The irrationality myth frames Iran’s nuclear ambitions as madness.

Evidence

The debate on whether Iran should be allowed to have nuclear weapons draws from these arguments. Republican candidate and former New York City mayor Rudolph Giuliani argued that “the reality is the use of military force against Iran would be very dangerous… . It would be very provocative. The only thing worse would be Iran being a nuclear power. It’s the worst nightmare of the Cold War, isn’t it? The nuclear weapons in the hands of an irrational person, an irrational force. Ahmadinejad is clearly irrational.” These lines of demarcation are familiar: “irrational” Iran and the “rational” West. Little discussion is devoted to why Iran, as a rational political actor, might want to acquire nuclear weapons; it is, after all, surrounded by nuclear powers such as India, Pakistan, China, Russia, and Israel, and by US bases in Qatar, Iraq, Turkey, Uzbekistan, and Afghanistan, any of which might harbor nuclear weapons. — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 184

Categorization

• XREF: Offers a concrete case of the myth-to-policy line — labeling Iran irrational suppresses its legitimate security rationale — connecting to Kumar’s master thesis on domestic fear driving foreign policy. — connects to: Iran’s nuclear ambitions are rational proliferation in a nuclear neighborhood