How bad would Iran be with the bomb? If you measure the level of public discussion these days, hands down the worst would be having Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and/or President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad armed with nuclear weapons. However, within the intelligence community and among its retirees there are some experienced analysts who believe that Iran's leaders with nuclear weapons wouldn't be much different than they are today, with their first concern being holding onto power, not using a weapon to wipe out Israel and thereby bring about their own destruction. That approach has been sensibly put forward by Paul Pillar, a former senior CIA intelligence analyst and national intelligence officer for the Near East and South Asia from 2000 to 2005. He was deeply involved back then when internal doubts about Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction programs were low-keyed by CIA leaders and ignored by the Bush White House. "An Iran with a bomb would not be anywhere near as dangerous as most people assume, and a war to try to stop it from acquiring one would be less successful and far more costly than most people imagine," Pillar writes in the current issue of "Washington Monthly." Pillar, who teaches at Georgetown University, cogently points out that despite all the "bellicosity and political rhetoric" about the issue, the idea of an Iran with the bomb "has been subjected to precious little careful analysis." Conventional wisdom is that Tehran's leaders would become more dangerous to their neighbors and the United States, Pillar states. He cites the repeated stereotyping that Iran's rulers are "religious fanatics who value martyrdom more than life, cannot be counted on to act rationally and, therefore, cannot be deterred." Pillar notes that the past 30 years have proved that although they promote martyrdom to defend the homeland, "they have never given any indication of wanting to become martyrs themselves." Pillar claims that since the 1979 revolution against Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the Islamic Republic of Iran has conducted a "cautious" policy toward the world. He acknowledges targeted assassinations in the 1980s and 1990s of exiled dissidents, but avoids mentioning Tehran's anti-Americanism, its threats to Israel and support of Hamas and Hezbollah, groups that the United States and Israel consider terrorist. He also fails to mention Iran's military aid to dissident forces in Iraq. Of course, Americans forget that the United States and Britain overthrew the popularly elected government of Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh in August 1953 - something all Iranians remember. They also ignore Washington's open policy of "regime change" in Tehran, promoted most prominently during the Bush administration. In short, there is no lack of bitterness on both sides. That may prevent Americans weighing Pillar's cold analysis that "Iran's rulers are constantly balancing a very worldly set of strategic interests" and thinking "principles of deterrence are not invalid just because the party to be deterred wears a turban and a beard."