What matters more: the Iranian bomb or Persian political reform?

In his cover story for this week’s edition of the magazine James is, quite characteristically, honest enough to acknowledge that the consequences of attacking Iran would be “horrendous” and, of course, he is also right to argue that there are any number of terrible possibilities if Iran does acquire nuclear weapons. He sums them up:

It would spark an arms race across the Middle East. Many in the intelligence community are convinced that Saudi Arabia has a deal with Pakistan to buy a bomb off the shelf if Iran goes nuclear: a Shiite bomb must be countered with a Sunni one. Iran would also step up its support for disruptive, violent groups across the region — Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Shiite extremists in Iraq, and Hamas in Israel/Palestine. The international community would have little leverage on a nuclear-armed Iran and thus little hope of moderating its behaviour. Peace and stability would be further off than ever.