The Race to Nuclear War

I've just recently been educated in many aspects of current events, as well as Buddhism. I'm entirely for peace, and have based many of my decisions on Gandhi's words, "An eye for an eye will leave the whole world blind." I try to remain on the fence about political issues, but am fast becoming a liberal democrat. My granddad is a devout Republican, and has had several high-ranking government jobs. We were recently talking about the Iraq War, and the nuclear arms debate. While I do think that ever going into Iraq was the initial mistake, now that we've made it, we're stuck. The worst thing, in my opinion, we could do is try to stop violence with more violence. However, if the Arabs fighting against us, those who are entirely willing to kill each and every one of us without a moment's hesitation, got their hands on nuclear warheads, or had the capability to, as may be the case in the next few years, do you think we have a choice but to beat them to it?