IRAN WILL NOT ENGAGE IN MASS MURDER IF IT ACQUIRES NUKES. Avishai, Bernard, and Reza Aslan. "An Israeli Strike on Iran, a Plan That Just Doesn't Fly" Washingtonpost.com - Nation, World, Technology and Washington Area News and Headlines. 10 Aug. 2008. Web. 25 Aug. 2010. . The regime wants to survive. The mullahs, let us remember, have managed to remain in power for three decades, despite international isolation, a devastating eight-year war with Iraq and the loathing of the vast majority of the country's citizens. In times of economic frustration, they rely on anti-Israeli and anti-American gambits to distract attention from domestic hardship we should view their nuclear program in this context. This is a country that sits atop the world's third-largest proven reserves of oil, according to the CIA, yet imports about 40 percent of its gasoline -- simply because it doesn't have the resources or the know-how to update its refineries to pump more. We have greater reason to assume that, in time, the mullahs will bow to internal pressure and open their country to global intellectual capital than to think that they will engage in an ecstasy of suicidal mass murder.
