Best Article on Iran Election Process I've seen

[Lissa]

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.

The the world in general is naive about the US-Israeli relations. Israel does things when it see a potential threat, seems people have already forgotten about the "possible" nuclear reactor in the Syrian desert that Israel bombed a couple years back. While the US Intel backed up the Israeli intel and thought, the US didn't tell Israel to launch the air strikes. This also happened with Iraq back in '81. So don't be surprised if Israel attempts to take out Iran's reactor complex.

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.

The nature of most of the nuclear armed countries is that they realize what would happen if they used them. In most cases, this is a deterrent against their rivals, but they understand what would happen if they used them offensively.

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.

India and Pakistan have too few to "waste" them and both have China right there breathing down their necks (not to mention Russia and the CIS). If either fired in provocation, they'd be buried quickly, not just by their rival, but by China as well (as China has designs on a several pieces of contested land between India and Pakistan).

As to North Korea, I would be more scared of them selling a bomb to a terrorist organization then them actually using it themselves. North Korea wants money, they don't want to be destroyed and they've already got their Patron worried (China) and have to toe a very close line so they don't get taken out by their own Patron from their Patron feeling threatened.

Iran is the one that scares me the most with it's nuclear ambitions. We can see right now that if they got a bomb they would be the ones most likely to use it themselves. They'd either put one on their short or medium ranged missiles and hit Israel or they'd somehow try and smuggle a warhead into a US port onboardd a ship and detonate it there.