By Alameen Abdulkadir, Ph.D
Nuclear Deterrence is one of the theoretical lenses scholars and pundits adopt to explain untouchability of state actors in International politics.
Iran under its Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khameni has undoubtedly demonstrated how it’s going to fit into this lens in the nearest future. Attacking eight U.S military bases spontaneously not only clears doubt that it is the latest entrant into the nuclear power club but also a think-twice victimage.
Eight U.S military bases and allies;
Israel, Bahrain, UAE, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Kuwait Iraq were decorated with nuclear ripples in just one day. Iran’s synchronized strikes on these eight US-aligned states represent a calculated escalation that challenges core tenets of nuclear deterrence theory, positioning the Islamic Republic as a de facto threshold nuclear power under Ayatollah Khamenei’s strategic oversight.
This event not only underscores Tehran’s operational audacity but also exposes vulnerabilities in the US extended deterrence framework, prompting a reevaluation of how non-nuclear actors can achieve deterrence equivalence through ambiguity and conventional-nuclear hybridity. I remember during my undergrad as a final year student of Foreign Policy Analysis, our teacher now the President of Nigerian Political Science Association, Prof. Hassan Salihu posited that “if nuclear deterrence must work, protector-pawn deterrence must not work”—We merely crammed or should I say I merely crammed the saying without having deeper understanding of its application. However, as quest for knowledge advances, and real world international politics unfold, I was able to reconcile his popular postulation with power politics in the international system.
Nuclear deterrence rests on the rationalist premise that states abstain fro aggression due to the intolerable costs of retaliation, encapsulated in the doctrine of mutually assured destruction (MAD). In classical formulations by scholars like Thomas Schelling, deterrence hinges on credible threats, both the capability for devastating response and the resolve to execute it, creating a stability paradox where fear preserves peace. Iran’s “True Promise 4” operation, launching ballistic missiles across multiple theaters in a single day, simulates this dynamic without deploying fissile warheads, leveraging its 60% uranium enrichment (nearing weapons-grade) to infuse strikes with “nuclear ripples.”
Critically, ths maneuver interrogates deterrence’s capability prong: while Tehran lacks confirmed deliverable warheads, the opacity of its program shielded by IRGC proxies and underground silos generates strategic ambiguity, compelling adversaries to assume worst-case scenarios.
Pundits might dismiss this as bluster, yet the simultaneity of targeting eight nodes of US power projection (from Bahrain’s Fifth Fleet to Qatar’s Al Udeid) demonstrates resolve, eroding the notion that deterrence requires overt nuclearization. Instead, Iran exemplifies “existential deterrence,” where the mere possibility of escalation deters ripostes, as evidenced by limited US-Israeli countermeasures post-strikes.
Ayatollah Khamenei’s fatwa against nuclear weapons, often cited as doctrinal restraint, reveals itself as tactical elasticity amid escalating pressures from Trump-era sanctions and Israeli sabotage. The regime’s response transmutes defensive posturing into offensive parity by saturating allied air defenses, Iran not only avenges prior degradations (e.g., Natanz strikes) but imposes a “think-twice” calculus on Washington, where full-spectrum retaliation risks regional conflagration.
This aligns with revisionist International Relations (IR) theories, such as those in Kenneth Waltz’s neorealist paradigm, arguing that nuclear proliferation stabilizes via balanced terror. Tehran, as the “latest entrant,” tests this by hybridizing Shahab-3 missiles with nuclear shadow, achieving MAD-lite.
Argumentatively, skeptics invoking liberal institutionalism might counter that IAEA monitoring and JCPOA remnants constrain Iran, yet recent non-compliance and breakout timelines belie such optimism. Iran’s genius lies in asymmetric escalation: proxy militias (Houthis, Kata’ib Hizbullah) amplify the barrage, dispersing attribution and raising denial plausibility, thus diluting US resolve. This operational sophistication coordinating across Iraq’s land bridges, Gulf straits, and Levantine airspace signals not impulsivity but a maturing deterrence posture, where vulnerability (sanctions-crippled economy) is offset by ubiquity of threat.
The strikes precipitate a crisis of credibility for America’s security guarantees, as Gulf monarchies and Jordan confront the perils of hosting US assets amid Iranian defensive-offensive, since the first law of nature is self preservation, Iran is trying to preserve itself irrespective of who falls victim.
The allied countries also have to bear consequences of allowing their soil to be used as missiles-launch-pad against Iran. Saudi Arabia’s vocal outrage and airspace alerts underscore allied defection risks. Riyadh, burned by Khobar Towers legacies, may accelerate its own nuclear latency via Pakistani ties, igniting a Sunni cascade turning its back on Iran Shia hegemony. Deterrence theory posits that extended umbrellas falter when protectors appear irresolute; here, Trump’s partial base evacuations pre-strikes signal hesitancy, validating Iran’s bet that domestic US politics (election cycles, war fatigue) trumps alliance commitments.
Robustly, this event debunks deterrence’s immutability, conventional precision (Iran’s hypersonics evading Patriot) mimics nuclear effects, upending cost-imposition logic where aggressors expect restraint. Critics like constructivists might highlight ideational factors, Khamenei’s “resistance axis” narrative galvanizing Shia mobilization, but materialist analysis prevails as Tehran’s arsenal (3,000+ missiles) enforces a de facto no-fly deterrence zone, compelling Israel to recalibrate Iron Dome dependencies.
The polycentric nature of attackss fragments US response coherence, as bilateral treaties (like US-Qatar defense pact) prove inadequate against networked threats. This gambit recasts the Middle East as a multipolar deterrence arena, where Iran’s brinkmanship catalyzes entropy, Gulf states hedge via China-brokered deals, while Russia supplies S-400 offsets to Iran’s voids.
Proliferation pressures mount UAE’s tacit pursuits, Jordan’s quiet overtures threatening NPT edifice, as non-proliferation regimes buckle under enforcement asymmetries. Khamenei’s strategy, far from reckless, embodies rational adaptation by externalizing conflict onto US phylacteries, Tehran domesticates escalation, accruing invulnerability akin to North Korea’s playbook.
Counterarguments falter as offensive realism predicts balancing coalitions, yet Arab disunity, Qatar’s mediation bids, UAE’s pragmatism fragments ripostes.
Economically, oil chokepoints (Strait of Hormuz) amplify Tehran’s leverage, deterring blockades. Longitudinally, this presages doctrinal evolution; hybrid deterrence supplants pure nuclear monopoly, democratizing “untouchability” for revisionists. Washington’s dilemma intensifies under President Trump as kinetic overmatch risks quagmire, diplomacy concedes leverage, perpetuating a pax Iranica-in-waiting.
In sum, Khamenei is dead, killed by U.S-Israeli missiles, the Iranians have hurriedly made arrangement for new supreme leadership, signaling their resolve to put an end to the oppression of their country by any foreign power. Iran’s multi-axis defensive assault vindicates deterrence’s adaptability, falsifying claims of its nuclear naivety while indicting US hegemony’s fragility. Foreign Policy makers including those in my country must begin to think of how to pivot bolstering allied A2/AD (anti-access/area denial), reviving coercive diplomacy with sunset clauses, and preempting cascades via non-proliferation pacts. Absent recalibration, Tehran’s template proliferates, heralding an era where threshold ambiguity eclipses arsenal size, rendering classical MAD anachronistic in poly-nuclear flux. This is not mere adventurism but IR realpolitik par excellence. Son of a hero, lived as a hero and died as a hero. The Late Khamenei’s legacy as “a deterrence-magician” is one that the world can not deny, even if you don’t like him, you just can’t water-down the fact that he’s the biggest bone that has hooked the neck of the U.S and its allies in recent time resisting all forms of oppression and imperialism on his fatherland.
Alameen Abdulkadir
teaches International Relations at the University of Abuja.
