunderstood, or even because I trust diplomacy to solve everything. I’m writing this because I’ve seen what happens when we get this kind of decision wrong. When fear overrides strategy, when urgency overwhelms prudence, and when the moral clarity of “stopping a threat” blurs the political, human, and military consequences that follow.
This moment feels eerily familiar: rising calls for preemptive strikes, speculation about red lines, and talk of a “final window” to act. But when we look back at how the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan began—with confident predictions of quick victories and long-term stability—we should pause before assuming that attacking Iran would end differently. This isn’t a call to ignore the threat. It’s a call to take it seriously enough not to respond in the most dangerously predictable way.
At the heart of this issue is something deeper than geopolitics: a clash of fears, identities, and beliefs. But it’s also a moment to reassert a basic principle—that religious freedom, whether in Iran, Israel, or anywhere else, must be protected, not weaponized. No faith community should live under threat of annihilation, and no government should exploit religion as a justification for endless conflict.
We must not give up on the possibility of peace—not because it’s easy or likely, but because the alternative is a war with no definable endpoint. In both Iran and Israel, ordinary people—educated, thoughtful, and overwhelmingly nonviolent—would far rather live in uneasy coexistence than in the chaos of open war. It is for their sake, and for the stability of the world they inhabit, that we should press every option short of war to its limit.
Michael Peabody