Iraq and Iran sought WMD as a deterrent against American intervention

Evidence

In Iraq and also in Iran, it was deduced at the time that had Saddam already possessed a nuclear or comparable deterrent, the U.S. would have decided that intervention in an ultimately marginal affair was not worth the risk, and would therefore have left Kuwait—and the Middle East—to their fate. Such a deduction, certainly plausible and possibly correct, underlies the frantic search in both countries for weapons of mass destruction. — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans, 1664

Categorization

• QUESTION: Bernard Lewis here rationalizes Saddam’s WMD program as a rational deterrent response — worth weighing against accounts emphasizing Saddam’s miscalculation of American resolve.