Scary

An article in the Atlantic, highlights the likelihood of Iran's developing nuclear weapons.

The Iranian leadership’s own view of nuclear dangers is perhaps best exemplified by a comment made in 2001 by the former Iranian president Ali Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani, who entertained the idea that Israel’s demise could be brought about in a relatively pain-free manner for the Muslim world. “The use of an atomic bomb against Israel would destroy Israel completely while [a nuclear attack] against the Islamic countries would only cause damages,” Rafsanjani said. It is this line of thinking, which suggests that rational deterrence theory, or the threat of mutual assured destruction, might not apply in the case of Iran, that has the Israeli government on a knife’s edge. The Point of No Return, Jeffrey Goldberg, 'The Atlantic', September

And much of the rest of the world. But if the leaders of Iran aren't rational human beings, that doesn't mean they aren't susceptible to incentives. The usual incentives might not apply to them, themselves. But the people who work for them, who follow their orders, who supply their centrifuges or generate their electricity: some of them will be susceptible. And this is where Social Policy Bonds could help. A Middle East Peace Bond or, more broadly applicable, a Disaster Prevention Bond, could focus people's attention on what needs to be done in a more systematic, incentive-driven manner, than the current array of high-stakes bluster, talks about sanctions, talks about talks and all the rest of it.