Crafting an effective strategy for dealing with a nuclear Iran is likely to be one of the most difficult defense and foreign policy challenges facing the United States in the coming decade. Due to the volatility of Iranian politics, the clerical regime’s involvement in terrorism, Tehran’s troubled relations with several of its neighbors as well as the United States, and its commitment to the destruction of Israel, a nuclear Iran will have a destabilizing impact on the Middle East. For these reasons, a nuclear Iran would pose a unique danger to international peace and to the international community.