And this is the lesson you will be imbibing also if you are a Supreme Leader, President or even just some common Mullah in Tehran. Come sanctions, international pressure or anything else, the precedents of Qaddafi and Kim Jong-Un will be fresh in your mind. And most fresh will be the thought that one of them is dead and the other alive.
Of course if Iran gets the nukes the results will not be exactly the same. No two dictatorships are ever exactly alike. But there will be striking similarities in the way it plays out. For instance, just as with North Korea, nobody will be able to guess what any particular new leader – in what will then be an eternal regime – actually thinks or what his personal or political ambitions truthfully are. We won’t end up being able to read them much better than we currently read the Kims. But in any event, it won’t matter. Because then we will know what the Mullahs know now – that nukes are the way to perpetual survival for them, and perpetual nightmare for everyone else.
Originally published at the Gatestone Institute, under the title, “‘Nuke Up Fast.'”