Best Article on Iran Election Process I've seen

[Kevin]

What we did was bribed Israel not to do anything when the Skuds were fired at them cause we knew that if Israel retalliated in anyway, even conventionally, the coalition would have split. This was why Saddam was throwing Skuds at Israel, to get them to react so the coallition would splinter.

Yes, this is not a revelation.

It's also part of the issue now. The international community believes that we can control Israel now. But again, even if there were a chemical hit I still don't think they would have fired a nuke. They are not insane.

One nuke fired by Israel and the entire Islamic world would hit them constantly with everything they had. There wouldn't be the fragile pseudo-peace there is now.

Of course this is how my dad felt about the cold war too so perhaps my view is tainted. Both sides had stable governments. Both sides knew that it was suicide to fire a nuke. Both sides were worried about it, and prepared for it, but the leaders didn't really believe the other side would fire.

I'm much more worried about Pakistan or India firing a nuke and setting things off than the Israeli government. Both of those governments have been very unstable. North Korea would fire one off too because Lil' Kim is insane and so are some of his military leaders. The leaders of Israel are not, they are just in a near impossible situation and have a history with most of the other nations of the region that if they let up the bluster and the threats that they will get hit relatively hard. But the history of much of their military action shows powerful but mostly sensible military strategy. Nukes are generally not sensible.

Oh well. I'm not changing any minds here and I've said my piece.