Iran to make "major nuclear announcement"...do they have the Bomb?

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/46351276/ns/world_news-mideast_n_africa/

I'm thinking that it is going to be "we have a bomb, muwahahahahah!".

If Iran has joined the nuclear club, what is the next step? Do we strike immediately hoping to hit them hard enough that they don't have the chance to make the thing launch-capable? Do we try to set up some sort of MAD defense?

The Saudi monarchy has already hinted that if Iran has the bomb, then they will buy some nuclear arms from Pakistan. We could be entering a frightening period of rapid nuclear armament in the Middle East.

Welp, it was a good run, but I suppose World War III was inevitable. At least we got 67 years out of it. I cannot personally imagine anything short of the coming of the Messiah himself will keep Israel and Iran from wanting to glass each other if they both have nuclear weapons. The Mayans were right.

edited 11th Feb '12 7:59:20 PM by GameGuruGG

How is the anti-missile system again?

Mm. To be honest, so long as the US is stupid enough to back the Israeli Government on everything, I approve of Iran having nukes.

The only way anybody in the Middle East can credibly force Israel to not say "lol what we say goes" is if they have a big enough gun to make them sit down and talk. That, or if the US leaves the place the hell alone.

I'd prefer that we simply left. But our government is full of neocosnervative fuckwits, so that isn't happening. Next best thing is to hand Iran large guns and hope that Israel is smart enough to stop being an asshole and finally fix the mess the region is in.

Israel? Hmm, the country that is the only proper representative democracy in the region and has nuclear devices as a safeguard against every other country in the region wanting their annihilation? And you would rather Iran had them as well?

Seems legit.

@Game Guru: Stop being melodramatic. As long as a major nuclear pwoer doesn't get involved, nothing will happen.

Yeah, step back and let the very fact of being a superpower prevent tension from snapping and raining hellfire over more than one region.

I honestly doubt Iran would ever aggressively use the bomb if they were to get it. I believe that they would know exactly what would happen to them if they tried a first-strike on someone else. Rather, I think they'd keep it as a not-so-subtle means with which to bully Arab countries into following a pro-Iran line, and to more actively oppose Israel, while there would be a race amongst countries like Saudi Arabia to develop their own nuclear weapons.

That being said, I hope Iran does not have the bomb, and even though I would love to see this Israeli government taken down a peg or two, I hope that a nuclear-armed Iran is not the way it happens. As someone whose family is from the Middle East, I feel like I can say that no one in this region is responsible enough to not let the "fuck you guys, I have a nuke" mentality go to their heads.

Have you guys just considered Iran is saber rattling just to look tough? Happens all the time.

"proper representative democracy"

Tell that to West Bank and Gaza Palestinians, who have no actual say in the Israeli government, which all but rules them, against their wishes.

This could well be the case. The current regime has not declared any wars of aggression, despite having a pretty good military, not Israel level, but somewhat better than Iraq or Syria.

edited 11th Feb '12 9:12:14 PM by stripesthezebra

And its not like its the first time Iran has gone "GUYS WE SERIOUSLY HAVE NUCLEAR SHIT ALRIGHT? YOU BETTER BE AFRAID. SERIOUSLY."

Well, yeah. No Arab nation will likely be nuke-happy with Israel because nuking Israel means nuking Jerusalem, and no one's going to be happy about that.

What probably should be done if Iran has nuclear weapons is to let Saudi Arabia get nukes as well, since they are unfortunately our ally. Maybe have Israel finally announce officially that they have them, since Iran would have started the nuclear arms race, though reactions to that could go either way. Once Iran has nukes, the world is stuck with them existing as is like we may be stuck with North Korea.

Really, if Iran does have nukes, we will have to tread even more carefully in the Middle East.

That.... is alarmist and makes no sense, given the facts. I have often heard threats of a chain-reaction war between Israel, Russia, China and the U.S., but never a nuclear race spearheaded by goddamned Iran.

Nah, Iran's new to the Nuke Race. Probably doesn't as many or as deadly nukes as the USA who has been in the game since WW 2.

You guys realise that Iran is the one country that did not attack Israel in all the previous wars? So I somehow doubt these predictions of a hyper-aggression Iran in a sudden turn-around of regional politics. Why would we want to arm Saudi Arabia or other countries with the bomb to counter Iran, when those are the very countries that actively fought Israel?

On that note, Israel is no better because they invaded Egypt and occupied Lebanon, let alone their pre-emptive strike against Arab nations. Whether that was justified or not, Israel is not a country that can be trusted not to attack other people or to not back terrorist movements in other places. It's not like Mossad never used truck bombs that killed scores of civilians.

So really, I think I'm with Flyboy. Let 'em be.

I actually think they just used nuclear as an adjective and are just messing with people to troll them.

Maybe, it'd also be political suicide for Ahmadinejad to announce he has the bomb. Not only would the people be displeased, so would the Supreme Leader.

Yeah the vagueness of

leads me to believe that it's the media being all hypie.

The fear, Johnny, isn't that Iran would try to take on a superpower but that if Iran gets nuclear warheads other nations will have to follow suite to defend themselves. So we'd have a nuclear Saudi Arabia, which would encourage a nuclear Turkey (which might prompt Russia to start building more nukes again...), which would encourage a nuclear Egypt...you get the idea. Before long, we'd have an already volatile region armed to the teeth with nuclear bombs...and then some REALLY crazy regime like Syria gets them and starts selling them to terror groups that have a way to smuggle a large crate to the center of New York City...

The other problem is that when large powers have nuclear bombs, they don't see them in the light of a "force multiplier". A large nation like the USA and USSR could hold back on dropping the bomb, because they had other means of defending themselves. Iran, however, would be a lot more jittery and trigger happy, simply because they know that their entire military can be crushed in a matter of weeks otherwise. So when a false alarm happens - and they are bound to happen eventually - Iran would want to launch all of their arsenal right away before the other side has a chance to destroy their bases.

Well, what's to stop any of the superpowers from vaporizing these countries before they even get one bomb off? You can see the reaction to Iran inching toward nuclear energy. Israel wants to flatten them.

Obviously there are more subtle reasons to fear an Iran war, but I think you guys are proudly buying into the stock propaganda line, which distresses me.

I am sorry, who? Oh yeah, the folks who would be part of a greater Syria (or Jordan) (or Egypt) if there was no Israel, and definitely not form themselves into an independent nation? Who the rest of the Arab world hides behind to do their dirty work for them? Or uses them as an excuse for the shit they pull? Them?

What about them?

Israel is not perfect, far from it. They have their own bunch of nutcase fundamentalists who are just as bad as the nutcase fundys from the Islamic world, and indeed a member of said same killed one of their Prime Ministers because he went off-message. But they are much better than the alternative.

Anyone who seriously thinks that a vacuum caused by Israel suddenly disappearing as an entity would not immediately end up causing a massive inter-Arab war over whoever gets control of the Al Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock is a fool.

Well, I don't know about "balance." But I've yet to hear concrete evidence that these guys have such itchy trigger fingers that they'd gladly blow themselves up. It's a deterrent. Deterrents upset the balance of power, absolutely, but it's not a crime in itself to employ one.

Now, selling second-hand nukes is always a concern, but the real lure of a middle east war is a perceived threat to western hegemony. All I ask is that we be start from an assumption which is based in the real world — no philosophical quibbling over whether we're better or worse than the alternative.