Is Iran bluffing?

Iran says it wants to develop nuclear power for peaceful purpose. Yet, in the same breath, Iranian President Ahmadinejad threatens to wipe out Israel from the face of earth. He also utters dire threats against the United States. This doesn't sound much peaceful.

Why is Iran threatening the United States and Israel when it could develop its nuclear weapons discretely without uttering such threats? Mark Bowden, a columnist for the Atlantic magazine and author of "Guests of the Ayatollah," thinks that Iranian Mullahs are using the present confrontation with the United States to rally support of the masses in the same way earlier Shiite revolutionaries like Ahmadinejad used seizing of the American Embassy in 1979 to rally support for the Shiite revolution. At that time, the Mullahs faced intense competition from secular parties and holding 52 Americans as hostage, triggering a confrontation with the United States, helped them to consolidate their position, marginalising other political groups.

Similarly, Iranian President Ahmedinejad, a young revolutionary in 1979, may be again using the confrontation with the United States to consolidate his power in the face of growing discontent. As Mark Bowden writes in the New York Times : "Today, as the Iranian supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, presides over an increasingly restive, unhappy population, President Ahmadinejad, has picked a new fight with the United States of America. ... In openly pursuing nuclear power and defying world opinion, the old revolutionaries are shoring up their stature at home by appealing to nationalism and foreign attack. And why shouldn't they? It worked before."

There may be also another reason for Iran's bluster. Every time Iranian president utters his threat, oil price moves up, bringing billions of dollars into the Iranian coffer. In other words, Mr. Ahmadinejad and the Iranian regime are using the confrontation with America to both bolster his faltering regime and oil prices. Before taking any military action, the US should take this into consideration.