You haven't read anything I wrote on this topic in this thread or any other, admit that. Because if you had read my post, you'd know there are plenty of ways a crisis can escalate into a nuclear exchange
despite the unwillingness of either side to use nuclear weapons at the beginning.
I read it, and disregarded it. An escalation is never
impossible, but is is as unlikely with Iran as with any other nuclear-armed country. And I don't see any of the present ones volunteering do scrap their nuclear weapons. Notably, the two states most rabidly opposed to the iranians.
Iran is an inherently unstable country due to the regime that controls it
Doesn't matter. Even when the USSR dissolved no nukes were lost. You're invoking false problems.
it has many foreign policy ambitions in the Middle East, and it believes possession of nuclear weapons will help it achieve these ambitions and scare the West from hindering it. Allowing the Iranian regime to obtain nuclear weapons would thus be irresponsible.
Now this is the problem, the cause of all these plans to destroy Iran! Iran has... ambitions outside its borders?
What a surprise! Every single large state in the planet has interests outside its borders! Iran's interests have been far more limited, so far, than those of either the US, Israel, or any of the big european countries, most of which reach into several continents and shamelessly invade countries and overthrow governments on a routine basis.
So, tell us, what exactly is Iran's "sin" here? What in those ambitions would be irresponsible" to allow, to the point of justifying a war with the aim of destroying Iran?
Because any intervention against Iran now would have that aim, and that aim only. It's not about the nuclear program, it's about ending Iran's ability to exercise any influence in the world. And that can only be achieved by bombing it back to the stone Age. Basically, apply the Iraq script all over again. It means bombing Iran's infrastructure to hell, destroying its electricity supply, it's water supply, its agriculture, its roads, its industry, killing a few million iranians. That is war aim in any "intervention" against Iran. And are you going to admit that you are for it? That you are a warmongering and mass murder sit well with you?
Because it would be "irresponsible" to let the iranians alone?
What do you fear Iran may do after it has nuclear weapons to discourage its own destruction? That they might lend some support to the oppressed shia arabs in Saudi Arabia, back a revolt against its rulers in that most dictatorial of all regimes in the Middle East? That would be
bad!
That they might do it in Qatar, where Saudi Arabia shipped troops to put down a local revolt just recently, while the freedom-loving "west" was bombing Libya? That would also be
bad!
That they might meddle into Afghanistan in another attempt at ending the opium exports which cause them so much trouble at home? You know, the drugs which meddling, foreign occupying armies of NATO there seem unwilling to control? That too would be
bad!
In all these things, a common theme: deny Iran an ability which the US and its allies are already exercising! If it's Iran doing it, it's a "threat" which must be prevented. It it is the US, it's a nice thing, to continue doing!
And stop pretending Iran is a victim here.
I don't have to pretend. The situation is crystal clear to any observer without a partisan blindfold: the "nuclear issue" is about Iran possibly, through acquiring nuclear weapons, ending the constant threat of being bombed to hell if it dares do any of the kind of thinks which the "big boys" are doing right on its borders. Or if it dares
interfere with those doings!
And bombing Iran now, long before they can acquire nuclear weapons, would be a way of... preserving the possibility of bombing it later! It's all about keeping it weak. Just like the other recent wars, starting with Iraq 1992, the first great demonstration to the world of the new post-Cold War world order.
