"A nuclear-armed Iran is a threat to the United States and it's interests in the Middle East." While there is no arguing that a nuclear-armed Iran would certainly be a cause for concern, maybe the question we need to start asking is "Why?". From a realist's perspective, any state with a nuclear weapon is a threatens the "vital interest" of the United States. In context of the realist paradigm, Snow (2011) defines a vital interest as "properties and conditions on which states will not willingly compromise and which are thus too important to be submitted to any superiority" (pg. 27). America's foreign policy treatment towards Iran seems to satisfy these conditions set forth by Snow. However, the possession of nuclear arms by Russia, the United Kingdom, France, China, India, Israel, and Pakistan are not treated as threats to America's vital interests. These states account for thousands of nuclear warheads and the ability to produce thousands more. Why doesn't the United States treat these states with armed warheads like they treat Iran trying to enrich Uranium to the twenty percent level? One could simply state that it's because the other states don't call for the destruction of the entire Western Hemisphere like Iran does, and they would be correct. The United States see's Iran as a threat and vise versa because each of them believes they are the enemy of the other. The United States and Iran are not enemies because of any material conflict or cause; it is purely one of ideology. The situation they are found in is a result of socially constructed paradigms. The sooner that we as observers and students of the relationship between the United States and Iran can understand this and its genesis, the more equipped we will be to find a solution to normalize the US-Iran relations. To accomplish this, it is important to first explore how constructivism can provide the guidance and lenses needed to understand how relationships are formed between states.
