muhtesem insan
Amateur Revolutionary
on the core it was. WW2 was disagreement on who should rule the global market.
Iran has nuclear weapons!?
- Thread starter Bad Player
- Start date
Haha what?
ParkCungHee
Deity
- Joined
- Aug 13, 2006
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Seems pretty reasonable to me.
SS-18 ICBM
Oscillator
There's still Tel Aviv. And they don't have to do the deed themselves.
The holy land is slightly bigger than New Jersey. Plus they'd be scarring the land that originally belonged, and may yet belong, to their allies the Palestinians, the loss over which this whole dispute got started. Plus 5% of Tel Aviv's population is directly Palestinian.
Not sure what you mean here.
SS-18 ICBM
Oscillator
That's an extremely impressive blast radius for a nuclear device. I didn't know they were developing fusion Planet Busters.
They support...certain groups. Who may be really quite pragmatic, I might add.
NickyJ
Retired Narrator
As if they really cared what happens to the Palestinians. Iran isn't exempt from the saying "the enemy of my enemy is my friend." They'll only be friends as long as they have a common enemy. Iran wants to get rid of Israel, the loss of Palestinian life would simply be cannon fodder to them.
I'm pretty sure there is residual radioactivity involved.
Do you mean Hamas? You think they'll pragmatically give up the parts of their land that they've been too unpragmatic to give up throughout the conflict?
Can you explain this to me? Why would they casually take aim at the most powerful state in the region then? What do they gain out of it all?
ParkCungHee
Deity
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So if Iran really doesn't care about Palestine, whats the source of enmity between Iran and Israel?
Burst altitude, effective yield, target texture, regional weather, all these things contribute to the final effect of an air-borne nuclear blast. You don't need a fireball the size of a city in order to devastate the city.
Iran is acting perfectly rational in hedging their bets and allegedly attempting to develop a native breakout capacity for a weapons program.
Just about everything Washington has done since 1979 has driven them to this determination.
I'm sure many people much smarter than us are have already developed strategies for living in a nuclear-capable Iran.
It's also important to remember that there are several components of a successful weapons program, completely independent of the political calculations (which, in this case, prevent Iran from using a nuclear weapons except under counter-attack conditions):
1. Fuel core
2. Weapon design
3. Primary detonators
4. Command and control
5. Delivery.
Ok, so not in that order
I'm still floored to think that DPRK has gotten as far as they have when you consider the industrial capability required.
SS-18 ICBM
Oscillator
The profile depends on local conditions. If the wind blows in just the right way...
Hezbollah, actually. And other groups they might support.
And if the wind blows the wrong way...
What's "pragmatic" about mutually assured destruction?
SS-18 ICBM
Oscillator
Why would they detonate it at the wrong time?
If they can't pin it exactly on Iran, that's not a problem. Nuclear explosions have a nasty habit of removing forensic evidence. They might even tweak the isotopic composition to hide their tracks there.
I know that a lot of people here will have a relativist retort involving the USA and Nuclear weapons, Self Defense, etc. However, I still think my point is valid.
It is extremely dangerous for a regime that explicitly hopes and prays for the end of days to have such weapons, when it thinks it can hasten the emergence of the end.
Put simply, it can cripple the world economy if it aimed to. Whats to prevent it from strategically nuking some Arab oil fields, along with setting off a bomb in the straights of Hormuz, making it glow in the dark (figuratively speaking) ?
It isn't rational for Iran to do that, but religious belief is know for bringing out the irrational in people.
It is extremely dangerous for a regime that explicitly hopes and prays for the end of days to have such weapons, when it thinks it can hasten the emergence of the end.
Put simply, it can cripple the world economy if it aimed to. Whats to prevent it from strategically nuking some Arab oil fields, along with setting off a bomb in the straights of Hormuz, making it glow in the dark (figuratively speaking) ?
It isn't rational for Iran to do that, but religious belief is know for bringing out the irrational in people.
Gifting or selling a nuke to a terrorist organization is a huge risk that I think you would have to be pretty dumb to take. First of all, Iran likely will not have very many nuclear weapons, so I doubt they would want to potentially waste one. Then there is the fact there would be no guarantee that a potential sale wouldn't just be a CIA/IAEA sting operation. Even if you do make the sale where is the guarantee that the terrorist organization is going to use the nuke as intended (whether they want to or not) or not just immediately make it public where they got the weapon? Also, yes, nuclear forensics does have some problems, but overall, it is still pretty good, meaning there is no guarantee that detecting the source of the material after the detonation couldn't be done, even if measures are taken to make it more difficult.
And then in the end what would Iran get if it nuked Tel-Aviv? A good portion of Israel would have problems do to the potential radioactive fallout (which even if the risks are minimal in reality, try telling that to the people who have to live there) so they haven't really done the Palestinians any favors. The terrorist organization that did it would likely lose a lot of support from the more moderate types and there is a good chance Iran would get blamed even if there was not much direct evidence they were responsible.
And this "they are religious so they are crazy and irrational" argument really just is plain laziness. Being religious might be irrational (based on our premises anyways), but that doesn't mean that they are flat out stupid. Of course I would rather Iran not have nuclear weapons, since less proliferation means the less chance of mistakes happening, but let's be honest, it's no worse than Pakistan having nukes.
Quackers
The Frog
Burst altitude, effective yield, target texture, regional weather, all these things contribute to the final effect of an air-borne nuclear blast. You don't need a fireball the size of a city in order to devastate the city.
Iran is acting perfectly rational in hedging their bets and allegedly attempting to develop a native breakout capacity for a weapons program.
Just about everything Washington has done since 1979 has driven them to this determination.
I'm sure many people much smarter than us are have already developed strategies for living in a nuclear-capable Iran.
It's also important to remember that there are several components of a successful weapons program, completely independent of the political calculations (which, in this case, prevent Iran from using a nuclear weapons except under counter-attack conditions):
1. Fuel core
2. Weapon design
3. Primary detonators
4. Command and control
5. Delivery.
Ok, so not in that order
I'm still floored to think that DPRK has gotten as far as they have when you consider the industrial capability required.
I think it's a self-fulfulling prophecy.
"We need the bomb to defend ourselves against the Imperialist West!"
"If you try and get the bomb we will stop you!"
"AHHHRG eval westerners threatening Iran again! Quick, concentrate all resources on getting the bomb!".
Quackers
The Frog
I agree with this. Plus we need to stop the proliferation of nuclear warheads in order to decrease the chances of a nuclear exchange ever occuring law of averages and all that..
I think you ought to consider the effects of residual radioactivity that stays after a weapon is detonated, and can even be carried through the ecosystem.
The simple retort is that this would have exactly the same effect as if Iran did the nuking, since no other enemy of Israel has the means to produce a nuclear weapon. What Hezbollah would do is a red herring that has no relevance to the point under consideration.
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