Do you really are is Iran has the bomb?

[Virote_Considon]

If you're looking for evidence of Iranian belligerence, you would find it in the decades since the Ayatollah Khomeini came to power. He had thousands of political prisoners executed, enacted fatwas calling for death to critics overseas, supported the hostage taking in 1980, and engaged in countless civil rights violations in his own country, especially including restrictions on women's rights. Suppression of the Baha'is - their leaders killed or fled the country. Harsh punisments for common crimes. The closing of many newspapers. He and his successors have kept up an ongoing support for terrorists throughout the Middle East including shiploads of weapons smuggled into Gaza disguised as medical supplies. Arrests of tourists and journalist as spies. Rigged elections. Violent suppression and killing of peaceful protesters. Etc., etc..

Most of these aren't examples of Iranian belligerence because they negatively effect Iran and not outside-of-Iran.

There are plenty of examples of Iranian belligerence, but you haven't listed many of them.

 

[kochman]

I don't think it'll de-stabalize anything. Nukes are the biggest peacemakers ever. Israel has them so I doubt the Iranian leadership would actually use them against Israel. Pakistan got them and life went on.

So far... at least...
Once they are in the inventory, they can be used under the right circumstances.
If Nazi Germany, for example, had gotten the bomb, it would have used it quite willingly I think...

 

[Silurian]

So far... at least...
Once they are in the inventory, they can be used under the right circumstances.
If Nazi Germany, for example, had gotten the bomb, it would have used it quite willingly I think...

Why do you assume this.

Germany did not use nerve gas.

 

[Cutlass]

Why do you assume this.

Germany did not use nerve gas.

But they had experience with the horror of gas. No one had experience with the horror of nukes. Once we did, no one has used one since.

 

[Quackers]

The Germans slaughtered 6 million Jews because they considered them sub-Human. They considered the Russians the same - Hitler would've loved to nuke Stalingrad and praise the superiority of "Aryan science" over the bug-eyed Slavs.
There is no way of knowing anyway Silurian but I think they would of used them,

 

[asbestos]

Stalin with nuclear weapons isn't that good either...

The point is to avoid a disastrous ( for both sides ) war whenever containment is on the table.

but the religious factor adds an extra bit of crazyness and uncertainty to it. Especially theocrats with a distinctly 12th century perspective !

Highly dubious that their government is incapable of moderate reform. Or that they're an enemy because of their theocracy.

 

[Silurian]

But they had experience with the horror of gas. No one had experience with the horror of nukes. Once we did, no one has used one since.

Nerve gas is more deadly than the gasses used during and after WW1.
As far as I am aware Germany believed that the Allies also had Nerve gas.

They had proof that the US Army had Chemical Weapons in Italy

from Wiki.

On the night of December 2, 1943, German Junkers Ju 88 bombers attacked the port of Bari, which was a key supply centre for Allied forces fighting their way up the Italian Peninsula. Several Allied ships were sunk in the overcrowded harbour, including the U.S. Liberty ship John Harvey, which was carrying mustard gas; mustard gas was also reported to have been stacked on the quayside awaiting transport. The chemical agent was intended for use if German forces initiated chemical warfare. The presence of the gas was highly classified, and authorities ashore had no knowledge of it. This increased the number of fatalities, since physicians—who had no idea that they were dealing with the effects of mustard gas—prescribed treatment proper for those suffering from exposure and immersion, which proved fatal in many cases. Because rescuers were unaware they were dealing with gas casualties, many additional casualties were caused among the rescuers through contact with the contaminated skin and clothing of those more directly exposed to the gas.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bari#The_1943_chemical_warfare_disaster

If Germany had developed the A bomb and managed to produce 3 bombs and an industry to slowly produce more; then there is no reason to assume that the Germans would not rightly assume that the allies had a couple of bombs themselves as they assumed wrongly the allies had nerve gas.
Germany would have also been aware that an attack on London with an a-bomb would have led to a chemical weapon attack on Berlin.


Maybe this is a topic for another thread in history

 

[Cutlass]

The thing is, though, at the time A-bombs were thought of as just really big bombs. The real negative connotations, weapons of mass destruction, end life as we know it, these ways of looking at nukes didn't really come about until later. It wasn't until after they were used that people really started thinking about the implications of them.

 

[Silurian]

That is true but kochman referred to Nazi Germany, the H-bomb came latter.

They were deterred from using nerve gas.
Why would they not have been deterred from using the A-bomb.

 

[Cutlass]

That's exactly what I said in my last post.

The thing is, though, at the time A-bombs were thought of as just really big bombs. The real negative connotations, weapons of mass destruction, end life as we know it, these ways of looking at nukes didn't really come about until later. It wasn't until after they were used that people really started thinking about the implications of them.

 

[innonimatu]

The Germans slaughtered 6 million Jews because they considered them sub-Human. They considered the Russians the same - Hitler would've loved to nuke Stalingrad and praise the superiority of "Aryan science" over the bug-eyed Slavs.
There is no way of knowing anyway Silurian but I think they would of used them,

Silurian's objection stands: they never used gas on the eastern front also. Sometimes the only possible outcome is defeat and everyone understands that it is better not to play the game.

Though I do think they'd use the bomb, that game never having been played at all before and all, but only if they were the only ones with it.

 

[Cutlass]

Silurian's objection stands: they never used gas on the eastern front also. Sometimes the only possible outcome is defeat and everyone understands that it is better not to play the game.

Though I do think they'd use the bomb, that game never having been played at all before and all, but only if they were the only ones with it.

I don't think they had any way of knowing that ahead of time. IIRC, the Nazis stopped trying to build the bomb because they thought they wouldn't be able to complete it in the time they expected the war to last.

 

[bombshoo]

The nerve gas/a-bomb comparison is a bad one.

While chemical weapons have some use as a force multiplier in specific scenarios, they are almost never decisive, so there is little point to use them if all you are going to do is provoke the other side into using them as well. Obviously the Germans had no qualms using chemical weapons in non-combat scenarios like the holocaust.

Atom bombs, even if viewed as nothing more than really big bombs, certainly have value as a war-ending weapon.

And yeah, the Germans gave up on the bomb pretty early because the costs seemed too high. A lot of their math was totally screwed up and many of the scientists thought it was actually impossible or only possible in theory.

 

[ParkCungHee]

The nerve gas/a-bomb comparison is a bad one.

While chemical weapons have some use as a force multiplier in specific scenarios, they are almost never decisive, so there is little point to use them if all you are going to do is provoke the other side into using it as well.

The reason the Germans did not use nerve gas on the battlefield was the fear of it being used as a weapon of mass destruction. Britain could have inflected far worse casualties and civilian terror through the use of chemical bombing of German Cities.

 

[bombshoo]

The reason the Germans did not use nerve gas on the battlefield was the fear of it being used as a weapon of mass destruction. Britain could have inflected far worse casualties and civilian terror through the use of chemical bombing of German Cities.

So are you saying the British could have used chemical weapons with decisive results?

 

[Tani Coyote]

Well there is the simple fact that even though the Cold War has ended, brinkmanship is still an important part of policy. Though no one's insane enough to actually use their nukes, if you can convince another nation you just might make limited use of tactical weapons, you could scare them. There's a reason other Middle Eastern states stand firmly with us on this. Nukes don't have to be big, massive explosions - you can use them on a small scale and greatly damage an enemy. Iraq still has poisoning from our use of depleted uranium as I recall.

Though Iran pursuing weapons isn't entirely unjustified - when you keep being told America wants to INVADE you day after day, I imagine they feel just a wee bit threatened. Being capable of nuclear war lessens the threat.

Iran isn't going to go imperialist. They're Shi'a for goodness sake, so a much better idea is to just keep Iraq out of their grasps.

 

[innonimatu]

Iran isn't going to go imperialist. They're Shi'a for goodness sake, so a much better idea is to just keep Iraq out of their grasps.

Well, precisely because of that identification with shia islam Iraq was always pretty much the limit of their possible imperialist ambitions. Going beyond that would be biting more than they could chew, a self-limiting move.

 

[Tani Coyote]

Well, precisely because of that identification with shia islam Iraq was always pretty much the limit of their possible imperialist ambitions. Going beyond that would be biting more than they could chew, a self-limiting move.

Yeah, the harsh division in the Muslim world limits any real threat Iran can pose. Just as Iran classes the world into the big devil and little devil, I imagine the other Muslim countries do the same - they dislike Israel, but also dislike Iran.

If Iran ever tried to go further than Iraq, I wouldn't be surprised if there was an attempt to push them back from nearby nations.

Iran's definitely not a country I'd trust or defend, but their threat is overblown. They won't arm terrorists - to do that would incite a war, if not a nuclear one, easily. Given the limited range the Indian and Pakistani missiles have, I can't imagine Iran being able to do much if we decided to use our ICBMs.

Fortunately, it will never come to that. The world is one giant game of soft power - we're all attempting to build up our power and influence, but moderate our behavior so as to avoid reprisal. Iran has lots of gain from a nuclear device - not so much from any massive war.

Save the massive wars for Call of Duty and Red Alert!

 

[GhostWriter16]

I don't think Iran would go so far as to actually use a nuke without serious provocation. However, you never can know for sure. I'd support an airstrike specifically targeted on Iranian nuclear facilities to stop construction of a bomb. I wouldn't endorse a land attack though, at least not yet.

 

[ParkCungHee]

So are you saying the British could have used chemical weapons with decisive results?

They could have used it with results comparable to the atomic bomb.