Tunku Varadarajan has an interesting piece in Forbes online explaining why India doesn’t do in Pakistan what Israel is now doing in the Gaza Strip. He comes up with many interesting differences between the two, but one in particular leaped out at me: “Pakistan has nukes… Any assault on Pakistani territory carries with it an apocalyptic risk for India. This is, in fact, Pakistan’s trump card. (This explains, also, why Israel is determined to prevent the acquisition of nuclear weapons by Iran.)”

Exactly right. That is an important answer to those who ask: What difference does it make if Iran goes nuclear? Won’t Israel be able to deter the Iranians from using their nukes? Maybe so, but having a nuclear shield would also allow Iran even greater free rein to sponsor terrorist groups and engage in other noxious activities knowing that neither Israel nor America would dare go to war with a nuclear-armed state. That is probably a primary reason why Iran wants nukes, and one of the major reasons why it is so important to prevent their acquisition of nuclear capabilities.