This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Tuesday, October 23rd, 2012.

I'm Caleb Brown.

The debate last night was long on bravado, but short on ideas on how to rationally deal with

the state like Iran.

Doug Bandow, a senior fellow of the Cato Institute, argues that the aggressive push against

Iran runs counter to a more peaceful world.

There are a lot of people argue on behalf of taking additional measures against Iran

and leaving no option off the table, which presumably

includes bombs.

Benjamin Netanyahu has made these very sort of pointed sort of rocky and

bullwinkle imagery presenting the bomb and drawing the picture that says

here's where they are and developing some sort of nuclear weapons.

First of all, I think it's important to make this distinction.

What is the difference between what people think of as the Arab Street and the Persian

Street. Well, Iranians will be very quick to tell you they aren't Arabs, they are

Persians. There is a difference there. It's a difference I think lost on a lot of Westerners.

It matters because within the Gulf people do line up rather differently and there's a long

kind of history of Persians having a real ambition. If there's a nuclear weapon coming out of Iran, it's not an Islamic bomb, it's a Persian bomb.

It started under the Shah.

And there's a lot of support for it, even among opposition leaders,

the people who we were supporting in their race against Ahmadinejad,

want the bomb. I mean these are not people who want to disarm. And, you know, the

...