Republicans often rely on a handy set of allegations: Democrats want open borders; Democrats want to defund the police; Democrats want men to compete in women’s sports.

But these are just vague assertions: Democrats don’t really want men to compete in women’s sports. The disingenuous assertion that they do only obscures a complicated issue, but it still manages to generate considerable political leverage.

Here’s a new misleading assertion: Democrats—or anyone who has reservations about our war against Iran—are agreeable to Iran’s possession of nuclear weapons.

An example: Recently Germany’s Chancellor Friedrich Merz said—overstating only slightly—that Iran is humiliating the U.S. in the current war. His ire provoked, President Donald Trump removed 5,000 American troops stationed in Germany and said that Merz thinks “it’s OK for Iran to have a Nuclear Weapon.”

This is certainly not true. Few people outside of Iran think that it’s OK for the mullahs to have an atomic bomb. It’s not OK in the same way that it’s not OK for Russia, North Korea or China to have nuclear weapons.

In fact, it’s probably not such a great idea that the U.S. has them, either.

But the question is not whether it’s OK for Iran to have nuclear weapons; the question is whether it’s possible to use force to prevent the mullahs from obtaining them.

It’s actually more complicated than that. The Trump administration has been vague about the goals of its war against Iran, but last week, testifying before the House Armed Services Committee, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth suggested another goal of the war even more ambitious than preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons.

He said that Iran “had not given up its nuclear ambitions.” If the war cannot come to an end until Iran gives up its nuclear ambitions, then the war is counterproductive: The mullahs and many Iranians have good reason to believe that nuclear weapons are the only thing that will prevent Iran from becoming a submissive vassal state to the U.S. and Israel.

What do experts say? Scott Sagan, a professor of political science and an expert on nuclear proliferation, writes: “The ongoing crisis with Tehran is not the first time Washington has had to face a hostile government attempting to develop nuclear weapons. Nor is it likely to be the last.”

Indeed. Sagan wrote “How to Keep the Bomb from Iran” for the September/October 2006 issue of Foreign Affairs. At the time, President George W. Bush had labeled Iran as part of the Axis of Evil. The U.S. had 140,000 troops on Iran’s western border with Iraq and thousands more in Afghanistan to the east. Bush talked openly about regime change in Tehran, supplying powerful incentives for Iran to desire nuclear weapons.

But Sagan argues that nations seek nuclear weapons for several rational reasons: to fend off an external threat, to satisfy domestic pressure or for international status. He provides a roster of countries that have aspired to nuclear weapons but been convinced by deft diplomacy, including security guarantees and economic relief, to give them up: Japan, South Korea, Libya, Taiwan, Egypt, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Ukraine.

Further, Sagan notes that when the U.S. was the only nuclear power, President Eisenhower declined to use military action to prevent Russia from getting the bomb. Similarly, President Kennedy chose diplomacy over war to confront China’s nuclear ambitions.

How did that work out, you ask? Your point is well taken, but it’s a rear-view-mirror fantasy to imagine that war could have prevented Russia or China from eventually achieving nuclear weapons. Instead, Sagan argues, nations are much more likely to respond to conditions that reduce—rather than increase—the incentives to acquire or use the bomb.

The Trump administration isn’t inclined to take advice from experts. If Sagan is right, however, this ill-advised war against Iran is unlikely to turn out well.

Better options are more likely to succeed: a combination of smart diplomacy, security guarantees and economic relief might have prevented this disastrous war.

Unfortunately, we’re trying just the opposite. Too bad we didn’t listen to Sagan 21 years ago.

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